The whole idea of committing a 7th grader is despicable. I like Anson and in the past found him to be a classy individual, but this changes my impression of him. UNC in the last 5 years in reverse order in the NCAA Tournament has finished in the Elite Eight, national semis, second round, Sweet 16, and Elite Eight. No national championships to speak of which used to be their regular right. So maybe they feel the pressure and have to resort to these tactics of super early recruiting. But if this is how they see this what they have to do to beat Stanford, UCLA, etc. I doubt this will work. This kid won't even come to campus in 6 years, who knows if Anson will even be coaching then? Also the idea that UNC will break a verbal commitment has caught up to them. I bet that is why some kids choose not to go there now. Look at Nickolette Driesse, a kid who had her offer snatched away right before NLI date. I was blasted by UNC fans for calling that out. She went to have a good career elsewhere at Florida State and then transferred to Penn State. Kids won't go to UNC because this is what they do. PDA, one of the strongest clubs in the country, won't send kids to UNC now because of what they did to one of their kids. Make your bed, sleep in it. Women's soccer needs to see what women's lacrosse has done to eliminate crazy early recruiting like this. I am certain there are loopholes and ways to get around it. But at least they are addressing to make the solve the problem and not making it worse.
"Also the idea that UNC will break a verbal commitment has caught up to them. I bet that is why some kids choose not to go there now." Stanford breaks at least 4 verbal commitments every year and they are National Champions!
How does one know if the same is not true elsewhere? Or that the reason for not matriculating at Stanford was that they did not get in? Is that information released?
UNC tried to get a transfer goalkeeper enrolled for this past season and the kid couldn't get it. That is why they only had 1 keeper last season.
A kid in good standing and Ncaa eligible at another university didn’t get into UNC and Anson wanted her? Not buying it.
My kid went to Stanford. If you know anything about how their admissions system works, you would never make such claims. They do get great players so don’t get me wrong, but they would win like UNC in the past if they actually get everyone they recruit/commit. Maybe it’s a good thing for college soccer that they don’t all get in though.
Does Stanford give its various athletic coaches a certain number of admissions waivers every year--give the soccer coach (and/or football, basketball) a couple of admissions to players who wouldn't have been admitted as regular students? This certainly has been the case in the past with certain schools that have very high admissions standards.
stanford is very forthright when it comes to admission standards. They let the kids know there is a bar. 3.5 minimum GPA and testing minimums as well. Kids that commit and don’t make that bar end up scrambling
That would be great if true. You really don’t think it has anything to do with playing ability? Why doesn’t Stanford then pick up any late recruits? You never hear about someone late deciding on Stanford only someone late getting the axe. Would lead anyone to believe that he overcommits spots only to crush some young lady who trusted them.
After reading a number of posts in this thread about early recruiting So after reading through a number of posts on this thread I finally felt compelled to respond. I'm Olivia's father and as you can imagine, per her age, have been intimately involved in this entire process. I know a lot of people have a lot of opinions about Olivia's commitment to UNC...but they are just opinions. Nobody that has commented on this thread knows her, nobody knows our family, nobody knows how this process unfolded and very few (undoubtedly those with the loudest opinions) have probably seen her play. Let me clear up a few misconceptions for all interested parties: 1-UNC was not the first school to recruit or offer a Olivia a scholarship. There were a number of schools involved and had been since she first turned 10 years old. It's funny, UNC and Anson get beat up because they actually got her, but if any of you knew the schools or number of schools that had offered her you'd be beating up a lot of people from all over the country. 2-That leads us into "early recruiting". It happens in EVERY sport. It probably happens far more often with boys then girls and certainly occurs more often in revenue sports (men's basketball and football) I think we can all agree with that statement. Now you may disagree with the premise of it, however the fact is that elite young players and their families are "verbally committing" all the time and that is true across sports and genders. How this situation may differ is in how young she is and in the "announcement" of it. Olivia's age is what it is, like I said, we have been exposed to Olivia being recruited for 2 years now. She is a unique player, it has brought on unique circumstances. The truth with UNC and Anson however is that this wasn't something we started out wanting to become public. Our hope and his was to keep the commitment between us. It was only after a recent showcase on the East Coast where the college attention became so overwhelming for us and her club coach that WE asked Anson if we could make it public as a way to "calm the waters" so to speak and take the pressure off of all of us in dealing with colleges. He graciously agreed to the "announcement" as a way to help our family even though he knew there would be a number of