NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

When the research process begins, a lot of student-athletes aren’t looking at the whole picture when they are looking at schools. It’s fairly common for athletes to have unrealistic expectations of where they can attend school and play field hockey. They start their research with the top schools and like what they see. It can be very easy to become stuck on the idea of going to a Division I school after that, but you need to realize that that may not necessarily be the best path for you. There is nothing wrong in aiming high, as long as you are open to all opportunities that come your way.

There are approximately 261 schools in the country that have a field hockey program; there are without a doubt a few schools in there that you’ve never considered as being a good fit for you. Just because you don’t hear about a school all the time or they aren’t a top 10 team, doesn’t mean that it won’t have a strong team or be strong academically. Be open to any school you hear from and don’t rule it out until you have done your research!

When you begin your research, you should start with the school’s website. Read about the school and what it can offer you academically. Then, you want to see what it can provide you athletically. Read the player and coach profiles to see what their backgrounds are and to see how you measure up.  Also, read about past or current seasons to get an indication of the strength of their program. If you like what you see on their website, try to speak with the coach or a student to get a better idea of the school and team. Whenever possible, visit schools so you can see for yourself!

There are a few things that you should consider about the actual program regardless of division, when you are researching and visiting schools:

• Will you have the opportunity to grow and thrive in their program?
• Are you going to have a role on the team that you desire?
• Is the program going to be challenging enough for you?
• Could you see yourself fitting in with the other players on the team?
• Do you like the coaching style?
• When you watched a game, did you think that you would be able to play at their level?

Then there are things you need to consider outside of field hockey:

• Are you going to be receiving the level of education that you want?
• Will the average class size work for you?
• Does the school offer degrees that you are interested in?
• Is the size of the campus too big, too small or just right?
• Are there adequate activities you will be able to get involved in other than field hockey?
• Will you receive the academic support you need?
• Can you really see yourself living in that environment for four years and being happy?

When you research schools, you should ask yourself these questions about each program and school. If you answered mostly “yes,” you are off to a good start; if you answered “no” to the majority of questions, that school may not be the best fit for you. Try not to get too caught up in what division the school is or where your friends are going; this is about you and which school is best for you! The college decision process is not an easy one, but if you do your research the right way, you will have more successful results and a more enjoyable college experience.

Like every sport, field hockey coaches are looking for a certain level of experience with each recruit. If you think you are qualified to play Division I Field Hockey make sure your background includes some of the following:

Division I – Higher level

• High School All-American Team
• High School All-State Honors
• Attends Major Tournaments

                 o Festival

                 o Disney Showcase

                 o National Futures Program

                 o College Connection Recruiting Camp

                 o AAU Junior Olympics

Division I – Lower Level

• High School All-State Honors
• High School All-Region/Conference/Sectional Honors
• Attends Major Tournaments

                 o Festival

                 o Disney Showcase

In order to play at the Division II or III level, coaches are looking for certain experience as well.

Division II and Division III

• High School All-Region/Conference/Sectional Honors
• High School Varsity Starter
• Team travels to tournaments

No matter what level you are looking to play at, coach’s look highly upon club experience. You will gain more experience through a club team and you will play against higher caliber athletes. If you are still unsure of what level you might be best for, take a look at a college roster and see how you compare to the girls who play your position. Most schools will have player bios that will discuss a player’s high school and club background.

College swim programs continue to be on the short end with athletic  budget cuts.  The University of Washington has announced that they will be cutting both the men’s and the women’s swim programs.

Pepperdine had released a statement in February that they were cutting their women’s swim program.  Recently they announced that they will get one final season as outside assistance has been offered to fund the year.

What do you think about the cuts and where the athletic programs need to make some savings?

The College World Series of softball is underway at Oklahoma City where the top eight teams are playing for the championship over the weekend.  If you have it in your dreams to be playing softball at the college level – are you following the games?  There are some great individual stories of the players how they had to overcome odds to make the teams as well as how teams progressed through the season.  There is Georgia who is making their first appearance in the world series with the youngest NCAA D1 team with 10 freshmen players and only two upperclassmen.

