College Choice Challenge

My eldest daughter Aly graduates from high school in just a few short weeks. (6th overall in a class of nearly 300! 🥳) It’s an emotional roller coaster and I will go through withdrawal, no doubt, when she leaves for college at the end of the summer. However, I am very proud to announce she her decision to attend Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.

Charting the road to get there, though, has been anything but simple.After moving to Vegas, playing lacrosse in college emerged as her life’s pursuit and I dedicated myself to helping her achieve that goal. It wasn’t easy. Girl’s lacrosse is in its infancy in Vegas and only about 7% of high school athletes go on to compete at the collegiate level. Of those athletes, only 2% will compete in Division 1 sports. All that coupled with Aly’s desire to study neuroscience and we had a very lofty goal. Finding a school where she could balance both academics and athletics seemed incredibly daunting. So, we spent the past three summers traveling all over the country. One summer, we racked up 7,000 miles by car alone! All this back and forth helped expose her to lacrosse coaches around the nation.

When Division 1 recruiting opened up her junior year in high school, Aly received many messages from Division 1 coaches, but none of the schools fit academically. We struggled with the fact that many of her friends had already committed to colleges. Then, her senior year of high school, the lacrosse team was possibly only able to play JV. She made the difficult decision to not play lacrosse and instead run track to keep up her conditioning.

The first week of track practice, I suggested she try a field event for fun. I told her I had a feeling she’d be good at shot put. She laughed and claimed she couldn’t through a ball to save her life, but lo and behold, on her first attempt, she threw further than any of the girls on her team. She’d found a talent she never knew she had! In the past eight weeks, she went from not knowing what a shot put was to throwing close to 40 feet. She now ranks third in the state!

On a whim, she reached out to several Track and Field coaches at the colleges she had gotten into about her shot put success. Two weeks ago, she received a call from Lehigh University, a Division 1 team. They were willing to offer her a spot on the roster. This is what she had been waiting for! Division 1 sports with high academics. It was a dream come true—just not in the sport we thought it’d be in. We are thrilled and relieved this crazy ride is over. I realized, like everything in life, this journey was necessary. Without the energy and time devoted to lacrosse, she may never have found track and field.

So, here’s to never giving up on your dreams. They may seem unachievable at times, but dedication and drive will allow you to persevere. Now, I just have two more children to help navigate through the college choice challenge…. 😵‍💫