Page 27 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 1 Fall 2012

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that actually bars players in its affiliated academies from
participating on their high school teams. While the reality
is that fewer than 1 percent of male high school soccer
players will go on to compete professionally (per NCAA
data), the youth development model focuses on that,
instead of the 99.3 percent who will not.
“It’s financially lucrative to be a travel-team coach,”
explains clinical psychologist and sports psychology
consultant Richard Ginsburg, whose professional affil-
iations include Harvard and Mass General Hospital, “even
though it may be healthier for kids to be playing for their
high school teams and getting a well-rounded experience.
The travel-team coach who says a kid should play six
times a week gets a check from you whether your child
makes it to a higher level or not, as long as a couple of
kids make it from that program.”
A drop-off in participation at the JV level has further
undermined the sustainability of high school athletics as
students who don’t play at the highest level are often
choosing not to play at all. SPS Athletic Director Scott
Heitmiller ’81 is a traditionalist who believes that younger
students need to earn their spots by coming up through
the system rather than expecting to make the varsity
team immediately.
“While it used to be the norm to compete for three
seasons, the trend now is for kids who don’t make
varsity to quit the sport – it’s varsity or bust,” says
Heitmiller, another Gordon Medal recipient. “Our
programs are hurt because we are not developing the
talent. It has been a struggle to fill the JV rosters over
the last five or six years. We are filling the teams with
bodies, but not with the same depth. Kids do give up on
the dream of varsity and, because of that, we are losing
kids who would be solid role-players later on.”
Groton Athletic Director Low concurs, noting that the
level of three-sport athletes is on the decline at his school
as well. At an annual ceremony honoring tri-varsity ath-
letes at Groton in 2012, only 13 plaques were distributed.
“Kids are asking, ‘Why travel to St. George’s to play a
JV game when I can do all my homework instead?’” says
Low. “Some sports lend themselves to program develop-
ment. But if you are on JV hockey, run those numbers:
How many will ever make varsity?”
St. Paul’s is not alone in this trend. And the reasons
are multi-layered and complex. But it all starts with the
admissions process at St. Paul’s and other independent
schools, Groton and Phillips Andover among them. SPS
Admission Director Scott Bohan ’94 speaks of the School’s
search for the multi-talented student, who will contribute
to many areas of life at St. Paul’s, athletics included. The
School’s mission has always revolved around developing
the whole child.
So where is this pressure to be the best in one area
coming from? High school athletes are in the middle of
the squeeze – forced into specialization at increasingly
younger ages and squeezed from the top by the rising
number of applicants driving colleges’ desperate attempts
to single out “stars” in specialty areas to help distinguish
thousands of candidates in what has become an over-
whelming evaluation process. At the youth level, seasons
no longer have boundaries – soccer is a four-season sport,
hockey spans the entire school year, and lacrosse – Amer-
ica’s fastest-growing sport – requires participation on
weekend and summer club teams to keep up. Independent
school students are not exempt from these extra obliga-
tions, even though residential school cultures promote
exactly the opposite.
“It used to be that a college coach would go and watch
a game at St. Paul’s or Deerfield – they were willing to
travel great distances,” says Harvard Athletic Director
Bob Scalise, father of SPS student Rosemary Scalise ’15.
“Now with summer tournaments and out-of-season
play, that coach can go and watch 12 teams in one day.
The club sports have taken hold. If you do not play on
one of the top club teams in lacrosse, for example, you
are not going to be seen by coaches. You have all of these
forces taking place, which say you’ve got to be really good
in order for athletics to matter in the admissions process.
You can’t just be a pretty good player with a lot of potential,
you have to have realized success at the youth level to
get on an elite program’s radar screen.”
Not only has the job of college admissions officers
become more complex, but the explosion of applicants
looking for an edge has added to the workload of college
coaches – technology has made more candidates easily