NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

Kevin Laue, 6’10″ center out of California is the most recent basketball commit to the Manhattan College.  However, Kevin’s recruiting story is far from ordinary.  Kevin has managed to put himself in the position to have his college education paid for despite playing basketball with one arm! Despite his disability we was being recruited by several programs until he broke his leg his senior year of high school.

But, Kevin refused to give up and enrolled to basketball at Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia.  While he continued to try to impress college coaches, he ended up catching a big break.  The New York Times wrote an article on his recruiting struggle and suddenly the article  was being circulated among the basketball community.

After Laue was featured in The New York Times last December, Brother Thomas Scanlan, Manhattan’s president, took the article to Rohrssen and asked him to consider recruiting Laue.

Rohrssen said he thought of the former pitcher Jim Abbott, who played 10 seasons in the major leagues despite having no right hand.

“Years later, here I was in a position to help someone achieve their goal of getting a college scholarship and realize their dreams of playing Division I basketball,” Rohrssen said. “In some way, in doing this, it gives Kevin the opportunity to inspire many others.”

Since December, Laue said he had been contacted by about 100 people with similar disabilities. Some had lost limbs; others were born without them. One couple’s newborn daughter has a condition similar to Laue’s, and her parents told Laue he was a source of hope.

“Now that I’m going into a bigger pond, hopefully I can really touch some people,” Laue said. “If I can help anybody, that’s so great. But I also want to focus on playing ball.”

Kevin’s story illustrates the point that many times legitimate athletes are overlooked for reasons outside of their control.   Many times all those athletes need is a little more exposure to find the prefect fit.  Kevin’s unique situation allowed him the chance to gain a Division I scholarship.

However, most athletes will not be featured in the New York Times.  Its up to them to find ways to pro-actively prove to college coaches that they have what it takes to be a collegiate athlete.

Deciding to play College Sports is not a 4 or 5 year decision. It is a 40 or 50 year decision. The impact can be felt for decades.

I recently delivered “College Recruiting Simplified” at the Ecelerate Football Combine in Greensboro, N.C. I struck up a

Henri Fitzgerald

conversation with a man standing at the fence watching the athletes do Combine drills. His name was Henri Fitzgerald. When I found out that he had played College Football, I asked him to share his story.

“Charlie, I played football at Emory and Henry College in Virginia, a Division 3 school,” he said. “My education there was 100% paid for. I owe it all to football.”
Now, Division 3 schools don’t offer athletics scholarships, but there’s a slew of different ways for athletes to get all, a big chunk, or a decent chunk of their education paid for at that level.

“Being involved in community and charity activities in high school really helped me,” he said. “I got the Bonner Foundation scholarship and that opened the door to all kinds of other scholarships. I majored in Political Science and Business Management. I later got my Juris Doctor at Wake Forest. I am now Vice President/Senior Planned Giving Advisor for Wachovia Trust. I do Investment Management for Non Profits. Again, I owe it all to College Football.”

Henri played receiver at Emory and Henry College. Playing College Sports gave him a distinct advantage in the job market over people who were just regular students in College.

“Having that I played College Sports on my resume was very important,” he said. “When I did my job interview with the Senior VP, he noticed that I had been a College Athlete. That’s mainly what we talked about in the interview. The College Athlete brings so many things to the table character-wise.”

ESPN Rise sat down with some of the best athletes in the country to talk about the state of high school sports.  Jelani Jenkins the #11 Prospect in the Takkle/Sports Illustrated Top 200 Rankings powered by NCSA gave some great advice to future recruits.

ESPN RISE: What do you think is the biggest challenge facing high school sports?

Jenkins: I think a lot of high schools should learn how to deal with the recruiting process. I know at that age, kids aren’t really mature. The way my father taught me was to only say the positives about things. A lot of kids, they don’t exactly think about what they say before they say it. I know that’s a problem because a lot of people in the media are trying to make money. If you say something wrong, they’re going to make it the next front-page article. In terms of recruiting, they should have a recruiting specialist on how to deal with recruiting sites. A lot of kids are too trusting.

