welcome to the secrets of college planning i'm your host at the nuba and today we're going to get some insight into field hockey my guest today is carl title yet they and she's the head women's field hockey coach at princeton university welcome to the show  yeah no problem so usually there are some i guess we're the went to college so when you go to school i went to the university of maryland oh graduated in two thousand ok great so let's go back in time before we get into what you're doing  have any interest in field hockey for a long time and i kind of stumbled into it as like a filler sport for the fall season and i am my dream and my goal was to go to college and play basketball and chi right around freshman year sophomore year i kind of realized i wasn't probably going to grow past five three and that i could you know feel he was still kind of a filler sport but i i liked it i was getting  realized i could probably go further in it i was receiving some correspondent from usa field hockey to sort of play in some junior under seventeen stuff and just got my head kind of spinning like i thought i could you know take it run with it maybe pla y in the lympics or national team or go to you know go to a bigger college than what i could for basketball so i i continue to play bowls as back and that the era where you could still play three sports and you know you weren't overcommitted in any so it was awesome because i could go one to the other to the others blended into each other in the spring i would play as a play softball couple years i ran track a couple years like golf so but it kind of was right around that sophomore year i kind of i started to focus more my time in the summer doing more field hockey really is often just due in basketball camp after bashful camp after mass while camp was right around that point so you got recruited then to field hockey i did you know and the university of maryland was your number one school or did you have a wide variety of schools i had a wide variety it was tough i you know i was you know shy introverted kid i didn't really love the recruiting process at that age it also happened much later than what happens now there are all the early recruiting you one didn't exist then so everything kind of ramped into your senior year and then on whatever the date was july was earlier remember it was just you know your phone  ring and it just it was overwhelming and at that point i had been to a few summer camps i kind of an idea i had an idea for you know three four schools i was interested i didn't want to have any interest in going far away  also didn't really have much interest in going to play i think north carolina was the number one team at the time it didn't really intrigue me i kind of wanted to be in a program i could make an impact in and i had the coach in maryland who still there was the assistant national team u s program obviously was too young kid very appealing she also is a great coach and could probably sell you the sweater you're wearing but if you know i had a short list then it's just the you know every time i went to the school it just felt like it was a good fit right so now you go to university of maryland what happens the university of maryland what's it like what's it like it's a bigger hit i grew up in small town in upstate new york central new york really fed up city because everyone thinks  upstate is there or central is you know how to valley but around sheriff use area it was you know one of the bigger school it's not huge i mean it's not like ohio state side but i figure you know it's got a commuter aspect to it but it's small enough  want to be small it can be small they were growing at the time in terms of their programs and and their what they were offering academically but the hockey team was competitive and it was we had our first year we had high expectations i don't think we really can actually you know we did well i think we were runners up in the c c our second year we had a young contingent of good good players and we ended  up the underdog and we won the same term and that year out of nowhere we ended up winning three consecutive years from there had a good run in the tournament my soft my junior year we won the national championship and then we returned everyone that fit our senior year graduating player obviously the expectations were super high and i don't think we got cocky it was more kind of you're kind of a target at that point and you know i think we saw it would be challenging but definitely doable to repeat but we mean of losing in the final four that year but great teams have a lot of great teammates from all over the country all over the world but it is a great four years so how does one go from graduating university of maryland to become the head coach  don't think you know just like a lot of kids that i didn't know really what i wanted to do when i finish i i was playing in the national team from an early age i made the team when i was seventeen so i played all through college would leave a lot of the springs and kind  of come back week for two weeks come back and balance that type of travel schedule finished with school as well and maryland hockey you know i continue co chair sorry continued playing after college for a couple of couple more years and then a decided to be done and and really was kind of at this crossroads of what do you know what am i going to do and i had a few opportunities crop up in the in the business world and then decided to take a job at the university of iowa from there  michigan iversen michigan the northwestern and from there i'd had my first head coaching job at that you mass and hearst was there for five years so all up as an assistant i think i was an assistant for about nine years before i got my first head coaching job and then five years at u mass and then i think a lot of times you know i look at the process to get to being at u mass and a lot of is the stars aligning i think in just good timing and being in