College student athlete

Ken Ibold

Ken Ibold

Final Approach
Joined
Feb 21, 2005
Messages
5,889
Location
Jacksonville, Florida
Display Name
Ken Ibold
Home Airfield
CRG
Warning: Proud papa post.

Some of you met my daughter at Oshkosh or Gaston's, and from time to time I've posted news of her high school athletic career. Well, yesterday she had the pleasure of signing her National Letter of Intent to attend the University of Southern California. Normally coxswains are not highly recruited, but in her case she had multiple scholarship opportunities from prestigious schools on the east coast and west coast. She selected USC. (She is also a National Merit Scholar semifinalist, so the "student" part is also well in hand.)

As any parent will attest, free college is great. But even better is to see how this young lady's hard work is paying off in such a tangible fashion. She is super excited.

And to make this aviation-related, maybe I can use her college savings to find an airplane that will make the trip from Jax to Lax in some reasonable fashion, without having "Delta" painted on it. Methinks I will not come up with an alternative that makes any kind of economic sense. Anyone got an Eclipse 500 for sale?
 
How cool is that?! ! ! Congratulations to you both.
 
Congrats!

Fight On!
(If you don't get this reference, you will soon enough!)
 
Congrats! Got to love college scholarships. Our youngest played four years of football, loved every minute, and got a great education at the same time.

They still do spend an alarming amount of money, though -- don't think you're going to get off easy, dad! :)
 
Congrats Ken! That's fantastic. We're going through the process now with Lacrosse. It's very exciting,and the fact that your daughter got a full ride is even more amazing.
 
AdamZ said:
Congrats Ken! That's fantastic. We're going through the process now with Lacrosse. It's very exciting,and the fact that your daughter got a full ride is even more amazing.
Click to expand...
Well good luck to you, too!

The eye opener to me has been the amazing things the major college do for student athletes in terms of support systems and accommodations to make it possible to perform at a high level while also doing the college thing.
 
Very cool, Ken. Thanks for sharing the Proud Papa news!
 
That great! Having interviewed hundreds (maybe thousands) of college seniors over the years, I always loved seeing someone who played collegiate sports. It is so hard to get to know someone in 30 minutes that something like this tells me:
1) the person strives for excellence
2) they can time manage
3) they are a team player
All of which tells me that this person would be a good employee. Now if they can hold a conversation and have passable grades (I set a slightly lower bar than the candidate with no job, no extra curriculars), they are getting invited in for another round.
 
Ken Ibold said:
Well good luck to you, too!

The eye opener to me has been the amazing things the major college do for student athletes in terms of support systems and accommodations to make it possible to perform at a high level while also doing the college thing.
Click to expand...

That's the big concern Ken, we hear that in D1, the sport comes first and the coach owns you. Would love to chat with you about your experience.
 
AdamZ said:
That's the big concern Ken, we hear that in D1, the sport comes first and the coach owns you. Would love to chat with you about your experience.
Click to expand...
That varies a lot. We looked at several D1 schools. Their academic support ranged from "the coach will talk to him if and tell him to get a tutor if his grades start to slip", to a well established program with tutors, mandatory study sessions, a dedicated (and very nice) study area for athletes, and staff members whose job it was to track and manage the students' academic careers. A LOT of attention was paid to making sure that school maintained its tradition of producing a high number of academic All-Americans.

In the end, our son went to an NAIA school that had the best academic program and the second best football program of all the non-D1 schools we looked at.
 
Ken: Congratulations to your daughter, and to the proud parents.

About crew I knew nothing until my nephew (more like a son) went to Texas, and rowed. At UT, men's crew was a "club" sport, as the scholarship money for crew was delivered solely to the women's team, but the men were soundly competitive, thanks in large measure to be being able to piggy-back on the facilities used by the women's crew. Women's crew is where he met his wife, who is now in med school at Cal. So I guess rowers are over-achievers? Best I can tell, they have to be, to comply with the practice schedule and go to class!

Just tell her not to let the LA mindset poison her view of the world and the rest of the country; I am confident this will not happen, as I believe you have prepared her to think for herself.

Again, congrats to the proud Mama and Papa, and the hard-working kid! :yes:
 
having married a coxswain i'd agree with Spike on rowers being over-acheivers. Leah does admit that she sometimes wishes she had known about rowing earlier and gone to a school with a varsity program instead of the club program at Iowa State. But then she wouldn't have met me so I guess it was worth it.

She has been helping coach the juniors program here for the last several years and nearly every girl with any level of skill out of high school has gone on to get a scholarship somewhere. One is showing great promise as an elite rower and was invited to the US Team's freshman camp this year. We're planning on watching her in the next Olympics :)
 
As a Stanford Alum, you have my sympathy. :wink2: At least it wasn't Cal.:no:

OTOH, I sincerely hope USC beats ND Saturday. :yesnod:

Congrats.

Cheers
 
Sam D said:
You're breaking the code! I thought all Stanford alumni were taught to act as if there really was no rivalry from their end! :)

Go Bears!
Click to expand...

The phrase Cal Weenies springs to mind. :devil:

Actually its only a Graduate degree so maybe the code didn't take during the year I was there. ;)

Cheers
 
Congrats from another proud pop who has followed the same basic path with my daughter. And yes, I used some of the money we saved for her college on a nice toy that gets us to her meets without using the comm carriers.

Now, I know she's in the merit program so it's clear she's in it for the degree as well. I urge you to look at the academics as the primary goal, and the athletics as the support system.

My daughter is in her fourth year of Chem Eng program, and is guaranteed a position in the grad program at a very well known univ on graduation. It's a lot of pride, and great to watch them gain the respect that their accomplishments have wrought.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top