NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

Recruits need to be very careful of the image they project to both college coaches and to the general public/media.  Some  recruits have taken brand new approaches to communicating with the outside world.  Some athletes have set up Facebook, Twitter and MySpace pages.  One brand new approach came out two weeks ago when Kyrie Irving, one of the nation’s top basketball recruits, took a video chat room on UStream.tv to discuss his recruitment.

This is obviously an extreme example of a recruit communicating with the outside world, but its an important reminder that recruits need to be aware of how they communicate.  Coaches have all eyes on top recruits to see how they interact with their peers, teachers, coaches, and the community.  They also put a ton of stock into how they interact directly with the coaching staff.

In today’s digital world recruits have more opportunities than ever to project themselves to the college recruiting community.  They need to think hard about what they want that image to be.

Hundreds of recruits write emails and notes to NCSA everyday.

The good news?  Almost every email that we receive from prospective recruits is well-intentioned and expresses a sincere desire to continue their athletic career.

The bad news?  Many of these emails are filled with errors, slang terms and incomplete sentences.  Now, everyone understands that spelling and grammar errors are bound to happen to even the best writers (In fact, today I noticed an error in an article of one of my favorite writers who works for a small little publication known as Sports Illustrated).  The reality is that mistakes happen.

However, if these same notes were sent to a college coach, they would jeopardize a recruit’s relationship with that coach.  Remember, that email might be your first impression…how do you want to be remembered?

Let’s look at few notes that NCSA has received in the last  two days  alone from student-athletes:

-i’m a teenager i been played basketball since i was 10 now i’m 16.My dreams is to make it to the nba and i am an follow dreams into it become true,my parent dont have the opportunity to pay college for me.I been wroking hard all my life and i beleive on my self so what i need from you guys it’s a litle help just to make my dreams come true.I know i can be like Micheal Jordan trust me and you will see my name in news as the second best basket ball player in the nba.please just help me go to college.

-Sorry about the impatience with the prior emails, I’m just beyond greatful and excited to have this oppertunity to help further my basketball career. I have received the e-mail pertaining what I should have to be prepared for the conference call with your National Scout. I cannot thank you enough for this oppertunity.

-Just want to see if I can get a free ride. You know what I mean.

-So i can be the best that i can be if u get this letter my name is xxx i just want to colledge to play basket ball my grades are good im going to hold back on my junior year for basketball so i can improve my weight,jumpshot,rebouning but trying to improve everthing but i will play my senior year at XXX school so please get back with me the top 5 colledge i had and mine was Flordia,Duke,Northcarlonia,Usc,Kansas or get drafted from high school please write me back my adress is XXX plaese come see me my senior year im only 16 ywars old my height is 6feet even im still growing my weight is 229 i just trying to take my talent to another level please dont let me down i will be a senior and 1 year school coming back in i will be a junior but just give me 1 year to develop i promise you wont be sorry

Each of these notes have different issues, which we will not focus on since they should be obvious, but all of them share one common problem:  They will NOT make the best impression if they were sent to a college coach.

Here are a six rules to follow when sending letters or emails to college coaches:

Rule One: Do not rush through emails to coaches. If you rush, you are asking for mistakes. Take your time and make sure your email is concise and you have asked any necessary questions.

Rule Two: Have a proper introduction (Dear Coach Jones, Hi Coach Jones) and closing in your emails. Create your own signature that includes your contact information. A good signature not only looks professional, but it also reiterates your contact information to a coach.

Rule Three: Do not use any slang words. You are not having a conversation with a friend or sending a text message; this is a college coach and you should use proper English.

Rule Four: It is always a good idea to refer back to your previous contact with the coach. Make sure you answer any questions they had for you and that you aren’t repeating any information from a past email.

Rule Five: ALWAYS proofread your email. There should be no grammar, spelling or punctuation errors in the email.

Rule Six: Send emails to coaches one at a time.  “CCing” several coaches, or sending a mass email, is not looked upon favorably

Now, let’s take a look at an example of a proper letter / email  to a college coach courtesy of “Athletes Wanted – The Complete Game Plan for Maximizing Athletic Scholarships”

Dear Coach Jones,

As a member of the Eclipse soccer club and a freshman varsity starter at Niles North High School, I am beginning my search for a college soccer program where I can make an immediate impact, as well as further develop my skills and strength.

My goal academically is to pursue a degree in medicine, and I am impressed by the pre-med program that Hiram College offers. I also like the small class sizes and professor-to-student ratio. I currently attend a large high school and am looking forward to a more personalized college education.

I know the process is early, but I’m hoping to be considered for your program. Would you be so kind as to send me information about Hiram and a questionnaire?

Enclosed is my profile. I am in the process of putting together a video, and I will send you a link to my video as soon as it is prepared.

