Come back every Tuesday for Recruiting Horror Stories™, athletes' first-hand stories on what can go wrong during the recruiting process.
The recruiting process puts a difficult decision on the shoulders of kids as young as 16 or 17. Sometimes, the decision is made easy by a coach whose ego is bigger than the team's win streak. This recruiting horror story talks about a time a college baseball coach completely ignored the time and feelings of a recruit to validate their own ego.
It was July 4th weekend when Cole Vanderslice was invited for a campus visit in Virginia. Vanderslice, working for the summer, politely told the coach he had a few schools he was pretty much set on deciding between and that it would take something drastic for him to change his mind. Nonetheless, the coach insisted the offer would be worth it, but it was only available if Cole attended the visit
Related: Rate your Coaches, Facilities, and Campus Visits
The Visit
Vanderslice took off from work and drove 8 hours to the campus in Virginia. From the second he got there, he knew it was a mistake. Vanderslice was surprised at how much he enjoyed the campus and the academics, but he could not get over the coach's personality. He said the coach made it seem “More important to promote himself and how great he was rather than the school or baseball program.”
The coach heard that Vanderslice had also played basketball in high school, so while showing Cole around campus, he brought him to a gym and challenged him to a shooting competition. Vanderslice, tired of spending the whole day hearing this coach talk about how good he was, obliged and ended up beating him handily. This turned the coach extremely quiet for the first time of the day; he insisted they go to his office to finally discuss the offer.
Related: Recruiting Horror Story™: No One Likes a Back-Stabber as a Coach
The Offer
When they sat down, the coach offered Vanderslice an offer lower than he had received from any other school he was considering. After taking off the entire holiday weekend to drive 8 hours, he was insulted with what he felt was an extremely unfair offer. Vanderslice never received any further communication with the coach and eventually chose Villanova University.
Visits like this are unfortunately not uncommon during the college recruiting process. Coaches get inflated egos and feel that they're doing the athletes a favor, not the other way around. Sometimes they think they're too good of a coach, and other times they forget they are a college baseball coach and not a high school basketball player. Make sure to recognize these red flags on your visits and take them into consideration when deciding where to commit.
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* Originally published on March 22, 2022, by Noah Fisher
