The job of a student-athlete who is hosting a prospective teammate is to show them “a day in the life” of a student-athlete at that particular school. The host should walk the recruit around campus, introduce them to teammates, take them to classes, take them around the surrounding area, and show them what the social life is all about. 

Figuring out if a person is the right fit from a host perspective can happen pretty quickly. Unfortunately, there may be some situations where one instance can change everyone's opinion. This is a look into a recruiting nightmare and a lesson that can be learned from it.

“One Saturday night during my freshman year, our team hosted a recruit. This happened to be on a weekend that our coach allowed us to go out. We were “pre-gaming” in the dorm and enjoying ourselves when out of the blue, the recruit started talking about how much she drinks. She was extremely arrogant, disrespectful, and acted as if she was “cooler” than the rest of us. She started pressuring us into taking shots, but none of us wanted to. As her host, we felt obligated to show her a good time, but her definition of a good time was different from ours. 

Next, we went to a house party, and at one point during the night, we could not find her. This was very unsettling to all of us, and we went into panic mode. After searching for a while, we found her hooking up with a guy that we didn't know. To our surprise, the boy was a recruit for the men's lacrosse team. The police came to break up the party, but once again, we couldn't find the recruit. After scrambling around and searching, we found her. She was selfishly complaining about having to leave. We took her back to the dorm, and then we all settled in. Needless to say, we never saw this recruit again, and we all knew it was for the best.”

A lesson to learn: Keep it, classy boys and girls! Hooking up with a random boy and doing shots on a recruiting trip is NOT advised. Being known as the recruit that hooked up with someone is a title that will stick. You do NOT want this in your recruiting portfolio. Also, don't put yourself in dangerous situations where your host(s) can not find you.

 Where is this recruit now? As much as this recruit seemed to “enjoy” herself, we did not see her the following year. Probably for the best.

* Originally published on June 23, 2016, by LRT Staff