As a heads up, I will be at the Disney Showcase and the Las Vegas Shootout, so hopefully you will be able to see me play. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any questions.

I look forward to continuing the recruitment process with Hiram College.

Sincerely,

Jane Student
#3 Eclipse (blue and white jersey)

The most important idea for recruits to realize is that many of their competitors are sitting back and waiting to be discovered.  We applaud the student-athletes who have taken the initiative and reached out to NCSA or college coaches, even if they had some spelling or grammar errors.   Just take your efforts one step farther and improve your letters and emails by following the six rules above…It might make all the difference.

A FANTASTIC point on college sports excerpted from this week’s TMQ column on ESPN.com.  Greg Easterbrook writes:

Reader James Soukup of St. Paul, Minn., notes Nebraska — which Saturday played in throwback 1962 uniforms, commemorating a 300-game home packed-house streak beginning that year — is up to an “exhausted eligibility” rate of 94 percent, meaning Nebraska athletes don’t quit or become academically ineligible — they stick around till graduation. Boston College, Nebraska, Notre Dame and Wake Forest are among big-money programs that have strong graduation rates for football players; Cal, Florida, Oklahoma and Tennessee have rates they should be ashamed of. Check any NCAA graduation rate here.TMQ maintains that academic success is a matter of expectations — if incoming players are told they are expected to study and graduate, as happens at Nebraska, they respond with academic effort. If incoming players are told they can party and skip class, that’s what they do. Many football-factory schools have all but stopped enforcing academic requirements — the NCAA determines who gets in, schools themselves certify who continues to play — and this has become an issue in recruiting. Recruits are told, “Don’t go to Notre Dame, they make you study there. Come to our school and party.” Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson said last week, “There are many things for which we all can be proud as Nebraska fans, but none that compare to the success that our student-athletes are having academically.” If the AD at Oklahoma (46 percent football graduation rate) said anything like that, he’d be arrested.

That nod to academic in conjunction with athletic success is why NCSA created  our Power Rankings.  The mission of the Power Rankings is to help prospective student athletes and their families evaluate the particular strengths of the top colleges and universities in Division I, II and III level institutions.

Chris Krause, CEO and Founder of NCSA, states, “The Power Rankings are an objective tool to empower student athletes to find the right fit in a college or university not only for its athletics but academics as well. Our hope is to educate these student athletes and their parents on the importance of evaluating schools that will provide the education for an enriched, successful career after college in addition to athletic success.”

NCSA’s Collegiate Power Rankings are calculated by averaging the academic rankings of U.S. News & World Report, the strength of the athletic departments by the United States Sports Academy Director’s Cup and each school’s student-athlete graduate rate.

The top twenty five overall NCSA Collegiate Power Rankings are as follows:

NCSA Power Ranking College or University

1 Williams College

2 Amherst College

3 Middlebury College

4 Stanford University

5 Washington University in St. Louis

6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

7 University of California–San Diego

8 Princeton University

9 Tufts University

10 Johns Hopkins University

11 Duke University

12 Carleton College

12 Harvard University

12 University of Notre Dame

15 Emory University

16 Yale University

17 Bowdoin College

18 Cornell University

19 Haverford College

20 Northwestern University

21 Washington and Lee University

22 Carnegie Mellon University

23 University of Pennsylvania

24 Trinity College

25 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps-McKenna College

I had the opportunity to represent NCSA on a panel discussion on College Admissions at Northridge High School this week. The room was packed with people. Why? Because never has there been a greater need for scholarship money.

While I shared information on the College Athletics Recruiting process, there were Admissions People from big and small Colleges there as well. They had information helpful to athletes as well as young people that aren’t going to College to play sports.

Here are some nuggets that stood out from the people who handle the Admissions process of all students, including athletes:

*Number one! Visit schools! It is about finding the right fit. Go during the week when you can sit in classes and feel the campus buzz. Many High Schools have Teacher Work days where students are off. Go visit Colleges on those days.”

“The internet is amazing in what it can do in the process these days.”

“When talking about a major with a College, ask them their job placement rate in that field.”

“Take the most rigorous classes in high school that you can and still do well in them.”

“The junior year of High School is often a predictor of the freshman year in College. College Admissions Departments don’t want to look at your junior year and see that it resembles a Cubs season or the current Purdue football season (almost winning at Oregon, losing at home to NIU). The junior year shouldn’t be all over the place with ups and downs. Admissions likes to see an upward grade trend in the junior year of High School.”

“The Scholarship money is out there. It’s true that much of it goes unused. You just have to have ways to access it.”

Timing can mean everything in college recruiting.  Obviously, getting your name out early to college coaches can be crucial to finding an athletic scholarship, but many recruits don’t understand how precise the college recruiting time line can be.  Recruits need to be aware that every day in the recruiting process can mean something.  The NCAA’s tightly regulated contact periods create a series of benchmarks that recruits should be meeting or they risk falling behind.

