National Scouting Report is dedicated to finding scholarship opportunities for athletes who possess the talent, desire, and motivation to compete at the collegiate level. We’ve helped connect thousands of athletes with their perfect college.
If you are ready to take your recruiting to the next level, click the Get Scouted button below to be evaluated by an NSR College Scout.
Get Scouted Scouting CareersYoung athletes walk a tightrope. Some make it to college. Others drop off.
The fall is often life-threatening.
How is it that a good high school athlete and kid fails to play at the next level? How can a youngster who was perhaps a can’t-miss prospect lose his or her way over a two- or three-year period. The pattern is too familiar.
Every community has witnessed it first hand. What ever happened to so and so? She was good enough to play in college, or he was really special when he was growing up.
Without the limelight shining down on them, they suddenly encounter a starkly different life, one in which they are like everybody else. It’s unfamiliar. Those with the inner character to pull themselves up fair well, perhaps even better than those who keep moving ahead without the benefit of seeing bottom and having to rise above it. Those lacking the same self-awareness slip farther into the underpinnings of life and struggle with the simplest of responsibilities.
A few months ago, a picture in the newspaper caught my eye . It was a mug shot of a young man whom I coached in middle school football. Now in his mid-20s, Marcus had been arrested for B&E and possession of stolen goods. He looked beaten down, ashamed.
He was a great 13-year-old athlete with high hopes and dreams. Coming from a single-parent home would not stop him, he would say. He was bright, popular, very athletic and made good decisions.
Yet, a dozen or so years later, he was not the same person.
I did some research and discovered that he had gotten into some minor trouble in high school which set him off on a tailspin. I was unable to find out the issues involved, only that his grades dropped precipitously after the incident. By the time he was junior, he could not qualify academically for the football team. When he separated from his teammates, things quickly worsened.
Midway through his senior year, he dropped out of school. Until that picture was printed in the local newspaper, few people knew where he was or what he was doing. Life for Marcus had taken what may have been an irreversible turn.
A couple of days later, I drove to the jail to visit Marcus, but by the time I got there, he had made bail and was gone. He left no forwarding address.
Sound familiar? We live in a world where athletics are a double-edge sword. We know them to be instrumental in the growth and stability of young people. But we are learning that without balance in an athlete’s life, he or she can slip, fall and tumble off that tight rope so quickly.
I believe there are five major reasons why a young athlete falls:
- Lack of family structure, home support and other interests.
- Parents put inordinate pressure on their kid to succeed in athletics.
- Overuse results in a serious, career-ending injury.
- Athletes break rules believing they will not face consequences for bad decisions.
- Illegal drugs and alcohol derail the athlete’s focus and performance.
You may know a Marcus. Could you have predicted what was going to happen? Could you have helped? Could you have been that life support he or she needed to pass through the early hardships?
Good questions because I ask them of myself nearly every day.
National Scouting Report is dedicated to finding scholarship opportunities for athletes who possess the talent, desire, and motivation to compete at the collegiate level. We’ve helped connect thousands of athletes with their perfect college.
Great information for parents and athletes …