detractors because of it. 3-Why UNC? The University of North Carolina Women's Soccer program in our opinion is the greatest program in the history of NCAA athletics. Anson Dorrance has coached nearly every woman who has been considered at one time or another the best in the world since the 1980s. He is the winningest coach in all of college sports. Beyond that he is a great man, full of integrity, honesty and intelligence. He is a man of values and his whole staff represents those same qualities. The spirit of competition and excellence that exudes from that program is everything Olivia craves...and that is all secondary to the fact that Olivia has wanted to be a Tar Heel since the moment she knew anything about college soccer. She wants to play where Mia played, she wants to play for that coach. Accepting a scholarship offer was a formality for her because if at any point they offered, she was accepting. If Olivia plays college soccer, it will be at the University of North Carolina, the elite program in the country. If you know her, you know there's no talking her out of that one. 4-Let me respond to some of the personal barbs. Olivia hasn't been "carefully groomed" for anything. You don't follow many soccer trainers on Instagram, Youtube or otherwise if you don't see hundreds of them putting out videos of their sessions and students. This common practice certainly doesn't constitute a carefully constructed marketing campaign as has been alleged. Olivia's trainer is literally like family to us. He has helped her tremendously and his being able to showcase her on social media has helped him. To assume anything more than that is pure ignorance. End of story. As interest around Olivia has grown, so has the viewership and publicity of her social media accounts. We have felt compelled at times to help her deal with the attention and the requests for her time and commentary. When she announced her commitment on Instagram did we help her write it? Of course we did! She's 12! We wanted to make sure and appropriately express all of her thoughts and feelings. We also wanted to thank so many of the people that have played a role in getting her to this point. Whatever you may think about the timing, committing to UNC was a life-long goal for Liv and a big moment in her soccer career. We (her parents) sat with Olivia and helped her write that post...absolutely. In fact, we go through that same process anytime she says anything publicly. We are helping prepare her for life by helping her understand what you say and how you say it is important. 5-Lastly, this is my first and last post as I generally hate conversation like this and only viewed it after being made aware of some of the comments. Just to clarify...Anson and UNC have been overly respectful and professional through this whole process. Olivia wants to play at UNC because she thinks it's the best. Did we talk through the commitment with her? Of course. Did we lay out scenarios, pros and cons, talk about timing, etc.? Of course! The reality is that she has worked EXTREMELY hard to be in this position and scholarships and attention and publicity and noise are all natural consequences of that. A LOT of schools were interested Olivia..SHE chose UNC...as her father I have tried to help guide, advise and direct her and I will continue to do so, as any parent would. If it wasn't UNC, it would have been somewhere else and there would be a whole other coach and program to question. We wanted to end the speculation and be done with the process. Olivia knew where she wanted to play. I guess, for UNC and for Anson, situations like this and haters on message boards are all part of the cost of greatness and sustained excellence. I for one, am grateful for their interest in my daughter and for her to able to say she has a chance to play, in our opinion, in the most elite college soccer environment in the country. Everything else is just noise. Go Heels!
I know of at least 1 Stanford 2018 recruit getting told during the January early admissions process that she was not going to make it. Now she's going to ND. Nice to see that this thread is an extension of the Stanford thread. Carry on
This is the only part of the post that actually made me a little sad. I guess having here for longer the point of view of someone so directly involved in the growth of a young player and in all of the processes involved would have been invaluable: it's a shame that you stopped by just to give a clarification to us only. Yes, I am aware that probably you just see this place as the one where Olivia's and her family's choice have been bashed, but I guess it's actually a forum with elaborate and mostly unbiased discussions, often representing very different points of view. It's not the most fancy of the social media (on the contrary, it's quite out of date ), so I can also understand if one doesn't have time to closely follow the discussions here. But, although probably for the wrong reasons, I am happy that it's still a so relevant piece of media that it deserved an answer from the very subject of the discussion (although anyone could claim to be Olivia's father, I assume that all of the details and the obvious involvement demostrate more than enough the genuineness of your identity). So, although I am aware it probably won't happen, I'd say: please, consider stopping by again, even for discussing very different subjects outside of your daughter's soccer-career. I'll just add, as a teacher, that Olivia statements were very well written, and I am sure your effort to catpure her actual thoughts and points of view in them were honest. Anyway, thanks for your clarification and take care.
