Signing up for the future
For the few future collegiate athletes across the country, Feb. 3rd was not an ordinary Wednesday. It was National Signing Day, a day of relief and relaxation, as after the long recruitment process high school athletes are officially committed to their schools.
Ashley Kolosky, senior, is a soccer player committed to the University of Oregon. Although she has played soccer since she was about seven, Kolosky became more serious about the sport in the fifth grade, when she joined a premier level club team.
Once she began excelling on the premier team, she knew she wanted to play soccer in college and as that time approached, she began to narrow her search for future schools . “As far as the colleges I was looking at, I wanted to stay on the West coast and the PAC-12 has always been my dream and goal, so I was looking at a lot of (those schools),” Kolosky said.
Erich Wuesthoff, senior, has wanted to play lacrosse in college since sixth grade. “It was the most fun sport I played, and I enjoyed playing it year round,” Wuesthoff said.
Once Wuesthoff began to receive offers from numerous schools, he decided to focus his attention on education to help make his final decision on what college he would be attending.
“Senior year I started looking and visiting schools and I narrowed it down to Bridgewater in Virginia and Saint Mary’s, and Saint Mary’s had better academics so I decided to commit there,” Wuesthoff said. “Saint Mary’s has a great medical program so I want to go and go through that program so I can become a doctor.”
Emily Coleman, senior, is bound for Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) in the fall and will be playing college volleyball there. Unlike Wuesthoff, she didn’t decide she wanted to play in college until junior year of high school when she began her recruiting process.
“It was super stressful trying to narrow down from those schools I thought I wanted to go to down to what programs I really wanted to pursue,” Coleman said.
Coleman wasn’t set on attending PLNU at first but that soon changed. “I ended up doing a camp at Point Loma randomly and talked to the coach afterwards and absolutely fell in love with the program,” Coleman said.
After the recruitment process, these future collegiate athletes had some time to look back and reflect on their journey.
Kolosky is grateful she reached out to Oregon, despite her doubts that she was good enough to play there. She recommends that all prospective college athletes contact their dream schools, no matter what you think the outcome will be.
“Mail all the different schools you’re interested in, even if you think it’s too high of a level for you, because I didn’t even know if Oregon was going to be interested in me, and I was really happy to find out that they were,” Kolosky said. “It’s just about finding someone who believes in you.”
Coleman agrees with the importance of keeping every door open and staying positive throughout the process. “(Don’t) be afraid to put yourself out there. The recruiting process is full of rejection but eventually you will end up exactly where you’re meant to be,” Coleman said.
