[Breeze]

Bear College Update - Carson-Newman University

Bear said the trip was terribly disorganized. We got there about a half hour late (which we knew we would, and we told the coach ahead of time), but by being late, Bear ended up not having a host initially and ended up sitting with the coaches for lunch. Then he did the tour, which he said was fine. The facilities were pretty nice and the campus is pretty compact.

Then they watched the team's inter-squad meet. Which Bear said was odd, because there was no familiarity with the teams, so there was at best casual interest. Making matters worse, the recruits were placed in the stands a hour and a half before the start of the meet, which itself ran a couple of hours.

Then the recruits hung out with the team. They did some gaming, and then played a bunch of made up stuff around pool or table tennis. Interestingly, Bear's host ended up being a former Gold swimmer, who Bear roomed with during one of the travel meets in Pensacola.

The next day the recruits got up early to watch another practice before eating breakfast.

Overall, Bear wasn't terribly impressed. He has basically eliminated them from consideration, unless he finds that they are significantly more affordable than his other options, which is possible. They expect he'll max out the academic money and they were willing to give him athletic money as well, albeit less than I anticipated. However, they did mention that they didn't lose much from last years team, so they don't have a lot of money to work with. Plus, with him maxing out the academic side of things, I expect they low balled him a bit knowing the academic was going to make up the difference. They did admit that if he's making A finals or if he gets National Championship cuts that they would increase his scholarship.

Visit Score: 73