Recruiting Horror Stories™ are posted every Tuesday to provide athletes' first-hand experiences of what can go wrong during the recruiting process.

Jarod has been playing golf for as long as he can remember. His dad had a passion for the sport his whole life, so the passion was passed down to his son. After attending Sutton High School and shattering most of the previous golf records at the school, Jarod knew that he wanted to continue his golf career at the collegiate level. However, what would come next is an example of just how shady some college sports programs can be. Jarod's last name will be left out of this article due to privacy reasons.

The Recruiting Process

Jarod began the search for the right college fit while he was still in high school. Some schools that were on his radar were Assumption College, Post University, Franklin Pierce University, and Saint Anselm College because he knew he wanted to stay somewhat close to his home state of Massachusetts. Saint Anselm was the final school that Jarod visited and taught him a tough lesson about the business side of collegiate sports.

Related: The Path to D1 Golf: 6 Tips

College Sport Funding

The funding of sports at the collegiate level can lead to several disadvantages for other competing schools. During his visit at Saint Anselm, the school straight up asked Jarod what other colleges were recruiting him. When Jarod shared this information, Saint Anselm knew that they had a bigger budget for their golf program than all of the other schools that he had named. The max amount of money that Jarod could have received on a golf scholarship before the visit to Saint Anselm was $8,000 from Franklin Pierce. What does Saint Anselm go on to offer him you may ask? $8,000. This might sound like a nice deal, but Jarod would later learn he was being shortchanged.

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The Shadiness Continues

A few weeks went by and Jarod was plotting over which school he would like to attend and further develop his golf career. While going over his options, he recalled that Saint Anselm was the only school that asked him the question about what other colleges were recruiting him. Jarod decided to try to get to the bottom of this, and reached out to a friend who was also being recruited by Saint Anselm. It was through this conversation that Jarod found out his friend was being offered a $17,000 golf scholarship from Saint Anselm! Jarod, as most athletes would, took this information as a slap in the face from the school, as they didn't value him as much as other athletes or truly want him, as they were only offering him half of what they could have been on a scholarship. Jarod was just as good, if not better, than his friend, as they had faced off in multiple tournaments in high school in which Jarod performed better.

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Where is Jarod at Now?

Jarod ultimately decided to enroll at Franklin Pierce University to continue his golf career. However, after only one calendar year there, the fit was not right. Jarod now attends Assumption College, but his collegiate golf career is now over, in major part due to the shadiness of business within college athletics. A major takeaway from this is to be extremely cautious when a school or a coach takes a lot of time going over what other offers you have on the table. This doesn't mean to not share this information at all, but it means to be sure you trust the coach and his or her intentions before sharing.

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* Originally published on April 12, 2022, by Ashton Grenon