Originally Posted by Anonymous
My daughter actually had a friend that verbally committed to a school in junior year (great school, but not the dream school). Meanwhile, her dream school was perfect in every way, except for the relationship with the coach.

Before NLIs were signed, her friend's dream school had a new coach, who was previously recruiting her at another school. She had the opportunity to change her mind, as now the dream school was perfect in every way, but felt she needed to do the honorable thing and keep her verbal committment to the "great" but not dream school.

How did it work out??? Not sure ... just a freshman and lax season hasnt started yet, so time will tell. Every situation and circumstance is different, and every person handles things in their life differently. I always say things happen for a reason.
As we have said previously on our Back of the Net sister site for soccer, a student-athlete should not be choosing their college or university based on a relationship with the head coach. Remember that the head coaching (and any coaching or teaching) role is a job first and foremost. There is no guarantee that the staff you see on board with your program today will be there four years from now, much less four months from now.

School selection should be done based on academic fit first followed by other environmental considerations. It is actually a shame that a young person chose a runner-up school due to a sense of loyalty to a coach. Hopefully, this decision turns out to be positive for the student-athlete in the longer run.