NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

The biggest news out of the NCAA last week was undoubtedly the passing of NCAA President Myles Brand.  Myles will ultimately be remembered for two main actions; The Firing of Bobby Knight at Indiana University and Academic Reform at the NCAA.

I was actually a student at Indiana during his firing of Coach Knight and participated in the rallies around campus calling for the immediate removal of Brand.  I was also later given the opportunity to join Myles during his office hours to discuss some of his public remarks at the National Press Club following the firing of Coach Knight.  At the time I was extremely surprised by several of his answers (he even admitted that he had never read A Season on the Brink), but after working in college athletics for the last few years I have had a front row seat for many of the reforms he mentioned that day.

Mr. Brand deserves a large hand for the academic reforms he implemented.  He also deserves to be remembered for those reforms rather than for his firing of Coach Knight (and that is not easy for IU alum who believes he destroyed both our football and basketball programs to admit).  Hats off to an educator and reformer.

With the recruiting timetable speeding up every single year, most top recruits receive several scholarship offers well before their Senior Year begins.  This means that many recruits are committing to schools before they are even allowed to officially visit campus.  The Unofficial Visit has essentially replaced the Official Visit as a main tool for recruits to make their decisions.  Unfortunately, this means that recruits are forced to find the money to take these important trips.

Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples profiles Sharrif Floyd’s recruiting journey and how he has struggled to foot the bill.

This summer, Floyd used his flight to Orlando, Fla., for Football University’s Top Gun Camp as a jumping-off point for several unofficial visits. George Washington coach Ron Cohen drove Floyd to several schools in the Sunshine State. Before he left the South, Floyd flew alone to Columbia, S.C., to visit South Carolina. Then, a friend of his coach drove Floyd to Athens, Ga., to visit Georgia.

The trips stretched Floyd’s finances to the limit, but he wanted to see what opportunities lay beyond driving distance of his home, and he worried that if he didn’t take the unofficial visits, schools might lose interest. Athletic departments could help players such as Floyd by lobbying the NCAA to allow earlier official visits, but they elect not to.

Every year, coaches whine that the recruiting process is speeding up too much. They complain that they don’t have time to get to know the players and make informed decisions. They bemoan each new spate of early commitments, yet they take commitments earlier and earlier every year.

The NCAA doesn’t allow players to take official visits until the start of their senior year of high school. By Labor Day weekend — the first weekend most high schoolers would be allowed to take an official visit — the members of the current Associated Press top 25 had an average of 15.1 publicly committed players, according to data obtained from Rivals.com. NCAA rules allow schools to bring in a maximum of 25 scholarship football players each year.

It may take some creative budgeting, but finding ways to take unofficial visits is a key part of the recruiting process.  However, many times recruits “waste” their resources on schools that aren’t truly interested.  That’s where services like NCSA can be so valuable to recruits.  By helping recruits understand and gauge who truly has interest they can plan which unofficial visits they should prioritize.

One of the first things that we teach our student-athletes at NCSA is to be as personal as possible in all their correspondence with college coaches. Whether it involves writing a letter or email, making a call, or taking a visit, the message is clear: do your research and personalize your approach.

We know how much recruiting information is sent to your office as coaches and most likely it all looks pretty similar. Our goal is to teach our recruits how to stand out.

What we have realized is that the same principle applies the other way around. Your recruiting will improve exponentially if you can find a way to differentiate your recruiting materials.

I was recently speaking with a recruit in the class of 2011. As you all know, September 1st was an important date in the recruiting process for this young lady. We were discussing the correspondence that she received and she seemed excited to have heard from some great Division I programs, but a little turned off by their content. I asked her to send me a few examples and she forwarded me the two emails I mentioned earlier (copied again below):

Email 1

(Name of athlete has been removed) – If our computer delivers what it promises, you should receive this email right around 12:00am! And if you’re reading this the moment it arrives: why aren’t you in bed? It’s finally here! September 1st!!! We’ve been waiting for the day when we can finally start communicating directly with you and now it’s here! We’re looking forward to getting you lots of information about the University of XXX and our program over the next few months.