ESPN RISE: What is one change you’d like to see made to recruiting?

Jenkins: I think that there should be a lot more programs to help with the recruiting process. They could use different programs at different camps. A lot of people pick teams for their uniforms or somebody who had a good year, like a trendy school, rather than look at the big picture like the academics or how they can help you get to the NFL.

Fantastic advice Jelani.  That is exactly why NCSA works with student athletes to help guide them through the College recruiting process. Our joint mission is to travel to high schools and events across the country to educate coaches, athletic directors and families on how the recruiting process works.  Our College Recruiting Simplified Seminars explain the 5 Things every Recruit Need to Know and the 5 Things every Recruit Needs to do. There is a lot of misinformation out there.  NCSA  hopes to close this education gap for all student-athletes.

(Part 1 is here) (Part 2 is here)

There is recruiting help found all over the web.  There are companies who assure everyone that they’ll get your child recruited.  Some are free.  Some are not.  You know the need for help and, as with any service, there are good providers of help and those who aren’t as much help.  To understand the market, it’s best to understand the industry.  The recruiting industry started in the 1980’s when the NCAA started putting restrictions on the number of scholarships available for sports.  These restrictions were caused by 2 main factors:  1) the implementation of Title IX (passed in 1972) that mandated equal opportunities in sports for women.  2)  the NCAA’s desire to create a more level playing field for its member institutions.  To demonstrate the impact consider that in 1972 Coach Johnny Majors at Pitt, in his first year as head football coach, gave full scholarships to over 100 players in that recruiting class.  One of those recruits, Tony Dorsett, led Pitt to the national championship 4 years later.  In order for institutions to be in compliance with Title IX, they had to reduce scholarships in football.  The recruiting impact was that the relationship between HS coaches and college coaches became more distant.  As time went on, the rules restricting contact between college coaches and high school football players became stricter.  (As an aside, trends in football recruiting are duplicated in all other college sports.)  The high school coach had less influence because he couldn’t help as many kids get scholarships – there weren’t that many to be had.  College coaches wanted to feed their families.  In other words, they had to recruit players that would help their program win.  Since they didn’t have as many scholarships, they couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.  Therefore a need developed for college coaches to recruit nationally.  There was an equal need for high school athletes to be introduced to college coaches.  Thus the recruiting service industry was born. 

Those companies evolved as franchise organizations who had a back office that could put recruiting resumes together and mail them to college athletic departments.  They relied on the college athletic department secretary to put the resumes of lots of players from many sports into the correct sport coach’s mail box.  Prior to email and the internet, this was a great way to get a kid’s name in front of a large number of college coaches.  The company found these kids by selling territories or franchises.  A franchise owner qualified because they liked sports and had some money to give to the franchisor or territory salesman.  Some of these owners were really interested in a student-athlete’s success.  Others just wanted to make their investment back and would sign up any kid.  The problem begins when that package put together by the back office is sent to the college athletic department.  To save money in postage, the back office sent hundreds of resumes to every college in the country at one time.  As time wore on, college coaches realized that not all of the resumes they were looking at were of student-athletes qualified for their program.  As such, college coaches began to ignore the resumes.  In time, qualified student-athletes were ignored by colleges because they were packaged with many non-qualified student-athletes.  Still, in spite of this inefficiency, student-athletes received mail in their mailbox from college coaches.  When a student-athlete received a letter from a college coach, parents felt their investment in the recruiting company service was paying off.  But is receiving a letter from a college coach being recruited?

