Understanding Parents’ Experiences in College Recruiting: Insights for School Counselors

Background: The college recruiting period represents a developmentally significant and often stressful time in the lives of high school student-athletes, when their athletic identity is either affirmed or challenged based upon the interest of college coaches. Although school counselors and parents/guardians play critical roles in supporting student-athletes’ emotional well-being, current research offers limited guidance on how these groups can collaborate effectively. To support this collaboration, school counselors must understand how parents/guardians experience the recruiting process. Objectives: Through this phenomenological study, we sought to inform recommendations for collaboration between parents/guardians and school counselors by centering the perspectives of parents and examining how they navigated their child’s recruitment journey. Research Question: How did parents of student-athletes who verbally committed to play Division I lacrosse in college navigate the recruiting process? Methods: We conducted semistructured interviews of 14 parents whose sons verbally committed to playing Division I lacrosse in college. We analyzed the results through Moustaka’s (1994) adaptation of the Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen phenomenological data analysis. Results and Conclusions: Three themes emerged from the analysis: The Human Side of Recruiting (Expectations, Scarcity, Emotions), It’s a Business (Coaches Are Salesmen, Abrupt Communication), and Parents as Agents (Increasing Visibility, Addressing Uncertainty, Managing the Process). These findings inform recommendations for how school counselors could collaborate with parents/guardians: (a) helping parents/guardians navigate uncertainty, (b) normalizing emotional distress that comes when athletic identity has been threated, (c) seeking professional help when needed, and (d) strengthening parent/guardian supports.