April 17, 2004
StudentSports.com
Chris Krause a 6-2, 220-pound linebacker out of North Chicago, received over a 150 letters from top colleges around the nation to play at their institutions. However, he wasn't sure how to answer those letters or what questions to ask if he tried to contact any of the coaches. So he put it off and waited for them to contact him. He soon figured out that they weren't going to seek him out and that he needed to step up and sell himself both as a student and as an athlete. "The lesson I learned was that you must sell yourself," Krause told the Chicago Sun. "You can't sit around and wait for colleges to contact you. You must market yourself, academically and athletically. And you must be realistic about how good you are and where you can play." Krause did market himself and earned a scholarship to Vanderbilt University where he majored in Human Resources. After an internship at a managing consultant firm he traveled to California where he met Preston Denard, formerly of the Los Angeles Rams. Denard was helping student athletes get financial aid to further their form education. "I went through it myself," explains Krause. "There were a lot of mistakes that I made when I was going through the recruiting process and I realized that this was a problem, so there I was at 23 realizing that what Denard was doing was something that I could've used; so I took his concept and brought a franchise of that company to Chicago." Twelve years later Krause has helped over 1000 student-athletes earn more than $50 million in financial and in April of 2000 he founded the National Collegiate Scouting Association (NCSA) where he hopes to reach top student-athletes nationally and make sure they have the best opportunity when it comes to selecting a college. "The NCSA has been designed to work with top studentathletes who have the academic and athletic ability to play at the next level, explains Krause. The NCSA does a few things to help the student-athlete taking part in the program; first, it educates student-athlete over the whole recruiting process, what it entails, what he or she should know about the rules and procedures and to explain to each student-athlete how the funding system works with grants, financial aid an scholarships. Second, it gives the student-athlete exposure to all the colleges where he or she can realistically play at by sending out customized profiles for each individual that highlights them athletically and academically, along with references from teachers and coaches that are update every season. Third, it gives the student-athletes guidance to help them manage contacts such as colleges and recruiters and how to respond to the coaches to ultimately find the best place for each individual.
The NCSA offers a web site ( www.ncsasports.org) that gives visitors a chance to link to all the colleges, and also links to ACT score help, financial aid status and links to find out opportunities in all of the 26 sanctioned NCAA sports. "We can get these kids into college when they might not have gone," tells Krause. "To give kids a chance for a better education is extremely rewarding."
