At 5'7", Mike Emerick is not your typical volleyball player. With the dimunitive stature of a prep football kicker, he chose to play sport where a premium is given on one physical characteristic.
"They like height," said Emerick.
Since no pill or creme could help Emerick shake his "Little Mike" nickname and help him grow taller, he knew that in order to get to the collegiate level, he would have to outwork everyone else.
Which he did, working with strength and speed trainers in prepartation for a collegiate career. When Mike arrived at Lindenwood University in the fall of 2006, he may have been the team's best athlete.
But after his freshman year, a year where he saw little playing time, all of that hard work and training had yet to gain the notice of his coaches.
So when told the team had a new recruit coming in who could do all the things Mike could do, only the kid stood several inches taller, Mike started to reconsider his decision to attend Lindenwood. He decided to redshirt his sophomore year, which allows a collegiate student athlete to sit a year out.
"(Coach) wasn't giving me a shot," said Emerick about Lindenwood head coach Ron Young. "If you outperform a player, you should earn the spot," referring to workouts and practices where Mike clearly believed he had played better than some of his teammates.
Let's take a step back from this story and examine the larger issue. How did things get to this point? First off, it's apparent Mike and his coach didn't have a regular line of dialogue.
"Know your coach," says Jack Renkens, founder of Recruiting Realities and a former college coach. "This relationship can determine the success or failure of your career."
One other reality that confronted Mike is one that every student-athlete faces at the collegiate level. When a college is providing a scholarship for you to play a sport- as Lindenwood was with Mike- they expect a return on that investment. Coaches jobs are to win, period. And because of these economics, there is always another recruit coming in to take your spot.
Basically, watch your back.
COMING WEDNESDAY: MIKE REVEALS HIS POKER FACE
Keywords: Jack Renkens, Lindenwood Unversity, Mike Emerick, prep football, Recruiting Realities, Ron Young, scholarship, student-athlete
