Insights from the Speaking Trail
March 8th, 2010 - byThis past week I delivered recruiting education at Elkhart Christian Academy. Their Athletic Director Sherwin Simon told the audience that he used to coach at a Division Two University. He said they would get unsolicited videos in all the time that weren’t edited properly and did not properly identify the players. “We didn’t have the time to go through those,” he said. “We were looking first for a few minutes of hilites.” One of the most powerful things NCSA does is take the raw video that families provide, and sequence it correctly so that it grabs the attention of coaches.
Simon said the first thing they always looked at was academics, so they would know what kind of funding they could get for the young person.
Elkhart Christian Academy boys basketball coach Drew Ryall also shared insights on recruiting from his experience. “I had a 3.7 GPA, was given an honor by The Elkhart Truth newspaper, averaged 24 points a game as a senior, and was the all time leading scorer in school history. I made 162 of 168 free throws. I heard from one College. I thought it would just happen. My family never put anything together. We took no unofficial visits. We never understood how we could use something like NCSA so that Colleges all over would know who I was as a player. I thought the process would play out. I did play at a local NAIA school where most of my scholarship money was academic. Because of my grades and some athletic funding I got, I graduated with only about $10,000 in debt.”
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I was interested to read a South Bend Tribune story about the recruiting philosophy of new Notre Dame Football Coach Brian Kelly. A story by writer Eric Hansen revealed this:
‘Before Kelly is willing to extend a scholarship to a recruit, they not only have to be evaluated on videotape, but they also must pass through Kelly’s six filters.
Those filters are athletic profile, academic profile, medical history, character, social life and home life. A prospect has to be a “fit” in every category to stay alive on ND’s recruiting board.
“Not a lot of coaches do their research with medical history, but it makes a lot of sense,” CBS College Sports recruiting analyst Tom Lemming said. “That doesn’t mean you eliminate someone who has had an injury. But sometimes chronic injuries hint at something amiss with work ethic.”‘
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It has been very interesting to read the response to the story I wrote recently on how much of a factor weather should play in deciding where to play College sports. Here is a response that came in this weekend:
“I absolutely connected to the story, as I too grew up in South Bend and played high level volleyball. I was not a top recurited athlete like those at Mishawaka, however, I knew there were smaller schools in Florida that I had a chance at…and did. My dream was to leave the severe winters of South Bend and play volleyball on scholarship for a division II school in Florida. That dream was lived and weather was the number one factor for that choice. Weather can and should be a factor if you want to look at the overall, day to day, satisfaction of college life.”
Mary Ellen Ort
Click here to read the story on “Whether Weather Should be a Factor in Recruiting”
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I was talking recently with the Athletic Director of a High School that was lining me up to come speak to their families. He told me this:
“Charlie, I have had several sets of parents come into my office already this year thinking their kid is Division One. In many cases, the young person is a 12th grader and has had no D1 offers. The parents don’t understand why. I have to tell them that they are not being recruited by D1 schools. The parents look at me like, “What?!” They can’t believe it. In as nice as way as possible, I tell them their kid is not good enough for that level. I say I’m not trying to be mean, but your child is not as good as you think they are. I tell them they need to market their child, and to get with it quickly.”
At almost every School I speak at, A.D.’s tell me a major challenge is parents not understanding how to make a realistic evaluation of their child’s athletic ability.
