NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

NCSA Recruiting Expert Paul Putnam

Learn how to bring a recruiting expert to your high school!

As a college coach there are many steps you can take toward becoming more knowledgeable about the financial aid process at your school. This will help recruits better understand the types of aid your school can offer and will allow you the opportunity to be an advocate for your recruits.

One important step is to know your school’s different types of financial aid awards. Meet with someone on the Financial Aid staff to begin building a list of each type of grant your school offers, how much can be awarded to a student, and what the qualifications are to become eligible for that grant. The more information you have, the better you can begin building the potential financial aid award for the students you are recruiting. These different grants can be things like a $10,000 Presidential Scholarship given to students with a 3.2 GPA or higher or a $5,000 grant for students intending to major in Elementary Education. There are countless possibilities and the more information you can provide to families, the better they will feel about the opportunity at your school to receive funding.

Another important financial aid topic to get better educated about is the appeals process. Not many coaches know how to guide a family through making a financial aid appeal. Sometimes the award letter does not cover as much as a family would like and they may be interested in appealing that decision to see if any additional aid is available. You can be a huge help to families as a coach by knowing how your school prefers to receive appeals, what types of information they take into consideration, and typically how long the turnaround time for a decision may be. By talking with a member of the Financial Aid Office staff you can find out if your school prefers a written request, or if and email or phone call will suffice. Ask too, if there are any circumstances such as offers from other schools, decreased expected income, or medical expenses that your school will consider when determining how much to award a family appealing their financial aid award. Although you may not go through this process with every family, this can be valuable help for those who may be just a couple thousand dollars away from feeling comfortable accepting your school’s offer.

Learn more about other ways that NCSA can help college coaches recruit Nationally, Cheaper, Smarter and As a Team

You can’t be a flash in the pan to win an NCAA record 903 basketball games.  It takes a consistent thought out approach to coaching and managing an entire program.   Philadelphia University’s Herb Magee won an incredible 71% of his games over 43 years, but many of those who know him comment on the man’s personality rather than his X & O’s.

“It’s about building relationships with players,” longtime assistant coach Dick DeLaney said. “I saw Herb do that and tried to do that myself. It’s not a program unless you build and mold your players in every aspect of their college careers on the court, off of it, and in the classroom. You must take an interest in their lives.”

That same philosophy was evident in the way he recruited student-athletes.  Almost every player who spent 4 years on campus walked out with a diploma.

“It’s about building relationships with players,” longtime assistant coach Dick DeLaney said. “I saw Herb do that and tried to do that myself. It’s not a program unless you build and mold your players in every aspect of their college careers on the court, off of it, and in the classroom. You must take an interest in their lives.”

“When we recruit a kid, we make sure he can be successful academically,” Magee said. “We look at everything about him, how he interacts with his teammates, his coaches, the opposing players, the fans, and even the referees.”

“I can count three, maybe four guys we’ve had to dismiss from the program because they didn’t want to commit to their teammates and their university. I’d like to think I’ve been good at evaluating personalities.”

There has been a lot of attention Herb Magee, the head coach of Philadelphia University, who just passed Coach Bobby Knight to become the all-winningest coach in NCAA men’s basketball history.  However, Coach Magee still trails Northern State’s Don Meyer and his 922 wins between the NAIA and the NCAA.  His incredible story proves that sometimes the greatest stories in college sports don’t happen on national TV at the Division I level.

Coach Taylor – Can an athlete and college coach correspond with one another or talk following an event like a tournament without breaking the NCAA rules if the athlete is not yet in high school?

Technically – Yes…but discussing “recruiting” would be looked upon unfavorably by the NCAA. 

College coaches are in fact allowed to talk to prospects that are not yet in high school.  Since the student athlete is not considered an official prospect by the NCAA until they start high school, the college coach might not be breaking any rules.

*One exception does exist in Men’s Basketball.  The NCAA recently declared that 7th and 8th graders are now defined as prospective athletes, a move designed to prevent overeager college coaches from recruiting them.

Although, the college coach might not be “technically” breaking a specific NCAA rule, this is a gray area in many ways.  It would be highly inappropriate for a college coach to proactively recruit an athlete in 7th or 8th grade similar to the way they do with juniors and seniors in high school.  However, if they were to run into an athlete at a tournament, a casual conversation unrelated to recruiting would not be a direct “violation.”

Send your recruiting questions to askcoachtaylor@ncsasports.org

If you would like to speak with a NCSA Recruiting Coordinator about your personal recruiting situation, call 866-579-6272.

Ask Coach Taylor – Can you explain the transfer rules?  They are a nightmare to understand!

Transferring is difficult process to understand.  Unfortunately, many of the answers depend on the situation. 

Over the next two weeks I will give some generic information about transferring.  This week I will explain the different types of transfers:

What determines if a recruit is a transfer?

If a recruit was ever enrolled full-time in a 2 or 4 year school, ever went to practice, practiced or played while they were enrolled part-time.

Types of transfers:

Qualifier – A recruit who, for purposes of determining eligibility for financial aid, practice and competition, has: Graduated from high school;  Successfully completed the required core curriculum consisting of a minimum number of courses in specified subjects; Obtained a specified minimum GPA in the core curriculum; and Obtained a specified minimum SAT or ACT score.

Partial Qualifier – Is a recruit who has met some, but not all of the academic requirements necessary to be a qualifier. If you are a partial qualifier, you can practice on campus and receive financial aid from a Division II school, but you cannot play for one academic year. Division I does not have partial qualifiers.