the right place at the right time obviously qualified to it but i would say the same for prince and i really didn't have any you know knowledge to you know princeton was going to be open when it opened or you know have this dream that you know someday i'm going to coach because you just don't know i mean you see coaches say for twenty thirty years in the job easy wait for the one you you could you know you could wait forever or it could never happen sure but the timing it lined up and the opportunity was there in the molly molly mark who reached out and  was really was a kind of a fast process that happened in the summer twenty sixteen probably a month before we started so it was a quick process quick onboarding getting to know the team you know so that's kind of the rundown on a long list of goals yeah i've been to a lot of schools i think it's been a good in a lot of ways i've talked to a lot of when i've had a lot of assistance over the years and i think everyone's path to get to the where there are in coaching or business or medicine or we're as different not that my path was better i think what i can appreciate about my journey is just the the variety and the diversity of experience i had i had the opportunity to work for if you look at the profile  schools you know from very large big ten schools to very small private big ten school to you know to to you mass which is kind of a medium sized school back down to a private ivy league school so every every stop i've made has been different it's been eye opening to kind of just try to understand the culture in you know what it's like to be successful on that campus what type of school each one is the school attracts because it all of them do attract a different type of student different look for the best field hockey players we can we can find in three recruiting in the summer the big national event we recruit off of the national junior teams under seventeen team in our nineteen teams but obviously coming  princeton it doesn't matter if susie is the best player in the country if she doesn't have something more to her so that part is a bit trickier because it's not like you wear that on your on your sleeve i don't know if you're walking around with thirty five i just you know i don't know that but that's where the recruiting process and getting to know with and getting to know their club coach and finding a little bit more about them is important i think in my short time here the the one thing that has stuck out to me barlow kind of a pass that information on to me he's the head soccer coach here prince and when i first started was to not pull wool over someone's eyes like you might love a kid and you might try to sell it to him and that or you can or they might ask who is going to be hard and he's like my insane for many years wants to just kind of be like oh you can do it don't worry like that when they find a way or you know it's been dawn and and he said my new tactic is just to tell me is going to be very hard and it that became apparent really quickly i think to just be honest and it's not going to be very like really hard it's just the person's prints and if you're not going to want to challenge and you're not going to want to come here to be challenged in field hockey and every class you've taken in have opportunities in front of you then person might not be the place for you so i think princeton and a lot of ways it does sell itself and we do go after kids that were are you know they would be a program changer but they're in the process we might realize it might probably not get fit and that's probably where we realize is that we're not sure that they're really open to the experience at princeton and like i said it's not that it's it's all doom and gloom and hard but you got to go into it with us appetite and of wanting to be challenging and wanting to have these opportunities because i don't you know why i come to princeton you know if you're not going to try to put your hand in a lot of different hats and grow as a person and you c say that from you know every school really it's really your experience is going to be what you put into it you're going to get out of a person offers an incredible array of opportunities for the students here and i think for us we're work constantly prefer us probably go very much further from there because if you know you come to me in eighth grade you're really interested you're really talented that's that's awesome but only you don't have a four year transcript to hand to me or even three years of school to hand to me so  we tried it you know at that point if someone is coming to campus and they come to a clinic or they come to a camp just to get to know and just you know so they can put a face to a name and get excited about prince and maybe it becomes a care at the end of the stick for them and they're driven and they're motivated to start out their freshman year and take challenging classes and succeed in school because princeton's a place they can see themselves but it does star that young and you know i wonder if you have someone else on the  show was just a pair of someone going through the process that wasn't playing a sport now what age should kids start thinking about schools that are playing so i don't know that that would be my question back to you know do kids in eighth grade that are interested and are they interested in princeton that i have no affiliation i think for i don't know but i do think it you know some kids are interested early on some kids you know go through the process and they start their process later on sophomore junior year and they're you know they're thinking prisoner the ivy league might be a place for me and that's fine i think what i see happening is just the panic that sets and with kids you know there is something we don't recruit more out of clubs in high school now well obviously these kids all go to high school but when we see them they're playing for their club teams and what you see happening