The highlight reel is only half the story

What college Instagram accounts don't show you (and why it matters more than championship photos)

I heard a quote recently that stopped me cold: “The highlight reel is only half the story.”

My first thought was about recruiting from a coach’s perspective. A player can look incredible in a three-minute highlight video, but what are they like over a full game? How do they respond to mistakes? Do they work when their team is losing?

But the quote from Gwynedd Mercy athletic director Keith Mondillo wasn’t about coaches evaluating players.

It was about players evaluating programs.

Gen Z and Gen A understand social media better than anyone. You know Instagram is curated. You know that people only post their best moments. However, knowing something intellectually and feeling it emotionally are two distinct experiences.

Even coaches fall into the trap of getting too excited about a player based on a highlight reel. And it’s just as easy for recruits to get swept up in a program’s highlight moments.

But you shouldn’t make four-year decisions based on 30-second reels.

What you see vs what you get

Scroll through any college field hockey program’s Instagram.

You’ll see cool skills, heartfelt interviews, cute feature pieces, smiling players, and that perfectly joyful moment right after scoring a goal.

You’ll see the coach giving an inspiring speech. The team dinner at the nice restaurant. The senior day tears. The conference championship trophy.

All real moments. All genuine highlights.

But they’re just that - highlights.

What you don’t see is Tuesday at 6am when everyone’s still exhausted from the weekend games, but they have to go lift anyway.

You don’t see the player who’s struggling academically because she missed three classes for travel and now has to choose between sleep and studying.

You don’t see the conversation in the coach’s office when someone’s playing time gets cut, and they’re devastated, but have to smile and nod.

You don’t see the mental fatigue of being “on” for 20+ hours a week while your non-athlete friends are just... being college students.

The highlight reel shows you the reward. It doesn’t show you the work required to earn it.

The Instagram vs Reality gap

Here’s what college athletics actually looks like on a random Tuesday in October:

Your alarm goes off at 5:15am for 6am lift. Summer feels like a distant memory; it’s chilly outside, and you haven’t had coffee yet.

You have three classes, but you’ll miss one for treatment with the trainer because your ankle has been bothering you since last week.

You eat lunch during your only free hour while trying to finish the reading you couldn’t do on Sunday night because you got back from the away game at 11pm and had to shower and do laundry.

You have two hours of practice where the coach is frustrated because the team is 4-6 and the conference tournament is slipping away. The energy is tense, not always fun.

You eat dinner after practice. Your friends are begging you to hang, but you’re exhausted and have a paper due tomorrow that you haven’t started.

You finally get to bed at midnight after cramming, knowing you’ll have to do it all again tomorrow.

That’s not a bad day. That’s a Tuesday.

The privilege and the price

It’s absolutely a privilege to be among the small percentage of high school athletes who get to compete at the college level.

It’s also relentlessly demanding in ways that highlight reels can’t capture.

You’ll miss things. Parties your friends are at. Fall break trips. Lazy Sunday mornings. The freedom to just be spontaneous.

You’ll be tired in ways you’ve never been tired. Physically from training. Mentally from the pressure. Emotionally from being constantly evaluated.

You’ll have days when you question whether it’s worth it.

And then you’ll have moments - maybe not as many as the Instagram posts suggest, but they’ll come - when you remember exactly why you chose this path.

The key is going in with eyes wide open about both sides of that equation.

The question for you

Before you make your commitment, ask yourself this:

If you stripped away all the highlight reel moments - the championships, the recognition, the Instagram posts - would you still choose this path?

If the answer is yes, you’re choosing for the right reasons.

If the answer is no, you might want to dig deeper into what the other half of the story actually looks like.

Because that’s the half you’ll be living.

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Thursday’s premium newsletter: The questions that get past the sales pitch - how to evaluate coaching style, team culture, and program support when the cameras aren’t rolling.