I thought this was a pretty good email at first. Its casual, friendly, and timely. Until she sent me her next email:

Email 2

(Name of athlete has been removed), HELLO FROM XXX UNIVERSITY! If I did this correctly, I’m hoping this is the first email you’re receiving on September 1st. If you are reading this at 12:01 a.m. on September 1st, it should be a school night, WHY AREN?T YOU IN BED? haha. Since you may not know a lot about XXX University, I just wanted to list a few quick facts as to why XXX is the perfect fit for you.

Look similar? Despite a few subtle differences, it’s almost the exact same email with the same message.

While there is certainly nothing wrong with either email, if you were this particular recruit, how would you feel? We certainly do not expect every single one of your emails and letters to be personalized down to the sentence, but when they are almost the exact same as another University’s, it becomes more apparent that thousands of other recruits received the exact same letter.

The point is that every email counts and first impressions mean a great deal. How much of an advantage would the schools that sent something different have?

Click Here to learn how you can use NCSA to personalize your efforts.

As many of you know, the tool that NCSA uses to deliver qualified prospects to your inbox for free is the “Scouting Report.” When we designed the Scouting Report, our goal was to include everything a college coach might need to effectively pursue a student-athlete and stand out from all the other coaches.

What does the Scouting Report Include? Videos, personal info, stat info, scholastic info, athletic history, club and camp info, transcripts, personal statements, references and schedules…. Almost Everything!

Using the Scouting Report you could:

- Customize your message based around a personal statement from the recruit about what they are looking for in a school…and you can tell them how your school fits their preferences!

- Congratulate a prospect for earning an A in calculus last semester

- Reference the name of the high school coach and ask the coach to contact you personally

- Use the recruit’s parents names to see how they are doing and show a higher level of personalization

- Collect valuable contact information for future recruiting efforts (phone numbers, email addresses, etc)

- Comment on the second play of their higlight video and how you loved their footwork!

The list goes on and on…Below is an image of different parts of the Scouting Report:

Below we have included a few “samples” of example NCSA Scouting Reports filled with fake information to protect the private information contained in each Report. If you are unfamiliar with this tool, check out a few examples and find out how you can use them to personalize your message.

Basketball Example

Football Example

Soccer Example

In order to learn more about how NCSA can help you with recruiting, contact NCSA!

Myles Brand, president of the NCAA, died today after a 9 month battle with pancreatic cancer. Mr. Brand tirelessly worked for the student-athlete by instituting the APR, Academic Progress Rate, that holds college athletic teams accountable for the academic progress of the student-athletes in their charge.  The number one priority in playing college sports is to earn a college degree.  Mr. Brand’s efforts in developing standards and holding institutions accountable means that college coaches are recruiting kids as much for their grades as their athletic skills.

Sports support a lot of different themes.  Competition, teamwork, hard work and countless others are often mentioned when talking about the virtues of sport.  One of the themes that is rearely mentioned these days is sports ability to bring together different types of people.  Traditionally this has meant race.  A small school in California is receiving attention for its different offensive approach to compete against larger schools given its unique student body.  If you are a high school football fan, you’ve probably already guessed I’m discussing the A-11, the innovative offense in which all 11 players are eligible to catch passes.  The difference between this school and the countless others that are experimenting with the offense is the players on this team are deaf.

The California School for the Deaf are running the extremely technical scheme this season despite the obvious difficulty in running a sophisticated passing offense with deaf players.  The initial results have been impressive.  Last week CSD won 33-0 and as a follow up its JV team won for the first time in four years.

“Really, practice reps are the key,” said Coach Kevin Bella. “Piedmont is an advanced version of the A-11 with all of their shifts. We didn’t get into as much of the shifting as they do. We shifted quite a bit for us, and we would communicate plays through sign language. Because we’re using sign language, the opposing players didn’t really understand what we were talking about. But we also had the plays on wristbands.”

Just another example of sports bringing out the best in people.

****NCSA will be broadcasting an A-11 Game Every Friday Night!****

For most student-athletes, their goal in the recruiting process is to find the best possible academic institution that will allow them to pursue their athletic career at the highest level and graduate with a degree.  In order to provide recruits with a comprehensive tool to evaluate those three factors, NCSA produced the Collegiate Power Rankings.

To learn which schools made the Top 100 in the 2009 Power Rankings, click here.

The Power Rankings have been a very helpful tool for student-athletes in the recruiting process at all ages.