is this domino effect to show up the practice and they hear that these five people have committed already to whatever school and they're ninth grade or eighth grade or tenth grade and it becomes like this you know everyone's looking over have it you know kids might change their mind or schools might change or mine field hockey it's been pretty on the up and up for a kid on my commitment and stick by it and saying to go for the school to but with the ivy with an ivy league school in princeton we've got to have more more detail behind you know in terms of you know are they academically going to be able to to get in and compete at princeton and there's no that's the hard part about the recruiting process for princeton really is there's no guarantee in that and you come to me in your sophomore year junior year and and we mock but might both agree that it's a it's a great fit but you can commit to the process but that's probably far as it can go you know i can't really means a lot for the grades yeah always through their say all the way through all four years and so that's that's another thing you know we've been recruiting against you know other top academic schools that are non i schools and you know the kids get to their junior year and they just take the s a t s once and it's good enough they put their feet up and you know it wears a person you might have to take retest cities or a c t s a couple times to get your scores to where they need to be at so so once they come to the school what's what's the student looking at what's the what's the proper process of of practices and things when they come to school is it august that they start in  star mid august and like it is since we're offset by a week the rest of not all the nivea schools will probably have their first competition third weekend in august where we'll have ours the last weekend in august hours and whatnot but you know when i came here that i i worried and stress about that and then i took my schedule from u mass and i laid it over top of what was allowed and i was already doing under with the i really really limited you to so i think it's a big misnomer of  you don't get as much training time or your limit to the kids can develop and that's not the case at all and if you look at our roster we get a lot of interest from we have i think four or five hundred twenty one u s players on our team one under eighteen german player on our team so you would think that they would choose a school where they can train all the time and you know just hypothetically have an opportunity to have more touches on the ball and grow and develop but we actually attract the lion's share of those kids into this program because of the name of the program they're going to get a great experience the program is proven and has a tradition of doing well in so we're you know by and large every year attracting a number of players off of those underage teams to come to princeton so you know it's just a couple hours every day during the week and then with games on the weekends you know games on the weekend we probably train depending on the number of games we play on that week if we only if we have two games like a friday sunday or saturday sunday we would be hypothetically off on monday a thursday roughly about an hour and forty five minute practice game friday saturday would be like a region day like we might group we might regroup do this somebody region meaning like jog around stretch look at some video prep for the sunday game game sunday off monday so if that was a a two would a two game weekend look like it would probably rinse and repeat so during the fall how many games are in field hockey during the full seventeen seventeen and the christmas break comes you know we wrap up right before thanksgiving christmas break comes where they do in the christmas break just they know continue to like have a base workout plan template that they'll follow it's not you know it's kind of at their their leisure that's kind of our our downtime and for them to to regroup but at princeton it's a long winter break they come back a don't take finals until after the break so they come back early january their readings period they have finals and they have an inner session break or they all go away now we've just started all last week so it's a very long break during that break i mean we don't have any contact with them other than you know i mean contact meaning like training time so they're primarily focused on family coming back to school and then they regroup and then they come back so no you said they started last week which  condition three days a week leaning lift and ron go one day a week of individual session and then spring break it's their way week they come back and then we we get used to be twelve practices for the whole from end of march through end of april so you're looking at probably a month now it's dictated on hours but essentially comes out of the same it's about twelve twelve trainings to our training sessions so we break that up it can we could be training implying into playing in the summer a lot of them are just working internships you know doing what princeton students the and then they try to piece together their training around you know the hours that they're there doing it it's challenging some of ours are doing internships overseas we had one in south africa last summer it now namibia so you know we had to have somewhat flexible plans for some of them because they don't have access to the same t facilities that you'd have a few just stayed you know in the area for the summer so everyone's doing something different and you know for for off our philosophy is is there timing this is their time to take advantage of the opportunities of being a prince and what prince offers and there's a lot of different things offered through the summer thirty through the university that they can they can do and some go overseas some say in the country with internships like i said and some you know have a