In Reply to: Ya, posted by TheHappyBurgermeister on June 19, 2026 at 10:06:05
I 'spect an analysis would find different results among 5 star prospects, 4 stars, 3 stars, etc. The top prospects have lots of choices and pretty much all harbor what they and their family members consider quite reasonable expectations of spending a short time in college and going on to lucrative pro careers. There's more of a mix among 4 stars. When you get to three stars and below, i'ed expect the split finds a lot great percentage who still value the education quite highly.
I still find recruits mentioning the education. In FB, the Chesney staff goes out of its way to remind recruits - and their parents - that UCLA has long held the position of #1 public university. But certainly it's a mix.
Some elite recruits are focused on a championship at the college level and are secure in their pro prospects afterwards. Some 3 stars are simply focused on making as much as they can now to establish a base that will support them through their lives. Some athletes are just looking for a nice place to spend time until they're old enough to go pro (no matter what their pro prospects may appear to be to outsiders). And of course at any level if all other factors seem equal to the recruits, yes, for some it may well come down to the money.
We dump on the rich whale program that is Texas Tech but realistically, how much money are most softball players going to make from playing the game at which they're so good? Put it another way, if your 18 year old grand daughter or daughter was offered a payday of $500,000 a year to play softball for a year or two just getting started in life, what would you advise her to do? I love my alma mater but i'd sure be hard pressed to thinking about telling her to turn that money down.
Clearly UCLA WBB and Softball still push the academics and have found numerous players - including star players - who embrace that concept., And HC Chesney also pushes it as do a number of other UCLA HCs.
Just seems to me there's a whole lot of degrees between "yes" and "no" in response to this particular question.