There is a great story about the University of Florida, catcher Kristina Hilberth took to get where she is today. She began as a freshman walk-on to now a school record holder in career fielding percentage (.995).  Learn about how she ‘earned and worked’ her way to the starting catcher role.

Don’t miss on supporting and watching the Women’s College World Series games over the weekend and championship early next week.

Be sure to check out what softball teams won the other division championships – NCAA DII, NCAA DIII, NAIA, NJCAA’s. (D1), (DII),  (DIII).

Today’s Wall Street Journal ran an interesting story about Ivy League athletics. As a Yale grad, when I tell people where I attended college their first reaction is always “great school” rather than “great sports”. For decades the Ivy League has maintained its reputation as the best in the world when it comes to, well, almost everything. The Ivy League is number one in every academic field, consistently offers the most aggressive financial aid packages, has world renowned fine arts programs, etc, etc. The Ivy League has built a reputation of dominance and superiority yet they are often regarded as second tier when it comes to athletics. How can such a competitive group of business folk and scholars be okay with not being number one on the playing field?

According to the Journal, the Ivy League accepts they will never be supreme in athletics because they refuse to sacrifice their academic ideals in order to build world class teams.

Why are the Ancient Eight increasingly irrelevant in the most competitive arena of all? The short answer, the long-accepted one, is that they choose to be: that they won’t sacrifice their academic ideals by giving athletic scholarships to athletes. But other factors-like a long-standing ban on postseason football games and the schools’ academic standards for athletes-appear to be dragging the league down.

The Ivy is never going to be the Southeastern Conference-and nobody is suggesting it should be. The schools don’t need the exposure of sports to attract students and alumni donations. But some of the league’s alumni complain that the schools offer their students the best of everything, except in this one area. “Why not give them the same opportunities and the same platform in athletics that you do in academics?” says Marcellus Wiley, a former NFL defensive end who played at Columbia in the 1990s. “I think they should revisit everything.”

I agree with Wiley, not former Harvard president Derek Bok who believes that the Ivies should let this one go. The second shift was the Ivy’s 1981 expulsion from Division I-A, college football’s premier classification, which occurred because larger-conference schools desired greater control over TV-contract negotiations. They voted to restrict I-A membership to schools that had 30,000-seat stadiums or averaged 17,000 in attendance over the previous four years, which not all of the Ivy League schools did. The Ivies didn’t contest the decision.

“It was clear that’s not where the Ivy should be,” says Derek Bok, Harvard’s president at the time who scoffs at the idea that the Ivies must excel in all endeavors, athletics included. “If we have a bit of humility, we have to understand that nobody can be excellent at everything. There’s no reason why, because you’re good at teaching and research, that you have to be good at football. That’s a historical accident, not a necessity.”

Come on. Sure, there must be some areas where the Ivy League can forfeit its superiority but sports should not be one of them. It would not be that hard for the Ivies to make a commitment to producing national contenders and I believe they could do without severely compromising their academic standards.

http://nusports.cstv.com/sports/w-lacros/recaps/052409aab.html

Listening to the Arizona wildcats softball team describe their Nike Athena bat you might think they were discussing steroids.

“It’s like standing on the tee box and having the Tiger Woods driver.”

“It’s definitely going to make you feel better, and that’s half the battle now in athletics.”

“The very first time we swung the bats and hit a little grounder, it was like ‘Wow, I hit that so hard, and I wasn’t even trying.’”

The comments by the players coupled with their dominant performance this season, an NCAA record 134 home runs (50 more than the closest team), have many in the softball community openly wondering if the “Wonder Bat” should be illegal.

Kidding aside many critcs are calling foul.  If so many are upset, wouldn’t the logical conclusion be to create a more uniform stand?  Currently bats must not ball speeds in excess of 98 mph, but perhaps further regualtion is needed to ensure an even playing field.

Then again, maybe not.  Arizona was blanked 3-0 yesterday managing only 3 singles.