balance of what they're doing so where are you looking because i'm assuming the summer months is when you're really doing majority of recruiting where are you looking because you said it's not just the high schools it's outside bystanders so what are some of the places that these students go to those schools go to some go to a clinic go to a camp because you're going to get right in front of the coaches and be right on campus and see this the campus and get a feel of the size of it in the town and a lot of times i have players working it or their staff and there's not really a better way to get to get intimate with you know do i like this or do i not like this than that i think with how quick they were creating process has become it's become very transactional and not as much relationship based as it used to and i think this is the one way to to bring back in those relationship building opportunities so we encourage that even for kids we've identified that we you know we like we still try to get them just to campus so that we can try to get a better understanding  of them their family what you know what motivates them so the other opportunities i would say are there are just various tournaments of the summer through clubs so a lot of these kids are playing in already with clubs affiliate with different clubs around the country the majority of them are in the northeast region but there's regional club championships there's national club championships there's also u s pipeline similar to the u s soccer pipeline where it's not club based but it's individual bas and these kids play in these regional training centers and get identified and then they'll move along move along playing different tournaments so we obviously will frequent those so if a kid is playing in that it's just good information to have a hey hey coach  we're going to be playing this weekend in lancaster in this tournament you know by chance we're probably already going there but just giving us a heads up that they're going to be there because there's if you've written us we're always going to try to see you to make sure we're not you know leaving any stone unturned now do you see a lot of international kids as well yeah do you see them a lot of those are coming to it like contacting us first it's not so much us going out and going to holland going to england going to south africa and just wouldn't wouldn't have the funds to do it but a lot of that is is generated from them reaching out to us or in those there's certain companies that have organized themselves that kids go into that reach out to us and so we might get a house one of these companies reaching out to us that they have a highly academic kid this looking at a few different ivy schools they'll send us a video link and some resume and that's how it starts from there you know if we like them or we think it might be a good fit we kind of take it from there and get in touch and start the relationship we may try to go overseas and see see that person or if there's a group or internal where we think we can get more value for and you know work you see multiple prospects what we would do that so that that happens all year you know people reaching out and there they're interested they're interested in just trying to to manage the international pipeline is kind of a year round thing show usually i asked my guess what advice you want to give to the parents of the students that want to come to princeton university for field hockey i think i would go back to what i said about the recruiting process and just take your time  and don't you don't need to be need your career overreact and i think there still a place and a time to make this a relationship based journey and picking your college it really should be it's where you're going to be for the next four years it's really for these student athletes it's the biggest decision they've the they've made yet in their lives and their first big decision that they're going to make for most of them and i think you know what advice would i have for them to get to be able to come to  would it's tough i mean we're a top ten program top five program some years it's the number one university in the country i would you know you've got to be able to balance both and i think they've got to be able to obviously competed a high level would be able to handle the academic rigors and for me it would be to challenge ourselves in the classroom to not cut corners take challenging classes but take tackling classes that are interesting to you too those are the ones that you tend to do better in and the ones that will probably lead you into finding something that you're going to like to do in the next phase of your life and i think princeton offers a lot of opportunity but i think just like i said engaging in that process of that recruiting process and figure out if princeton is a good fit for me on the hockey side you know it would be the same as academically you got to find opportunities that are going to challenge you and put yourself and challenging situations where you might fail but a lot of this on the academic side and the i thought excited i think probably the overarching message would cite your expectations high but be ok with failing and just understand that it's it's ok people that are here prince and have failed and things and i felt in a million things it's really what you do after that and how you recover from that and with the growth you've had from that and i think it's all about you know even in college you know we're still encouraging when we always encourage them to set their expectations high and it's about the growth this is not about the family and the succeeding it's about the growth and i think you can be process oriented person can be a place for you if you're going to be very fixated on results and and the end game it may not happen for you well thank you very much for coming on stream appreciate having me you know so you've been watching the secrets of college blooming