November 27th, 2006
I am writing this newsletter at my Aunt Neva’s farm house in Northern Georgia. In the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, where fried chicken and pine trees are abundant, and family is in the air. Although my mother and Aunt Neva are only 18 months apart, my cousins and I are caught between generations. Ben is an eighth grader, looks down over my respectable 5’6 at an alarming 5’10 and size 13 shoe. He is a baseball player, and has recently discovered his natural gift for long-distance running. He has set his goal this year to run a 4:20 mile. And the baby of the Humphrey-Johnson clan, Haley, was my birthday present on December 8th 1996, she will turn 11 when I turn 32 in only a couple of weeks. Then there is Megan the oldest at 15, soon to be 16, and driving. She is the same age as most of the players I coach on Team Indiana and beginning to seriously think about college. As her cousin, old enough to be her Aunt, I would like Megan to have every opportunity presented to her and not have to make any academic sacrifices. I desperately want her to be prepared and informed.
This fall I had the great pleasure of listening to Hall of Fame coaches speak at the PFXTour in Indianapolis. Here was the perfect opportunity to gain valuable knowledge and to ask the pioneers of the game how it was to coach some of the best players in the history of the game. To ask them to describe how they felt when they won their first national championship. How exactly did they develop their programs? What was it like to play in the first professional softball league in the 1970’s? How did they develop their coaching style? Why did they start playing themselves?
Here we were, sitting with three of the top 10 coaches of all time, and 3/4 of the conversation was dominated by parents and coaches only interested in hunting the college scholarship. It goes to show how dead-set the majority of the coaches at the travel ball level are only interested in one thing… THE MONEY. Not teaching the game, not passing the game along to the next generation, not providing equal opportunity for female-athletes, not shattering racial and economic lines within our game and thus the classroom, not providing a positive environment in order to build character. No, here were three historic coaches, brilliant and willing to share their knowledge about everything, and all we could do was ask about the college-scholarship. I was very pleased to hear halfway through the conversation that the coaches made clear that more money was given to student-athletes based on their academic performance than anything else. Still, it was like no one was listening, or they didn’t care to, for immediately the conversation went straight back to college scholarships. Since money is the “real” issue in more ways than one, I will attempt to address some underlining factors that will help our children continue to enjoy the game of softball and ensure they make their way to their BA debt-free.
In my role as head coach of Team Indiana and private coach to dozens of other 16-18 year olds, I am constantly asked questions regarding college… especially athletic-scholarships. I would like it to be known there is very little money available for softball scholarships across the board. Even for the ELITE athletes, the 1% of the population, it is highly competitive. There is more financial assistance granted for academic achievement. Also more need-based assistance is granted to athletes than pure athletic scholarship. Your best odds of gaining college financial assistance is to identify first your academic needs, then research how you can obtain money from all three of these areas, and then still be prepared to pay out-of-pocket for tuition or living expenses. I repeat you should still be prepared to pay OUT-OF-POCKET.
I may be shooting myself in the foot, but I see families dump thousands of dollars into instruction and travel teams and I am almost certain they do not have the money when it is time to send their kid to college. I hear parents say the money they spend is an investment and will be returned when their children receive full rides to college. My cousins are very involved in athletics and music, Ben plays travel baseball, and Haley looks to have found a love playing basketball, but the money my Aunt Neva spends on their activities is separate from the money she plans on sending them to college with. She supports their talents because she supports them, NOT because she expects anything in return. She simply nurtures their talents and interests because it helps to build their character. I wish more families would be disciplined enough to separate sport from scholarship. To recognize softball is a great learning tool for children and can help teach the decision making skills necessary for adulthood. Sport is a great social experience, something a child can earn confidence with and take pride in, learn to manage their time well, and maintain and establish a healthy lifestyle. When a parent only thinks of sport as an avenue to money they fail to recognize the pressure they place on our kids and indirectly take the purity out of amateur athletics. I would even venture to say parents provoke performance anxiety in their children. I have seen kids ruined because of this outlook. And when the student-athlete fails the sport, or does not receive the full-ride when it is nearly impossible, many children feel as if they have failed their family. Many, but not all, parents cloud the lines and as a result many kids say their goal is to get a college-scholarship instead of having the opportunity to play in college while earning the BA.
I would also like to address the importance of leaving college debt-free. Second from the top is financial responsibility, namely stay out of debt. If parents are not prepared to pay out-of-pocket for college, many student-athletes are forced to take out student-loans or open credit card accounts to pay for the portion of college not covered in their financial assistance package. My last two years of college where pretty much paid for, but the previous years were not and it was tough. Several of the top players on my team and friends were getting credit cards and student-loans, while others were getting full or part-time jobs to pay for their living expenses. It was nearly impossible for me to get a job with my classes, practices, and other obligations. When I asked my mother if I should get a school loan she nearly took my head off. I couldn’t understand why not. I would just pay it back when I graduated. Well, now I know why. Many of my friends from college are still paying off their school loans and this includes many who played D1 college athletics. They are now stuck in jobs or situations they wish they could dismiss but because of their debt they are left with little options. Some have ruined their credit because they had a tough time getting jobs after school or had a tough job transition between the years. Some have started families and are in the mists of financial turmoil. There have been periods in my life where I did not have much money, but I was still able to maintain my freedom of choice and come out ahead because I was debt-free after college. Just the other day I read in US Today about a woman, just a little younger than me, on the verge of bankruptcy and a mental break-down because she had racked-up almost $100,000 in school loans. Enormous school loans, and added credit-card debt, can prevent people from getting the real loans they need for a house, car, and or business loans in their adult life. Sometimes student-loans are unavoidable, and can be beneficial, but it is my suggestion to really consider the amount of money you will make in your chosen field before maxing out the credit line in college.
Preparing and sending the student-athlete to college is no easy feat. The cost of tuition is increasing each year and covering the cost of a college degree debt-free takes planning and sacrifice. The game is becoming much more competitive and the rate of players is increasing far faster than the rate of college programs opening. Although it is wonderful to see the popularity of the sport gaining momentum, we must be careful not to let the business of the game, the quest for athletic scholarship, override the purity of the game and ruin it for our athletes. We must keep sight of the benefits of amateur athletics and understand this is a game for the athlete, not the parent’s pocket-book. We must also recognize no college scholarship is guaranteed or easily gained.