Program stability · 4 min read
Do players actually stay in that program?
High turnover can mean playing time is available. It can also mean people leave unhappy. The number is worth knowing before you commit four years to it.
What retention is
Season over season, how many players on a roster are still on it the following year. We can publish it honestly for 1,701 programs — the ones where we hold two comparable seasons — and we say nothing for the rest rather than estimating.
It cuts both ways, deliberately
A program losing a third of its squad every year has minutes to give. It may also have a coach players do not want to play for. Retention will not tell you which, and neither will we. What it does is tell you the question to ask on a visit, which is more than a brochure will do.
Ask it out loud
The most useful version of this fact is a question to a current player, not a number on a screen: how many of last year's team came back, and why did the ones who left go. A coach's answer and a player's answer to that question are sometimes different, and the difference is the information.
Sources
Figures attributed to Startline are counted from the data we hold and update when it does. Recruiting rules change — check anything dated against the governing body itself.