Our soccer recruiting class of 2011 is quite completed, at this time, with the final addition of a senior from the International High School in Indianapolis, Liam Killick, who helms from South London, England.

I met Liam's mother yesterday, a very nice, soft spoken lady who traveled to Crawfordsville from London last Sunday to see what kind of "deal" this Wabash College was that her friends and Liam's American family host kept talking about with so much emphasis and affection.

I was very much impressed by something that she said, something that made me think very deeply about the reasons why parents should entrust us with four years of their sons' lives.

Simply put, Mrs. Killick said that she "...had to take a leap of faith," trusting her gut feeling and what everyone associated with Wabash - alumni, admission counselors, coaching staff, etc. - kept saying about the way Liam's life would change as a result of his Wabash education, the College's academic, cultural, and social mission, its philosophy, the special connection with the school, other fellow students, and the sense of brotherhood across general and individual interests.

I always trust my gut, and I was glad that Mrs. Killick did the same, but taking a leap of faith goes much further than where your inside voices may tell you to go.  It means putting, as a parent, the well being and the future of the most precious person in the world, one's son, into the hands of an institution, its faculty and staff, its administrators, and its students, with the hope that what one has heard, felt, and seen as a visitor will really happen and impact a person the way a parent can only hope they will.

That's the position of a parent who has not experienced Wabash from within, but only trusted the people who hold Wabash so dear to their hearts. The parents who take a leap of faith for their freshman sons.

A leap of faith only for one year because twelve months later, when their sons enter the third semester, the same parents will be the ones joining the multitude of Wabash believers and speaking about our school from within, from experience, and from what they have witnessed in a very intimate way, the growth of their sons as smarter students, caring human beings, and mostly as men.

We are here to help you take the leap. We are sure that the following year, you will be the ones helping us as we motivate new families to take their leap of faith.

So, our message to Mrs. Killick and to other parents out there, is this: "Thank you for trusting us with your sons. We will nurture them for four years and return them to you as men, real men, Wabash Men!"

Your leap of faith is the best investment in your sons' future you can ever make. Trust us, we have seen it, over and over again ... since 1832!

WE ARE ...WABASH!