Walk-on
In university sports in the United States, walk-ons are those studying athletes who themselves apply for admission to a college team in open trial training sessions ( tryout ). This is in contrast to the students, because of their achievements in high school recruited by coach crews of ( Recruited ) were and usually an athletic scholarship ( athletic scholarship received).
Walk-ons are often athletes who have come from smaller high schools or have been homeschooled and are therefore not noticed by the college team's talent scouts or are not rated well enough by them. They must also as a normal student who sometimes high tuition fees ( tuition raise themselves) if these costs are not covered by other scholarships, for example, for students with outstanding academic achievements or talents or for persons belonging to minorities. In some cases, for example if all available sports scholarships have already been awarded in a team, targeted athletes can be invited as invited walk-on ,recruited walk-on or preferred walk-on . In the further course of their studies, they often also receive a sports scholarship. Football players in highly specialized positions such as punters and table footballers also often begin their careers as walk-ons and only receive a scholarship after they have performed well.
In college football and college basketball , most walk-ons act as reserve players who, for example, do not travel to away games . In football, they are mostly part of the so-called practice team , whose task is to simulate the way opposing teams play in training against the regular team. Walk-on players can move up to the starting line-up if they perform well and in some cases also qualify for a scholarship. For the most outstanding player in college football, who began his career as a walk-on , the Burlsworth Trophy named after Brandon Burlsworth has been awarded since 2010 . In other sports such as baseball , soccer or lacrosse , the number of players with a scholarship is significantly smaller, so walk-ons can also be part of the regular team.
At the universities of the Ivy League no sports scholarships in the sense of “athletic scholarships” are awarded. Nevertheless, athletes are sometimes intensively recruited here too, who must meet the academic requirements of these universities, but can usually rely on a recommendation from the recruiting university trainers for a "financial aid" program at the respective universities.
literature
- The walk-on. In: Kim McQuilken: The Road to Athletic Scholarship: What every Student-athlete, Parent, and Coach needs to know. New York University Press, New York 1996, ISBN 0-8147-5530-5 , pp. 87-94.
Individual evidence
- ^ David Frank: Ivy League Athletics and Sport. AthleticScholarships.net, accessed July 8, 2015 .
- ^ Craig Lambert: The Professionalization of Ivy League Sports . In: Harvard Magazine . September / October, 1997, p. 36 ff . ( harvardmagazine.com [accessed July 8, 2015]).
- ^ In Their Own League: The Ivy League Recruiting Process. BeRecruited.com, January 22, 2014 Retrieved on July 8, 2015 (English, blog post at jquenzer).