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

Halle DeNardo is a Division I tennis player in her Junior year at Lafayette College in Easton, PA. DeNardo was a star player in high school. She visited many colleges, but one stood out to her, and not in a good way. DeNardo went on an official visit to a school in Massachusetts, a very snowy state. She went in thinking she'd get to know more about the school and the team. This came true, but DeNardo found herself stuck in a blizzard with the team and no coach in sight. 

Related: Rate your Coaches, Facilities and Campus Visits

The Host Swap
The coach told DeNardo she would be meeting with a teammate when she got there. The teammate was nowhere to be found until another girl came up to her and explained that her teammate got sick and she would be Halle's host for the visit. 

Excited for the official visit, DeNardo asked her new host what they would be doing. The host told her that she would be joining the team on a bonding retreat in the woods. Although this would let DeNardo get to know the team, she was hesitant to join a team bonding trip without being on the team yet. 

Related: RHS: Scarred by Shower Selfies on My Official Visit

The Team Retreat
This is where it gets snowy. The team drives her to a cabin in the woods in the middle of a blizzard. DeNardo, with no car and nowhere to go is stuck at a team retreat with complete strangers. When they got to the cabin, the girls started asking DeNardo personal questions about her religion and life. Although questions are a great way to get to know someone new, DeNardo was getting a little too uncomfortable with the certain questions the team was asking. DeNardo also felt out of place with how the team was interacting with each other. 

The team finally drove back from the cabin in the blizzard and went to sleep. DeNardo thought to herself, after this visit she was sure to make the right decision about where she wanted to go, and it wasn't this school.

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* Originally published on February 1, 2022, by Sydney DeNardo