Thank you kcmoultrie for weighing in. It is very rarely that an actual parent speaks out about his/her experience on these boards. It takes real courage as far as I can see, and I really hope that your candid explanation does not result in further grief. You are quite correct in pointing out that in the absence of actual facts, we go off on assumptions based on what little we see. I personally apologize for this. Assuming that I am still around when Olivia matriculates at UNC, I will be one of the fans cheering her on.
With respect to the 12-year-old who has committed to UNC, I wish her and her family well--but it should be noted that the family /chose/ to get involved in recruiting when her daughter was very young. The parents could have simply put out the word: "We are not talking to schools or recruiters, we do not want our club coach or trainer to talk to recruiters, and we are not going to entertain any recruiting talk until she is quite a bit older." That, apparently, was not done. It serves no real purpose to get involved with recruiting at age 10 or 12 or 13--there is no benefit to it. It's not really important that a kid says that she wants to play for a specific school at age 10 or 11, in my opinion. That's fine, but it doesn't mean you have to go ahead and actually commit. The university will still be around in three/four years--and if the kid is still good, she will have no trouble getting that scholarship offer. Kids change a lot as they get older. Their INTERESTS change. Now, however, the kid is tied to soccer, whether she continues to like the sport or not (and we all hope that she continues to like it). For one thing, the kid may have to pushed along the soccer development process. Sure, she loves soccer now--but what if she starts to find the training and the demands tiresome in a year or two? What if she shows signs of losing interest in soccer and develops an interest in, say, drawing or theater? Are the parents going to say, "Hey, fine, you can stop playing soccer--let's get you into a theater program." Maybe, but with all due respect, maybe not--as there is that college scholarship out there, waiting for their kid. The kid will be under pressure to keep playing, keep training, etc. A kid's soccer development should proceed organically--from the kid. That is no longer quite the case when a kid commits at age 12. When you commit, no matter the sport or the school, you have taken on a responsibility to carry on with that sport. That's the point. It is one thing to do that at age, say, 16, when college is only two years away, and another to do it at age 12. And it is also seldom a good thing for young kids to hear constantly how wonderfully talented they are. I've observed a lot of prodigies in other sports--not soccer--develop attitude problems. They become prima donnas. I'm not suggesting that will be the case here, simply saying what I seen with other talented youngsters in other sports. I'm not trying to be critical--but, ultimately, you don't have to get involved in recruiting if you don't want to. It IS true that if a young kid does make an early commitment, that too is a way to stop all the recruiting craziness. It is a way to end the madness--but the downside, as mentioned, is that the kid is now tied to specific sport at a very young age. I will also say anecdotally, as someone who as followed sports and recruiting for a long time, a LOT of athletic prodigies struggle to fulfill the promise they showed early one; indeed, there are many, many examples of players who were surpassingly good at age 12 and then not nearly as dominate at age 18--partly because as they get older they will be facing steadily better and better competition. This is why we see sometimes or even regularly see four or five-star recruits standing on the sidelines rather than playing. I truly hope this kid--about whom I know nothing--fulfills her athletic promise, because there will be disappointment all around if she doesn't. And, that's really the point: why set yourself up for that so early in the process?
I was not going to comment but I agree with Kazoo. I just don't buy the we are being harassed by college coaches position and had no choice but to call off the dogs by going public. As previously well stated, the club could put out the word: not entertaining discussions at this time. Certainly the colleges would not be allowed to contact the kid or the parents directly for what- 5 years? I don't see any possibility of this child's being bothered by college coaches unless invited. All they can do is send camp invitations. Is that really harassment? Just tell the club, we don't want to see any emails, texts ,calls whatever until x date- just don't pass them through to us. Do not discuss any college interest with our child. If the club continues to entertain discussions then that's their choice. Further, the college coaches would be well aware the kid was committed with a single email blast from the club. It wasn't necessary to go public to get all this attention to cease. The sad part is this kid is now going to be watched carefully over the next few years and some unsavory types will practically be hoping she does not progress. Personally I eagerly await more technical and creative players coming onto the national scene and hope this child may one day dazzle us all. However, I think she may be subject to some harsh review if she doesn't become the next Mallory Pugh. I will not comment on the she knows what she wants commentary because indeed I don't know them, but what I can say is they chose to participate in it and then chose to make this public.