As a review, you know the need to market your child in order for her/him to be recruited.  You know that you could do this yourself or you could use an expert.  In either case, you’ll have to invest time and money into the process.  The need for this service is even greater than it was in the 1980′s for several reasons.  Among these are:

1. the cost of college today
2. the even greater restrictions the NCAA has placed on college coaches. 
3. The internet.
4. The accelerating recruiting calendar.
5. The misinformation about recruiting from so called experts like HS coaches, Athletic Directors, and parents who went through it 15-30 years ago.

But whether a family chooses to navigate the recruiting waters by themselves or chooses to hire professional help, they are going to have to spend time and money on this process.  They are also going to have to coach their kids on how to speak to college coaches.  No college coach will offer any student-athlete a college scholarship without knowing that child.   So where do you allocate your marketing dollars?

You could choose to go to a lot of college camps.  As you’ve learned from the 5 things you need to do, your child must be involved with at least 100-200 realistic possibilities.  How many camps will you be able to attend?  Are they the right ones?  How much will they cost including transportation?  What makes you think your child will stand out from others at that camp in a college coach’s eyes?  My child received recruiting interest from 145 college coaches.  She never attended a college camp after the 8^th grade.  We went to one and that was all it took to realize that the camps are money makers for the coaching staff at the school.  Can a kid improve their skills?  Maybe.  But don’t expect to get your child recruited by attending camps.

You could market your child on our own.  You’ll have to research 100-200 realistic college opportunities.  You’ll have to determine if they have roster openings.  You’ll have to get your child’s information in front of that coach.  You’ll have to hope that information is believed and isn’t trashed.  You’ll have to put video together and do it the right way.  I’ve seen college coaches turn video off after 5-10 seconds of viewing.  Would you want that to happen to your child’s video?  You need to update coaches as your child makes progress.  And, Mom and Dad, the most important thing you need to do is to teach your child to be the “front” person with the college coach.  If you are the one calling and writing college coaches on behalf of your child, that raises a huge red flag in the coach’s mind of how serious this is for the child.  A coach will recruit a lesser athlete that is articulate, serious, and a team player over a child who relies on mom and dad to do the talking. 

As you navigate the process, how are you going to advise your child on maximizing his financial aid package?  How are you going to advise him on what happens if a college coach ceases communications?  How are you going to advise her/him on how to make the best choice for them?  All parents want their children to make the best choice.  Empowering a child to make that choice is the best gift a parent can give their child.  Do you want amateurs who have never been through recruiting in the internet age advising your child?  Or do you want a professional, whose expertise is navigating this process and have seen over 25,000 recruiting situations, advising your child?  If you choose to navigate this yourself, you must read this book.

Finally, you could choose professional help.  If you choose a recruiting company, find out the following:

• 1) Are they organized as a franchise? Are you speaking with the franchise owner? How long has the owner owned his franchise/territory? If they are not a franchise organization, what year was the first recruiting class they worked with? (Hint, if 2005 or later, they haven’t been in business long enough to develop an impact with the college coaching community.)
• 2) How are their student-athletes marketed to college coaches? Is it a targeted approach to the right schools? Or, is it a shotgun approach to all colleges? Is 21^st century technology used, or is it still snail mail and faxes? Can you track which college coaches reviewed your child’s resume and video?
• 3) What is that organization’s true relationship with college coaches? If that organization doesn’t attend college coaches’ conventions, do they really have relationships with those college coaches? College coaches are not allowed by the NCAA to endorse recruiting companies. But those coaches do request student-athletes from those companies. Ask to see a list of those college coach requests with dates.
• 4) Who are the partnerships of that recruiting company? Companies who partner with recruiting companies do a lot of due diligence before putting their good name with someone. See who those partners are.
• 5) Find out about the client service after signing up. Find out the contact information and expected response times to your questions.
• 6) Find out about the financial aid advice the recruiting company offers.
• 7) Find out about the standardized test preparation a recruiting company offers.
• 8) Find out how your student-athlete can determine what college coaches are truly interested in your child.
• 9) Find out about what happens if a child suffers a career ending injury and can’t play in college. Do you get your money back?
• 10) Some recruiting companies like to do the “up-sale”. They’ll entice you with a low price and then constantly ask for more money as you move forward. Make sure your recruiting company spells out exactly the service you’re receiving and the time frame that service is available.
• 11) As with all businesses, make sure the company has been in business long enough to ensure that it’ll remain in business. If the company has been in business less than 5 years, be careful.

