Come back every Tuesday for Recruiting Horror Stories™, athletes' first-hand stories on what can go wrong during the recruiting process.
Lauren is a goalie for Miami University's women's soccer team. She plans to graduate from Miami in May 2022. Lauren verbally committed to Miami University during her sophomore year of high school. She was thrilled to be committed to such an amazing school with coaches that she really got along with.
Related: Verbal vs Signed Commitment: What's the Difference?
The Dreaded Tweet
In August of her senior year, Lauren saw a tweet from Miami soccer's account stating that the current head coach was stepping down due to family health reasons. She was shocked. In her meetings and conversations with the coach, he seemed to have every intention to remain the head coach for a long time. Not to mention finding out via a tweet.
She called the newly-announced interim head coach, who told her that she would still have a spot on the team. This helped her to feel reassured, but she was still a little concerned with no permanent coaching staff in place.
Related: Lack of Head Coach Brings Women's Soccer Team Closer Together
The Curse of Being a Goalie
Lauren reopened her recruiting just in case, and tried to find a new school that needed a goalie in her grade. This proved to be ineffective, as goalkeeping can be very selective because most teams only want to have a specific amount of goalkeepers at a time and therefore plan far in advance.
Related: Rate your Coaches, Facilities and Campus Visits
Every school she was interested in did not have any interest in signing a new goalkeeper, so she ended up attending Miami in the end; however, the new head coach was not announced until her summer going into college. Because of this adjustment, the team's first few seasons with the new coach were not very successful.
The Miami team started to hit its stride in its fourth season with the new coaching staff, and obviously, Lauren loved the team enough to stick around that long, win or loss.
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* Originally published on February 15, 2022, by Macy McHale