As they still do, in the 1980’s and 90’s, college coaches, depending on the sport, sent out thousands of letters annually.  They are marketing to large numbers in hopes of finding the best few student-athletes for their program.  So even though these student-athletes who used a recruiting service were getting letters, they weren’t getting recruited.  Because of the franchise organization structure, there was no one to advise a student-athlete on what to do with those recruiting letters.  Today, getting letters, emails, contacts from college coaches is an important first step.  A child can’t get recruited without these.  But it’s only 20% of the game.  The other 80% of the game is a child converting those contacts into personal relationships with college coaches, and converting those relationships into scholarship dollars.  And that’s all the responsibility of the student-athlete.  Mom and Dad can’t do that for the child.  The child has to interact with the college coach(es) and convince that coach they are a good fit for that program.  All recruiting services you see on the web will put some letters in your mail box.  But are they from the right schools?  I’ve talked to a kid who used a recruiting company who got letters from Ivy League schools even though he had a 2.4 GPA and an ACT score of 17.  No way that Ivy League school had any interest in that kid.  But the kid thought he was being recruited.  Clearly something had to be done to address what was not being done to help the families.  Among these issues are:  How are parents going to target the right colleges for their child?   How do parents guide their children through this process?  How can parents maximize the scholarship package their child receives?  If parents decide they want help to give their child a competitive advantage, where do they find the best help?

Stay tuned for Part 4 for the answers…..it’s not what you think.

Summer camps are right around the corner for players. A player has to be very careful when selecting camps. As a former player I always made sure that I had adequate rest between my camps. Some players make the mistake of attending week long camps and the day after they are at another camp. You need to rest your body, especially after training for 4 or 5 days straight.

If a player is attending a University camp, they are getting evaluated by the coaching staff. How can you perform your best if your legs feel heavy, your body is sore, and/or you have a minor injury from the camp before? I suggest a player take at least a week off between camps to fully recover. It isn’t the number of camps you can attend; it is how well you perform at them!

Starting in late April through the middle of May, colleges and universities are allowed to visit high schools regarding their football talent for the upcoming high school season. Collegiate football coaches are actually allowed to be in the school of a prospect up to two times during this evaluation period. Once to observe the athlete in some type of workout, combine or spring sport, the other occasion to do academic research on the prospect. The great high school athletes will definitely receive two visits even though the college coach is not supposed to talk to the prospect face to face. Suspect players are lucky to see a college coach at all during this six week period. The college coach is also allowed to call a prospect once during the month of May. A good college recruiter will ask some key questions in this first, and probably most important, conversation with the athlete. The recruiter should have a pretty good idea of how much interest the young man really has in the particular college or university by the time the phone call ends. There is a definite strategy involved in asking just the right questions in order to get just the right answers.

The key to having a good recruiting spring is the preparation before the coach actually “hits the road”. Most college staffs would have evaluated some 1500 plus athletes prior to spring recruiting. Strong recruiters use the April/May time period to confirm or eliminate prospects. Confirm that a player is as good as he looks on film or eliminate the prospect that is less impressive in person or has major academic problems.

In some states like Florida, Georgia, Texas, etc., high schools actually have spring football practice. These states attract a very large number of recruiters who have the opportunity to see the prospects actually perform on the gridiron. It gives the college coach the opportunity to see the player “on the hoof”.

By the time spring recruiting is over and the “in person” evaluation made, the process is then taken to a new dimension. Staffs at this point determine which athletes will continue to be recruited and which will be dropped. It is from this point on that the recruiting player pool is steadily reduced to a manageable number as determined by the specific position needs of the college football program.

Bill Conley worked at Ohio State for 17 years as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator.

The below Washington Post article, written by B.J. Koubaroulis goes into detail about the physical and mental stress that is put on soccer players who feel the pressure to play year-round. Club experience is extremely important to college coaches, but you have to be careful not to take things too far. Your health must always come first.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/20/AR2009052003308.html?hpid=sec-sports

In December of 2008, NorthWood High (IN) Athletic Director Norm Sellers hosted “College Recruiting Simplified.” As an Educational Speaker for NCSA, I was able to educate the families on how to navigate the recruiting trails. The results of the seminars are always positive. Just this past Saturday night a man came up to me. He and his son were in attendance that night back in December. The father said when I looked out at the athletes and made it clear that College coaches are looking for athletes with good grades, it registered with his son.

