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By
Thomas Houser
Most volleyball players somewhere
in their high school career consider playing volleyball in college.
However, most do not know how to pick a college where they can obtain a
wonderful education while participating in sports. Here is how you
should pick a college:
PRIORITY
#1: IS THE COLLEGE A GOOD FIT FOR YOU?
Do you like it? Is it far
enough from home? Is it the right size? Is it in the country
or the city? Can you bond with the students? Do you get good
“vibes” from the college employees? (You cannot make this
choice until you’ve visited the campus. NEVER pick a college until
you visited the campus..........NEVER!!) In the spring of 1997, one
of my ballplayers signed a National Letter of Intent with a Division I
school that she had never visited. I thought “Oh, no!” In August
she showed up for volleyball practice. After just 2 weeks she
called her dad to move her to a different college........classes had not
even started. Not only did she have to go through the pain of transferring,
but NCAA rules prohibited her from playing volleyball at her new school.
PLUS she lost a year of eligibility!! Don’t let this happen
to you!!
PRIORITY
#2: DOES THE COLLEGE OFFER THE FIELD OF STUDY THAT YOU WANT
TO PURSUE?
If not, then why go there.........
to play volleyball? Just because a school offers you some money to
play ball, you will not be happy if you are stuck majoring in something
dinky like math when you really wanted to major in Mathematical Engineering
Design Statistics (or whatever!). Only, only, only after satisfying
the first two priorities, can you go to..........
PRIORITY
#3: WILL YOU WANT TO PLAY ON THE VBALL TEAM?
So, after you find a school that
“fits,” and after that school offers the courses you are drooling to take,
then we can start investigating the volleyball team, the coach and the
players. If you can attend a school that you love, you can tolerate
an ill-fitting sports team.....or you can choose not to play at all. BUT,
if you end up attending a school that you hate, you will eventually leave
the school, no matter how much you like the volleyball team and the coach.
So, DON’T FORGET being part
of the college’s vball team is only “icing.” You can have a fantastic
cake without icing, but you can’t make a cake with icing only!
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