I completely agree with Kazoo and Olelaliga. The explanation from the father is simply justification to the criticism. There were so many other ways to handle this. They chose to be involved. They chose to announce it publicly when it was completely unnecessary. A 12 year old does not know what they want when they are 18. If she doesn't evolve as a person between now and then, then they have big issues on their hands.
I will concur with CX22, Kazoo & Olelaliga and give Dad a big super eyeroll. The majority of people on this discussion board have been following soccer, college and otherwise, for a long time. Many are parents of players who have been through the recruiting process, played at the highest level etc. We know how the system works-Dad’s rational is just another chest puff. A verbal commitment actually means absolutly nothing until signing day—many who commit at more traditional or reasonable ages find come signing day the deal has fallen through. Good luck, player and Dad—there is plenty of time over the next 6 years for both of you to evolve.
I know Hyatt is transferring but does anyone know of any incoming transfers from ther schools this spring? What about any early enrollees? Seems like they always have a few every year.
Haha, I know I said I wasn't going to respond to these anymore, but I can't help myself. AlwaysChilly, you seem like a smart guy that knows a lot about this process, you too olelaliga. I'm sorry to know that my attempt to clarify our specific situation was met with "eye rolling" and putting words into my mouth like "harassment". I'm also sorry that my attempt to clarify was seen as "another chest puff" because I promise that wasn't my intent. I actually love keyboard warriors like you guys that hide behind screen names and have all answers to all things. In fact, everyone loves guys like you. You types are the reason people read threads like this and follow message boards. Everyone loves the opinions stated as facts and the personal knowledge you seem to have about people you've never met. Personally I loathe it, but obviously there are a lot of people out there that I enjoy it. Thing is, you're both right in a way. I guess in retrospect we did "choose" to get involved in the recruiting process. It didn't feel like a choice at first as schools starting showing interest...it felt like an obligation to respond. I felt pressure to show respect to the schools that were showing interest because in truth, we were just grateful. We were grateful that she had put herself in that situation and grateful that schools were recognizing her hard work and talent. Keep in mind, she's our oldest so we didn't quite have the perspective of the All-Knowing Soccer Truthers who have all the right answers with their years of experience who undoubtedly raised 2-3 elite level soccer players that were all recruited by major universities. We were just parents who felt compelled to be respectful and responsive out of gratitude. Now, you're right again, that doesn't mean we had to commit or make it public. Over the next 6 years, hopefully we can "evolve" into the kind of people who would handle this situation better in your eyes. Another thing you're right about, we weren't "harassed". That's a very strong word. However, considering she was very convicted about where she wanted to go, it just didn't feel right to lead other schools along and it also didn't feel right to ignore them. Furthermore, instead of making a bunch of personal calls, it seemed easier just to announce it. Again, so sorry that offends the senses to some people, but we were only trying to do what we thought made the most sense to us. Again, we're rookies, first time through all of this. Thankfully, there will always be those out there that because of what a family chooses or what a parent says, will "practically be hoping she does not progress". That kind of mentality is priceless motivation and I'm sure will continue to stoke the fire of progress so many are apparently rooting against.
You will never win on this thread, especially getting sarcastic! Be ready for the fall out...lol.... You do not owe anyone an explanation. Unless a parent has gone through what you have, they cannot understand the pressures. My dd was offered her first full ride in 8th grade. She dealt with a massive amount of pressure during her 9th grade year, made worse because she had no idea where she wanted to go. Most of these parents cannot understand the pressures put on by these schools. You, and only you and your family, know if you made the right choice and you will have to live with it. Don't feed into all who know better. Enjoy your decision and I hope it works out for your dd.
Thank you for your post, which you didn’t have to write. Seek first to understand is always a useful motto, so thank you for that reminder since I found your post quite open and heartfelt. The whole recruitment process, in my opinion, is confusing, especially when the people around you give conflicting advice about how to handle things. It’s a very steep learning curve and highly stressful. You sound like you’re trying to do the best for your child and it’s all too easy for others to make assumptions about your choices, which are of course personal to your family. To be honest, I’m not a fan of early recruitment, but will reserve my criticism for the universities and the system that allows it, not the parents.