A great example of how precise the timing can be is the first day of in-house visits.  This year top basketball recruit, Josh Selby ,was visited by the UCONN staff at12:01 a.m.  I wonder where he was on the Huskies recruiting board!  Their immediate recruitment of Josh showed the athlete that he was a priority.  What would he have thought if the staff had come the following week?

While its rare that a coaching staff would arrive at a house at midnight, calling a recruit on the fist day phone calls are allowed is an example of a widely practiced recruiting ritual.  Recruits need to know the exact moment different milestones can occur.  They need to know the first day they can receive letters, emails, phone calls, an in-house visit, an official visit offer and many other recruiting milestones.

If a recruit doesn’t know and understand every single recruiting calendar milestone, they face the real possibility of falling behind without even realizing it.

You often hear people complain of being stuck in their dead end job with no room for growth, living a life they had no intention of living, working a job they had no intention of working. These are the people that, while it is easy to feel badly for them, there seems to be more to the story.

“Why aren’t you happy?” you’ll ask, partly for discovery but more so out of sympathy. I’d be willing to guess that more often than not, you’ll hear the same answer from these people.

“I don’t like what I’m doing.”

And therein lies the problem. These are the people who don’t take pride in what they do on a daily basis. These are the people who show up, go through the motions and don’t take the initiative. These are the people who don’t have any passion for what they do. These are not the people at the National Collegiate Scouting Association.

I recently joined the ranks at NCSA and have quickly come to understand the true necessity of a company like it and the passion that it’s employees have for what they do. Finding qualified student athletes for college coaches and working with both sides is a passion of NCSA employees across the board. The focus and determination that NCSA employees once had on the fields, rinks, courts and classrooms has now been channeled into helping high school athletes achieve their goals at the next level.

I have had several conversations with friends in the past few weeks telling them that I was joining NCSA and what it is that NCSA actually does. Many of my friends are former athletes themselves and upon hearing of the services that NCSA provides for high school athletes, their families and college coaches, the overwhelming majority of them all responded the same way.

“Wow, I could have definitely used that during my recruiting process.”

Or lack of a recruiting process for the majority of us. Coming up through junior high, high school and summer traveling baseball, we all knew we wanted to play and assumed it was as easy as picking the school you wanted to attend and filling out the application. But the recruiting process is so much more in depth and the earlier parents and athletes start it, the better off the end result for all parties involved.

The services that NCSA provides for their student-athletes and families are truly invaluable when you understand what the end results are. Picture a student-athlete who has worked hard, both on and off the field, and has also made sacrifices for the love of their sport. This student-athlete has a desire to play at the next level but is also looking further than that, to the point in their life where a solid education will help them achieve the life they want to live. This student-athlete takes all necessary steps in the recruiting process and attends a school that is a perfect fit both academically and athletically.

This is the vision of all athletes, families and coaches that NCSA works with. Just as these athletes work hard in the classroom and during practice and games, NCSA works hard to help these athletes take their game to the next level.

NCSA and its employees are passionate about helping these athletes because we were once in their shoes at some point in time. It is this passion we share, and it’s because of this passion that you’ll never have to ask why we’re not happy with what we’re doing, whether it’s out of slight concern or sympathy.

Over 150 people came out for College Recruiting Simplified at Wheeler High School in Valparaiso, IN this past week.  If you are interested in bring recruiting education to your high school, be sure to contact NCSA!

Athletes of all sports and their parents get educated and inspired at Monroe Central High School near Muncie, IN.

NCSA Senior National Speaker Charlie Adams personally answering questions from parents and athletes after the presentation. Members of the Merrillville H.S. Football team were bussed over after practice to learn more about what it takes to be recruited by College Coaches. Athletes of all sports and their parents were on hand.

Recruits post their information all over the web on an effort to reach college coaches.  Texas Tech Offensive Lineman Brandon Carter provided all of us with a reminder of what not to post on Twitter.  To no ones surprise he has been suspended form the team.

We wanted to give a quick plug for NCSA’s good friend, Tom Lemming, and his new blog. His initial post analyze all of the top talent in this years football recruiting class as well as spotting some rising prospects. You can check out Tom’s blog at http://tomlemming.blogspot.com.

If you are interested in getting analyzed for next year’s book, the first step is to get evaluated by an NCSA Scout.  Contact the NCSA Scouting Center here.

A big congratulations to NCSA alum, Landry Jones.

With his tremendous performance in only his second career start in the absence of Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford, Landry was named AT&T ESPN All-America Player of the Week! Be sure to keep your eye on Landry in the years to come!  Boomer Sooner!