Research and Targeting

For young recruits, the Power Rankings can be a valuable tool to focus their researching and targeting efforts regarding which schools might be the right fit.  The first thing each recruit should do is receive an object evaluation of which Division level fits them best in order to narrow their search to the proper level(s) of play.  Once they have done that, the Power Rankings can be helpful in targeting the best possible options that they could contact in that Division.  Remember, most recruits need to contact at least 100-200 colleges to receive a desired return and the Power Rankings only list the top 100 in each division– so don’t limit yourself!

It is critical for recruits to begin the process of researching and targeting colleges early!  Keep in mind that the top programs begin identifying prospects and putting together their recruiting lists as early as freshmen year.  The first step in that process usually involves filling out a basic questionnaire.

<<Recruiting Fact from Athletes Wanted – The Complete Game Plan for Maximizing Athletic Scholarships:  If a student has not received admission material, brochures, or a questionnaire from a particular college by the end of their freshmen year, one of two things is happening: 1)the coach does not know about the student-athlete; or 2) the student-athlete has not met the minimum standards for that school.  An athlete should assume that the coach does not know about them, and initiate correspondence immediately by requesting a questionnaire. <<

What if a recruit has not received a questionnaire from a school they have interest in?  Simple:  Questionnaires can often be obtained from the university’s website, or the student-athlete can place a call or send an email to the coach requesting one.

Evaluation and Comparison

For recruits that are already hearing from dozens to hundreds of college coaches, there are many factors to consider when comparing their options.  The Power Rankings can be a helpful initial tool to compare universities across important categories such as academic ranking and graduation rate.  While specific major information and individual sport graduation rates for each school both require more in depth research, the Power Rankings might help those recruits who are looking for a quick way to cross some programs off their list. 

Since many recruits who have reached the stage of crossing schools off their list are hearing from plenty of college coaches and have done considerable work on the “5 things they need to do,” building relationships and communicating with coaches will be the most important part of the process. 

This part of the recruiting process includes more advanced steps such as:

• Talking with college coaches on the phone
• Creating and sending recruiting videos
• Unofficial visits
• Official visits

What do you think of this year’s Power Rankings?  Where does your school stack up!

One of my favorite bloggers Bethlehem Shoals of Free Darko and The Baseline wrote an extremely interesting post about he modern prep athlete.  He takes the position that since athletes are identified younger and younger, the chances they don’t pay attention on school and don’t develop as a person increase.

But as kids are scouted younger and younger and identified earlier and earlier as potential fodder for organized basketball—and possible pros—you have to wonder if so-called “dumb jocks” have no choice but to play, or are manufactured by a system that plucks them out early and pigeonholes them for life.

The depressing part, of course, is that many kids might never find themselves in a position to go places in life if they did express some other interest. There’s a reason why basketball, despite the long, long odds involved, has been mythologized as a “way out.” In many neighborhoods, other aspirations just don’t present opportunities in as focused a way.

Shoals has an interesting point, but he also fails to consider how many other athletes academic and eventually professional lives are enhanced by athletics.  Perhaps the very top 0.1% fall more into the trap he described than before, but many other elite-athletes are forced to pay attention to grades more than ever before.  An increase in NCAA core courses and the enhanced attention to a recruit’s character have caused coaches to scrutinize over grades more than they have in years.

Are you looking past Division II programs? Are you considering playing at a DII program? Are you hearing from DII coaches? Well, I think you should watch the following video about what Division II programs are about and what their plans are for the development of Division II colleges and universities on and off the field.

We realize that given the state of the economy, many college  coaches and athletic programs are facing drastically reduced recruiting budgets. In an effort to help, we are offering college coaches free opportunities to  market their program.

In the last few months, coaches at every Division level have taken advantage of different ways that they can reach out to thousands of recruits in unique ways through NCSA.  Whether it be leading a conference call with dozens of recruits around the country and talking about their school or writing for the NSCA Newsletter that is read by more than 200,000 prospects and parents each week, many of your peers are beginning to explore different ways that they can take advantage of NCSA’s network.

If you would like to find out how you can market your program to verified and targeted recruits, simply email NCSA’s VP of Recruiting Operations, Lisa Strasman, at lstrasman@ncsasports.org or call (312) 624-7407.