New Mexico State photo
Danisha Corbett of Montgomery has successfully adjusted to New Mexico State.
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Every year dozens of high school seniors in the region graduate with athletic scholarships and hope of making immediate impacts in college.
For some, the transition is smooth. Their new school is everything they dreamed it would be. The athletes become absorbed in their new surroundings.
For others, best-laid plans go awry. They end up leaving after one or two seasons – sometimes before ever being fitted for a uniform.
One theory is that Division I coaches tend to over-recruit.
Grossmont College baseball coach Randy Abshier said that's the primary reason athletes transfer to new schools or “bounce back” to a community college.
“They think they're going to be a big Division I star and break all kinds of records,” Abshier said. “They have big ideas of grandeur only to find out they have to compete with three other guys for playing time and they are the odd man out.”
Other times it's discipline or academics, said USD baseball coach Rich Hill, whose team is in the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in seven years.
Arizona State photo
Todd Schavrien of Poway became soured on the Arizona State wrestling program and has transferred to Missouri.
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“That's a big challenge facing a Division I athlete, especially at USD,” Hill said. “Guys are coming to USD to get a phenomenal degree and train to be a professional baseball player. The balance of DI athletics and academics is profound.”
Here's a look at four recent high school grads and the paths they have taken:
Sequoyah Stonecipher
Baseball, Mission Bay, 2007
Stonecipher said he made an unwise decision in accepting a scholarship to USD.
An Aflac All-American in high school, Stonecipher was part of what Baseball America magazine rated as the No. 1 recruiting class in the country. But USD was the wrong place for him. He left the school in December because of academic and discipline reasons, having never played a game for the Toreros.
“USD was probably a mistake from the beginning,” said Stonecipher, 18, who played at Grossmont this year and hopes to be chosen in next month's pro baseball draft. “I'm not a great student. I don't have as much of an interest in school as baseball.”
Stonecipher, a right-handed outfielder, said going to a community college was the best option for him to reach his ultimate goal – playing professional baseball.
“(It's) what I would rather do than stay in school and not play baseball,” he said. “That's the road I wanted to take. If I have the opportunity to get paid to play baseball, I'm definitely going to take it.”
Stonecipher hit .320 for Grossmont this season. He had seven home runs and stole 14 bases in 16 attempts. He said he's not sure what round he'll be drafted but expects to sign “if the money is right.”
Danisha Corbett
Basketball, Montgomery, 2007
For Corbett, everything is going according to plan at New Mexico State.
Her transition to college was made easier by two other San Diego recruits in her class – Brittany Palmer and Erica Sanchez from Eastlake High.
“Already knowing people made it a lot easier,” said Corbett, 18. “It was rough at first, because you have to get used to college life. But after a while it was great.”
Corbett played in 22 games, second most of the four freshmen on the team. She averaged six minutes and 3.1 points a game.
She agreed that sometimes recruits are promised certain things. But Corbett learned to adjust and believes that's why things have worked out.
“You were promised stuff, but I learned that things change,” she said. “You have to buy into the system and work with it. There were some things that were said to me, but there were also things I had to improve. I knew I had to learn. It's a steppingstone for life.”
Todd Schavrien
Wrestling, Poway, 2006
His senior year, Schavrien, 20, was one of the most sought-after recruits on the West Coast. He chose Arizona State, a school coming off a Pac-10 championship and fifth-place NCAA finish. After a redshirt year and subpar freshman season, Schavrien soured on the program when one of the Sun Devils' assistant coaches was fired.
Schavrien transferred to Missouri three weeks ago. Days later, ASU cut its wrestling program, which was reinstated last week after receiving financial support from local civic leadership.
“I didn't like the coaching situation and I just didn't feel like the guys wanted to put in the work,” said Schavrien, a state champion his senior year at Poway. “I felt like they were there because it was a No. 1 party school and they weren't into it for the wrestling. Partying is the least of my concerns. I want to wrestle.”
The two-time high school All-American recently competed in the University Nationals and took fourth, earning All-America status.
“I had a good feeling about Missouri,” he said. “There is a real sense of team that was lacking at Arizona State.”
Caleb Charlow
Football, Mission Hills, 2007
Charlow acknowledges being smitten by the prospect of playing in the Pac-10 for Arizona. But when he arrived for summer ball, infatuation turned to frustration.
Faster than you can say “Wildcats,” Charlow transferred to a community college before classes even began in Tucson.
“When it first started, I was really excited,” said Charlow, 19. “As it got closer to the end of summer, their focus changed. Everything, the coaching style, everything, the environment just changed. Not all for the bad, but for a freshman that was promised something and gets told the opposite, for a teenager away from home, it's frustrating.”
Charlow said he was promised playing time but then was asked to redshirt. He said it quickly turned into a “bad environment for me.”
An all-section player as a senior, Charlow is now enrolled at Mount San Antonio. He hopes to play receiver for former SDSU coach Tom Craft, an assistant in charge of the offense at Mount SAC.
“I believe from a player's standpoint, a kid's standpoint, what I was being told and then what happened were completely different things,” Charlow said. “It didn't seem right and it wasn't the right fit for me. If I had known it was going to go down like that I wouldn't have committed in the first place. No disrespect to the program, it's just some things don't work out for certain people.”
Kevin Gemmell: (619) 718-5304; kevin.gemmell@uniontrib.com
