Importance of Preparation for College Play by Stephanie Shaw
[This is a guest blog by one of our Athletic Interns, Stephanie Shaw, an Exercise Science student from ECU]
You have been recruited to play at the collegiate level. The National Letter of Intent is signed or
going to be signed within the next month. Your technical skills for the sport are worthy so now you are
ready to play in college, right?
What many athletes, especially females, forget about when coming into college is the strength
and conditioning aspect of the sport. The competition in college is very different than in club or
high school athletics. Think about it, the team you are about to go play for is not only practicing but also
going through strength and conditioning training with a strength coach all spring. Why should you be
doing any different? This means it is very important to be prepared before going in especially for fall
season sports. Teams that compete in the fall such as football, soccer, and volleyball have only a week
or two of training with the team before being thrown into the season.
Coming into college strong and developed will help with injury prevention. I play on the East
Carolina Women’s Soccer team, and our coach always says that if an incoming freshman can make it
through the first fall without injury, their chance for injury for the remainder of their career is
significantly reduced. Why not decrease that risk even more by starting to work on your speed, strength,
and conditioning and agility right now. I tore my ACL freshman year and believe if I was better prepared
coming in it would have reduced the risk of tearing it.