Non-Qualifier – A recruit who has not graduated from high school or who, at the time specified in the regulation, has not successfully completed the required number of core-curriculum courses or has not presented the required GPA and/or SAT or ACT score required to be a qualifier. If you are a non-qualifier, you cannot practice, play or receive athletically related financial aid from a Division I or II school during your first academic year in residence. You will have only three seasons of competition in Division I.

Next week I will explain the steps needed to take to transfer from your current school and the amount of eligibility remaining when transferring.  Check out Part 2 here.

If you are currently in college and looking to proactively transfer, I encourage you to contact the NCSA Scouting Center at 866-579-6272 immediately.  College coaches contact us frequently looking for athletes that wish to transfer and already have collegiate experience.

Send your recruiting questions to askcoachtaylor@ncsasports.org

If you would like to speak with a NCSA Recruiting Coordinator about your personal recruiting situation, call 866-579-6272.

Coach Taylor – If I get hurt during the recruiting process can a coach pull the scholarship offer he has already given me?

This  question falls into three categories.  If you have already signed your letter of intent, a coach cannot pull your scholarship.  You will count as a medical red-shirt and the coach isn’t worried about losing a roster spot.

If you have verbally committed, a coach can pull you scholarship offer.  However, this is very unlikely in practice.  If a coach were to pull an offer he would likely severely damage his recruiting ties to that geographic region.  It would be abnormal for him to pull the offer.

If you have an offer but haven’t committed all bets are off.  If you have been 100% honest with the coach and are predicted to make a full recovery, chances are your offer will stand.  If your relationship with that coach has been strained somewhat and other interested schools that haven’t offered scholarships are now backing away, the student-athlete could find themselves on the outside looking in.

Send your recruiting questions to askcoachtaylor@ncsasports.org

If you would like to speak with a NCSA Recruiting Coordinator about your personal recruiting situation, call 866-579-6272.

Coach Taylor – I attend a small high school, will this hurt me during the recruiting process?

The answer, like many recruiting questions, is Yes and No.  More often than not, a larger high school that has sent numerous athletes to college has established itself as a must-see stop on the recruiting trail.  Their head coaches have built relationships with college coaches over time from going through the recruiting process over and over.  Essentially more schools come to them, and their coaches help them reach out more. It also helps that larger schools tend to be near metropolitan areas making it easier for college coaches to visit.

Athletes at smaller schools tend to have sent fewer players to the next level and their coaches usually have fewer relationships with coaches.  This naturally leaves them further off the recruiting map.

But does playing at a small school stop you from maximizing your scholarship potential and playing at the highest level?  Absolutely not!  Student-athletes that are further from the traditional pipeline simply need to work harder.  That can be in a number of ways that we outline in this blog and newsletter, but the bottom line is they need to be more pro-active.  They need to work harder, and build more relationships with coaches.

I recruited many players from smaller schools and once I was convinced they had the ability to help our team, I couldn’t have cared less what size high school they attended!

Send your recruiting questions to askcoachtaylor@ncsasports.org

If you would like to speak with a NCSA Recruiting Coordinator about your personal recruiting situation, call 866-579-6272.

Coach Taylor – Our son is in the process of scheduling a few college visits over spring break and would like to contact the coach at the schools and request a meeting.  How should he address the email to the coach asking to meet him?  Also, is this something he should do prior to going on the campus tour?

Yes, you should reach out to the coach as far in advance as possible. You have some freedom with the subject head line. I would suggest you use something along the lines of “6’4” 200 QB interested in scheduling unofficial visit”. As far as the body of the email goes you simply needs to state where you are from and that your son has a desire to visit with the coach on X date. If possible the recruit should include their scouting report, thus allowing the coach to evaluate the player on the front end of the process.

Send your recruiting questions to askcoachtaylor@ncsasports.org

If you would like to speak with a NCSA Recruiting Coordinator about your personal recruiting situation, call 866-579-6272.

Worried about getting ranked on an elite website and thus getting discovered?  Forget about it.  Not important.  If you are an elite prospect coaches should already know about you.  If you aren’t on a coaches list yet, you should worry about contacting schools not websites that report on recruiting.

Check out a quote from SI’s Andy Staples discussing the 2011 recruiting class.

The Class of 2010 has signed. That doesn’t mean it’s time to take a break. It means it’s time to move on to the Class of 2011.

Rivals.com and the other recruiting sites won’t release preliminary rankings for another few weeks, but college coaches already know the identities of some of the best players. They know about De’Anthony “Black Mamba” Thomas of Crenshaw High in Los Angeles, a 5-foot-9 speedster who might be more fun to watch on film than any player on the West Coast. They already know about Bubba Starling, a dual-threat quarterback from Gardner, Kan., who already has drawn interest from most of the Big 12. They know about Tampa, Fla., back James Wilder Jr., who won the MVP of the U.S. Army All-American Combine last month. They definitely know about Wayne Lyons, a safety from Dillard High in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who has already received scholarship offers from most of the Top 25.

Yet another example of the internet reporting sites lagging behind the college coach’s evaluation process.  So how can you bypass the newswire and get evaluated by schools?  You start by building relationships with college coaches.  That can start with phone calls, letters, sending game and highlight footage, among other options.  It can also start by contacting a third party that already has built trusting relationships with college coaches.  NCSA isn’t a news reporting website.  It doesn’t matter to us where a five-star recruit verbally commits or attends a junior day.  It does matter to us that we maintain the most trusted database of verified recruits in the country.  Coaches trust our Recruit-Match Database to supply them with students that have the  athletic and academic credentials to play at their program.  If you are interested in joining that database, you can start right now.