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Advice to U16 Boys
Tuesday night, two-thirds of the U16 boys were able to join Tyler Denton, a Saquoit graduate and current first-year student at Sage College in Albany (NCAA Division III) to hear about how Tyler made the decision to attend Sage, and what he did that worked well for him during the college selection process as well as what he might do differently if he had it all to do over again. Tyler provided many good points, stressing that he would have started his search earlier than his senior year, and visited a few more colleges. What surprised me, and gave me pause regarding the Saquoit Guidance office, was that he started so late, and as he put it, "I Googled my major, and just looked at the schools that offered Physical Therapy." This is a fine way to start a search, but a good student ought to have a bit more focus to his or her college search, and clearly, in this instance, the school system did not help Tyler as much as one might hope. More on this in a moment. The U16s asked some good questions, mainly about the soccer. How the game was different from the youth level, what the coach at Sage was looking for in a player, but also how he found balancing school work and soccer, in his words, "It's all you do!" Tyler smiled almost ruefully, and went on "When we traveled to Long Island for a game, got home at 2AM, I still had to be up for my 8AM class." That comment raised a few eyebrows around the room, as did his comments about the competitive nature of the college game. How fine the line is between one player and another, and how important being "coachable" is to making the team function effectively were points that seemed to hit home. Tyler also discussed how his relationship with the coach at Sage, Kyle Clancy, works, and painted a good picture of the nature of the demands put upon the players, both athletically and academically. Coach Clancy requires the freshmen to attend study halls, and if their grades slip, he adds to that requirement, clearly making sure his guys are putting school first. Tyler mentioned that even some of the "best" players on the team were benched for academic reasons this year, and that the message he received from Clancy's behavior was simply that the books are the key. The ease with which Tyler rattled off the GPA benchmarks and various policies that Clancy has in place underscored the effectiveness with which the coach has communicated the standard of behavior to his players. When asked if they were thinking about college, and/or playing soccer in college, the room of high school freshmen and sophomores was pretty hesitant. But the lights were coming on pretty fast over the boy's heads, and to keep that momentum going, Odyssey will offer an improved version of the informal college prep talk my wife and I put on last spring. Now that the facility has proper meeting spaces, we'll be able to comfortably meet, and provide some assistance to OSSC members and their families with beginning and pursuing the college search. Details will follow soon! A big thank you to Tyler for coming back to share his experience and advice with the younger boys. It was fairly clear he opened a few eyes, and brought the idea of playing in college into focus for the team. The power to transform another boy's life by inspiring him to simply consider college, or to become excited about the idea of looking at schools was clearly on display Tuesday night. Tyler may never know what he motivated one of the boys to dream about, but it was very clear his impact was real, and positive.
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