One of the most competitive and stressful things that a high school student can endure is trying to get recruited for a college sport. It’s already a challenge playing a high school sport and balancing schoolwork. Seniors Casey Johnson, Owen Batchelder, Timber Devine and Alex Burnley all plan on becoming collegiate athletes this coming fall.  For these athletes playing at the college level has been a lifelong goal.

“At around the age of 10 I realized that my goal was to play division 1 college baseball.” said Owen Batchelder. As young as this may seem, most kids realize their ambitions at a young age. If someone is interested in pursuing a sport through college it’s good to realize it early on because once they enter freshman year, according to athleticscholarships.net, they should really begin looking into the recruiting process as all of these four athletes did. Though the process starts very early on the athletes did not rush the choosing process, most not committing til junior year.

Even though these students are very dedicated athletes when choosing a school, athletics wasn’t their main concern “I haven’t decided yet but money and distance are the two biggest factors.” said Timber Devine, who will potpotentially play field hockey at the college level.  

For Casey Johnson playing lacrosse, was not the most important thing when choosing. “I chose my school based on the majors they offered, campus size, coach, class size, and the division of lacrosse.”

As exciting it is to be able to pursue a sport at the college level, it also comes with a great  burden. It has a mental and physical effect on a high school  athlete. All four seniors talked about the stress of recruiting and how it impacted the sport for them. Alex Burnley, who will be attending Dartmouth next fall for lacrosse, said “Trying to get recruited takes nearly all of the fun out of the sport. Knowing someone is always watching and your performance in each game will affect your future is very stressful.”

“Instead of having fun playing field hockey, it became a burden. It was stressful and
I was constantly overthinking everything I did around the sport.” said Timber Devine.  High school is already an intense experience, but when a student is already thinking so far into the future it would add an abundance of stress to anyone.

But Casey Johnson, who will attend SNHU next fall for lacrosse, said it best “The stress of trying to commit is definitely worth it at the end.”

Playing a college sport is well worth all the extra stress in the long run, it helps students stay on task and keep motivated according to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.  athletes describe what college sports did for them.

Hopefully Owen, Casey, Timber, and Alex find just as much or even more success moving on with their athletic careers.