Doing your due diligence with any decision involving your child is important.  The most important due diligence a parent can help their child with is their college choice.  Getting professional help is a great way to help your child with their college decision.  To choose the right professional help ask those due diligence questions listed above.

Good luck to all of you who have the good fortune to be the parent of a talented student-athlete!

College coaches have a lot of pride.  Why wouldn’t they?  They have the fantastic job of helping educate college student-athletes and make a tremendous impact on the rest of their players’ lives.  However, sometimes this can lead to some recruiting myths.  One huge myth is that coaches “discover” talent on their own and don’t rely on any other sources.  It can be a tough myth to dispel, because a coach typically doesn’t want to acknowledge where he found a recruit.  Indiana basketball coach, Tom Crean, put that myth to rest with a few of his posts today on Twitter.

NCSA aims to provide that exact analysis to college coaches in every sport across the country.

Many times when I talk to football that are nearing the end of the college sports recruiting process I get told that while they haven’t received an offer yet, they are assured by the coach that they remain high on their list.  Word to the wise:  IF YOU HAVEN”T RECEIVED AN OFFER YOU AREN”T HIGH ON THE LIST! That is because coaches  almost always offer more player than they have scholarship slots.  They know they won’t be able to get all of their targets and thus have to cast a wide net.  NCSA resident college football recruiting genius Randy Taylor explains his method to offering players.

It would vary depending on position needs and talent available at the position. At QB for example, you should sign at least one per year. I’d offer no fewer than five each year. I’d say a 5 to 1 ratio minimum is appropriate. If you sign 25 in a class you’d offer about 125 prospects minimum. Some schools offer every prospect they see that can play at their level knowing that the weeding out will take care of itself. They may not be at the highest level of D1 and

Randy Taylor at Minnesota

believe that they have to offer everyone to be able to remain in the running after the top tier schools get theirs. Some staffs believe they want to be the first offer to make an impact so start early, like as sophomores and freshmen.

The shrinking takes care of itself. Some will commit to other schools. When a prospect commits to you, then you determine how secure you feel with this commitment to decide how to handle other offers. If you feel secure you can cut some of the offers loose by telling them you’ve received a commitment and the spot is filled. If you feel secure but love the other player(s) at the position and they’re too good to pass on you keep recruiting them. If you’re insecure about the commitment you continue to recruit the other prospects at the position until you become secure in the commit. It never ceased to amaze me how it usually worked itself out. The bigger problem was not having enough prospects to sign in the end. Having too many was a good thing. You then pressure some of the prospects on the board to commit or you’d move on and the offer was pulled from the table.

There’s a philosophy at many schools that you “sign them all.” Meaning it doesn’t matter if you go over the limit of college athletic scholarships you have to give as that’s better than the alternative of not signing enough. The staff has to then try to get some of the signees to “Gray Shirt” meaning to sit the first semester and attend classes part time to not start your “clock” of 5 years to play 4 until the next semester when they can count the scholarship toward the next class. Or, let the young person know that he/she should find somewhere else to play, very bad PR move but done by some. Or, hope the person doesn’t qualify and the NLI becomes void. The academic issue is often a reason to over sign to have insurance on losing some to academics. The rule relating to over signing doesn’t come into play until the first practice of the next fall or the first day of class depending on sport.

Randy’s explanation shows just how far behind any prospect is who doesn’t have an offer yet.  That raises the question, “Why would they keep telling  a prospect that he remains high on their list, but not offer a scholarship?

So, a coach can get a “free” player aka a walk-on.  My advice to potential recruits is that you don’t have an offer understand that many of your peers already do and get moving!