armchair
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The college sports biz can be tough on student athletes--and Amy Neal is an example. Neal would have been a senior Vol soccer player this coming fall--but she has decided to transfer. It is awful for someone to spend three years at a university, playing and giving an awfully good account of himself/herself as a player and person, only to transfer and play your final season, and graduate, from a different school.
That is tough, and especially for Neal, who played her heart out for the Vols for three years and who was the soccer team's leading scorer two years ago. The New Mexico native was not highly recruited, I don't think, and not the most technical of players, but is an excellent athlete and made the most of her considerable abilities as a forward. It was fun to watch her play and compete.
Why transfer? Don't know--there has been no announcement. My guess, and it's only that, is that she was told that her playing time would diminish next year, what with a lot of good young players on the team AND with Hannah Wilkinson coming back at forward next year. Scholarship money might also have been an issue. Maybe it was something unrelated to soccer, but those seem the most likely reasons.
(We can only hope that, after Neal leaves, that Wilkinson does not /yet again/ develop knee problems, as she has in each of the last three seasons. Wilkinson is an asset when healthy--but she's never healthy.)
Transfers are a fact of life in college athletics--kids want to play, and who doesn't respect that--but they typically take place after one's freshman season, or in some cases after a junior season. They rarely occur prior to a senior season, though I think Aaron Parry did the same thing last year or the year before--transferred to West Virginia (but I don't think that worked out). In any case, what the reason and wherever she lands, best wishes to Neal.
That is tough, and especially for Neal, who played her heart out for the Vols for three years and who was the soccer team's leading scorer two years ago. The New Mexico native was not highly recruited, I don't think, and not the most technical of players, but is an excellent athlete and made the most of her considerable abilities as a forward. It was fun to watch her play and compete.
Why transfer? Don't know--there has been no announcement. My guess, and it's only that, is that she was told that her playing time would diminish next year, what with a lot of good young players on the team AND with Hannah Wilkinson coming back at forward next year. Scholarship money might also have been an issue. Maybe it was something unrelated to soccer, but those seem the most likely reasons.
(We can only hope that, after Neal leaves, that Wilkinson does not /yet again/ develop knee problems, as she has in each of the last three seasons. Wilkinson is an asset when healthy--but she's never healthy.)
Transfers are a fact of life in college athletics--kids want to play, and who doesn't respect that--but they typically take place after one's freshman season, or in some cases after a junior season. They rarely occur prior to a senior season, though I think Aaron Parry did the same thing last year or the year before--transferred to West Virginia (but I don't think that worked out). In any case, what the reason and wherever she lands, best wishes to Neal.
