{"id":12057,"date":"2016-09-27T04:30:30","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T09:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/?p=12057"},"modified":"2016-09-26T14:26:43","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T19:26:43","slug":"5-reasons-elite-high-school-athletes-do-not-make-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/5-reasons-elite-high-school-athletes-do-not-make-it\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Reasons Elite High School Athletes Do Not Make It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young athletes walk a tightrope. Some make it to college. Others drop off.<\/p>\n

The fall is often life-threatening.<\/p>\n

How is it that a good high school athlete and kid fails to play at the next level? How can a youngster who was perhaps a can’t-miss prospect lose his or her way over\u00a0a two- or three-year period. The pattern is too familiar.<\/p>\n

Every community has witnessed it first hand. What ever happened to so and so? \u00a0She was good enough to play in college, or he was really special when he was growing up.<\/p>\n

\"Image
Athletes without home support are vulnerable to downturns and difficult recoveries.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Without the limelight shining down on them, they suddenly encounter a starkly different life, one in which they are like everybody else. \u00a0It’s unfamiliar. \u00a0Those with the inner character to pull themselves up fair well, perhaps even better than those who keep moving ahead without the benefit of seeing bottom and having to rise above it. \u00a0Those lacking the same self-awareness slip farther into the underpinnings of life and struggle with the simplest of responsibilities.<\/p>\n

A few months ago, a picture in the newspaper caught my eye . \u00a0It was a mug shot of a young man whom I coached in middle school football. \u00a0Now in his mid-20s, Marcus had been arrested for B&E and possession of stolen goods. He looked beaten down, ashamed.<\/p>\n

He was a great 13-year-old athlete with high hopes and dreams. Coming from a single-parent home would not stop him, he would say. He was bright, popular, very athletic and made good decisions.<\/p>\n

Yet, a dozen or so years later, he was not the same person.<\/p>\n

I did some research and discovered that he had gotten into some minor trouble in high school which set him off on a tailspin. \u00a0I was unable to find out the issues involved, only that his grades dropped precipitously after the incident. By the time he was junior, he could not qualify academically for the football team. When he separated from his teammates, things quickly worsened.<\/p>\n

\"Image
Without a back-up plan, young athletes can fail to cope without competing and losing day-to-day structure.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Midway through his senior year, he dropped out of school. Until that picture was printed in the local newspaper, few people knew where he was or what he was doing. Life for Marcus had taken what may have been an irreversible turn.<\/p>\n

A couple of days later, I drove to the jail to visit Marcus, but by the time I got there, he had made bail and was gone. He left no forwarding address.<\/p>\n

Sound familiar? \u00a0We live in a world where athletics are a double-edge sword. We know them to be instrumental in the growth and stability of young people. But we are learning that without balance in an athlete’s life, he or she can slip, fall and tumble off that tight rope so quickly.<\/p>\n

I believe there are five major reasons why a\u00a0young athlete falls:<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. Lack of family structure, home support and other interests.<\/li>\n

     <\/p>\n

  2. Parents put inordinate\u00a0pressure on their kid to succeed in athletics.<\/li>\n

     <\/p>\n

  3. Overuse results in a serious, career-ending injury.<\/li>\n

     <\/p>\n

  4. Athletes break rules\u00a0believing they will not face consequences for bad decisions.<\/li>\n

     <\/p>\n

  5. Illegal drugs and alcohol derail the athlete’s focus and performance.<\/li>\n

     \n<\/ol>\n<\/h4>\n

    You may know a Marcus. Could you have predicted what was going to happen? \u00a0Could you have helped? Could you have been that life support he or she needed to pass through the early hardships?<\/p>\n

    Good questions because I ask them of myself nearly every day.<\/p>\n

    \"get-scouted\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    \"apply-now\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Young athletes walk a tightrope. Some make it to college. Others drop off. The fall is often life-threatening. How is it that a good high school athlete and kid fails to play at the next level? How can a youngster who was perhaps a can’t-miss prospect lose his or her way over\u00a0a two- or three-year … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":12212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,859],"tags":[31,54,57,222],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12057"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12057"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14762,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12057\/revisions\/14762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}