The presentation that night inspired his son to renew his commitment to the classroom. He was making average grades before the presentation. He now makes straight A’s. There is something about an outside authority coming in and emphasizing academics and character that registers with young people. Parents and teachers can tell them until they are blue in the face, but sometimes it takes someone coming in from the outside for them to really “get it” about academics or being proactive in recruiting.

Another thing that came from that evening was the recruiting success story of Kelcy Heckaman. Kelcy has been a standout soccer player at NorthWood High. After hearing the seminar, the Heckaman’s looked seriously at enrolling in NCSA.

“After Charlie’s presentation,” said her Dad, Jay, “we had the initial talk with the Scout from NCSA. That was probably the most critical and beneficial thing for us. It wasn’t a sales pitch. It was more of ‘what have you got going on?’ and ‘here is what we do.’

“We enrolled,” said Jay, “and took advantage of all the information. The creation of the recruiting profile of her was big. With NCSA we felt we were in a better position to find the right College fit. Within a week we heard from 50 Colleges in the midwest and the east coast and down south. We ended up with over 20 offers.”

Kelcy certainly deserved all the interest. She was a four-year letter winner in both soccer and track at NorthWood and plays her club soccer with FC Indiana. She has been a two-year high school and club captain as well as two-time Academic All-State. She was named to the Northern Lakes Conference 1st team in her senior year with 11 goals and 13 assists, setting a single season assist record for the Panthers. in the process she was also was named team MVP for NorthWood and head coach Phil Ummel. This winter she was named to the 2009 Plex College Combine All-Star team as a midfielder.

“Kelcy is an awesome student,” Jay said. “We were getting bombarded with calls.”

College Coaches will be on smart, athletic kids who can play like ‘white on rice.’

“All the College coaches we spoke with spoke very highly of NCSA,” said Jay. “We learned so much. From our experience, grades were the number one thing College coaches looked for in athletes. One Coach said she ‘looked for smart kids who could learn on the field.’”

The Heckaman’s got a solid Evaluation of Kelcy through NCSA. “We elected not to pursue D1,” said Jay. “We went after D2, D3 and NAIA.”

In the end, although she had offers from schools all over, Kelcy decided to stay close to home and chose prestigious Bethel College in Mishawaka, IN, one of the top NAIA schools in the country. It’s about 45 minutes from her home. Many times kids pick a top quality local College and people might ask why they would need a service like NCSA if they are going to go to a local College. Here’s one reason why:

“NCSA showed us how to leverage other offers and get the best academic and athletic package,” said Jay. “Had we not done NCSA we would have not been able to get as much for her.”

Wow, that didn’t take long!  A major program has already violated NCAA rules by using Twitter inappropriately.  Judging from his offseason it shouldn’t be a surprise that Tennessee’s Lane Kiffin committed the violation by tweeting:  “I was so excited to hear that J.C. Copeland committed to play for the Vols today!”

Coaches are prohibited from commenting on unsigned recruits or publicizing them in any way.  AD Mike Hamilton explained the violation as a mistake by an assistant coach updating Lane’s page.

“It was one of Lane’s personal assistants, and it was his first day on the job,” Hamilton explained. “He posted the message on Lane’s Twitter account without asking compliance. It was an inadvertent error, but it’s still a violation and one of those things where you’ve got to know what the deal is. We’ll report it.”

I believe the minor violation will have a few consequences.  One, each coach on a staff will have his own Twitter page to contact recruits.  Two, coaches will be more careful than ever to use the social media service to direct message specific recruits (think email/text message), and keep the rest of their public updates more general.

There will be a few stumbles as this story show, but I believe it will soon be an indispensable tool for coaches and recruits to communicate simply and directly.

Follow NCSA and ESPN RISE at the 2009 Nike Combine Events across America.  NCSA is the official recruting education partner of the events.  Potential recruits across the country competed for the very best SPARQ scores and took the time to learn about what they need to do to get recruited.