What it takes to make the varsity mark

For some athletes, coming to college signifies the end of an athletic career, but for others, it marks a new beginning. Many students are not sure what they wish to pursue and what they wish to leave behind in the transition from high school to college. Athletes often feel that the decision is made for them by whether or not they were recruited-- but in many cases, they have the opportunity to choose a new sport or to continue with an old one long after they have settled into school.

Building a team

It is a common myth among college students that unless a person was recruited in high school for a particular sport, it is unlikely that he or she will continue to play competitively in college. Athletes equate lack of recruitment with lack of coaches' interest. They feel that if they were capable of playing at the collegiate level, coaches would have noticed and responded accordingly. This is not always the case, however.

Beyond certain recruitment rules laid out by the NCAA, each school must decide how much attention it pays to its recruits. Associate Director of Athletics Colleen Lim defines a recruit as "anyone who the coaches have contacted more than once, either in person or on the phone. It is not limited to people who have visited the campus. You can still be a recruit and never have visited Yale." Furthermore, even recruits are not guaranteed a spot on the team, and must make it through tryouts.

On many varsity squads, "walk-ons" supplement the ranks of recruits. Walk-ons are athletes who, though not officially recruited by the coaches, believe that they have the necessary talent and dedication to be a member of the team. The number of walk-ons for a particular team depends on the sport and the number of recruits it has in a given year. They are very common in sports that were not available to most people in high school.

Crew, for example, is available to a very select few in the pre-college years, because most high schools do not have rowing programs.Yale coaches have been trying in recent years to increase the number of recruits, but they still recognize that walk-ons are an important and necessary part of filling spaces on the boats.

Julia Tiernan/YH PULLING THROUGH: When basketball didn't work out for Rob Welhoelter, JE '99, became a heavyweight crew walk-on

Walking on

Andrea Trento, JE '98, came to Yale with the intention of being a walk-on for soccer. Upon arriving here, however, he noticed the crew boat out on Old Campus, and the coach encouraged him to give it a shot. "I remember thinking that I just wanted to keep doing something remotely physical," Trento remarked. "So when I didn't make it for soccer, I remembered the conversation I had with the coach as well as a mailer about crew that I had received over the summer, so I tried it and it worked out for me." Trento currently rows in the varsity lightweight boat.

Trento's story is typical of many rowers who start the sport their freshman year, since the coaches are very active in encouraging frosh who want to try out. One female rower, who asked to remain anonymous, added, however, that it is difficult in the beginning because the walk-ons have to learn technique, while the recruits are working on other more advanced aspects of the sport. "I definitely felt some tension in the beginning, but once everyone started training together, the pressure lessened somewhat," she said. "I understand that novices cannot immediately be placed in a boat with recruits, but I do believe that integrating the walk-ons with the recruits sooner would mitigate the tension between the two."

In fencing, another sport unavailable to most athletes before college, walk-ons are as important to the team as recruits. "If someone can show me that he or she has the talent, dedication, and love for the sport necessary for success," coach Henry Hartunian said, "I see no reason to treat the person any differently from the others. Some novices will make varsity in a year, others may not make it at all. I only discriminate against people who don't have the talent or commitment, [regardless of] whether or not the person has fenced before."

Some walk-ons had an interest in a sport earlier in life, but their interest died off somewhat during high school. For example, Merrill Dobson, TD '00, had been a member of the United States Swimming Club swimming team up through her freshman year in high school. After that, however, she wanted to play other sports and had to limit her involvement with swimming to competing for her school. When she arrived at Yale, though, she knew that she wanted competitive swimming to be a part of her life.

"I went to talk to the coach, and he said that he'd love to have me come try out," she said. "Even though my times were not quite up with those of my teammates, I was able to keep up enough in practice and I showed enough promise that I made the team." She added that there is not a limited number of spaces on the team--unlike in a sport like basketball--and that anyone who can meet team standards is on the squad.

Walk-ons in certain sports, however, have a hard time finding a opportunity to display their talent. Rob Welhoelter, JE '99, was not officially recruited for basketball, but once he arrived at Yale, he decided he wanted to try out for the team. He had spoken to two assistant coaches before coming to Yale, but both of them had left the program soon after his arrival on campus. By Lim's definition, he was a recruit, yet because none of the coaches that he had spoken to were still there, he was treated as a walk-on in tryouts.

Although Welhoelter feels no animosity toward the coaches, he does believe that the process is disadvantageous to walk-ons. "They had a lot more recruits than they expected, and with the NCAA rules about tryouts, the coaches simply did not have enough time to look at everyone as much as they would have liked. I didn't get much of a chance to show them my abilities, so when they decided not to have a JV team, I was pretty much squeezed out of the equation," he said. Welhoelter determined instead to try his hand at crew, a sport in which the coaches are more concerned about having to fill the slots on the team than they are about making cuts.

Just as capable

Although no athlete at Yale is accepted by the admissions office solely for their athletic talent, the walk-ons want to make it very clear that the sport they play had especially little impact on their admission.

"In the beginning, many of the recruits were discussing their recruitment trips with each other, so I felt kind of left out," noted volleyball walk-on Erica Tarin, CC '00, "but I had to remember that I was just as capable as they were and that I got in here without any regard to my athletic ability." Erica realizes that none of her teammates who were recruited would be at Yale if they were not qualified academically -- conversely, though she was not recruited, she feels she can still be a valuable contributor to the team.

A variety of reasons motivate walk-ons to try out. Some athletes are in search of a team-oriented environment, others are simply looking for a way to stay in good physical shape. Whether a person really has a chance of making the team mainly depends on the person's ability and level of commitment. It is unfair to say that coaches are only interested in the athletes they recruited; most coaches at Yale are receptive to any new talent. Recruitment will always be a key to building strong teams and will usually bring in the majority of the outstanding athletes, but manywalk-ons have proven to be just as talented.

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