NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

My son is a sophomore and is planning on going to a State School with a good DIII baseball program and the coach really wants him.  If he does get better, can he transfer to a DI or DII school after a year or two or would he be better off starting at a Junior College?  Do DI schools or scouts look for kids from DIII programs?  His hopes are to play baseball after college.

This is a really great question, and can be really hard to answer.  I’d say that baseball coaches do not go to DIII programs to recruit to their own programs.  Many people choose DIII programs as a four-year decision.  If your son has his sights set on big DI baseball programs, I’d say get in contact with coaches now and start relationships with them, and get them out to watch your son.  Getting a skills video for them to watch of him will also be crucial in this process.  So to gain exposure, get a video made of your son and his stats that he can send out to all the DI thru Junior College coaches he wants.  But ultimately, if he decides he wants to go somewhere before going DI, Junior College would be a better bet than a DIII school.  Also, DIII coaches are looking to recruit players that want to stay there all 4 years to play on their team.  But as of now, your son is young enough to still get his name out there to DI coaches and possibly be able to go there right from high school!

You can always send your recruiting questions to askcoachtaylor@ncsasports.org

You can also get your questions answered directly by contacting an NCSA Recruiting Coordinator at 866-579-6272

Coach Taylor, I had heard of some people ‘trying out’ for team in college.  How do I find out if my school does that?

Great question!  This is actually a question that seems to come up a lot among high school students.  There are no ‘tryouts’ at the Division I or Division III levels. At the Division I and III levels, Coaches are allowed to invite athletes to attend a few practices with the team to see if they are interested in allowing the student to be a walk-on on their team.  If you are interested in doing this, you must contact the coach directly, because they will not just hold an open or public tryout.

There are, however, tryouts at the Division II level, and here are some of the rules:

• • The tryout is held on campus or at a site which is normally conducts practice or competition.
  • Cannot exceed 2 hours in length
  • One tryout per prospect
  • Medical examination is permitted to be part of the tryout
  • Must be a senior and have completed your sport season or are in a season other than the “traditional” sport season
  • The tryout may include tests to evaluate the prospect’s strength, speed, agility and sport skills.
  • Competition is permissible against the member institution’s team in a tryout except in the sports of football, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer and wrestling.
  • In the sport of football, the prospects shall not wear helmets or pads.
  • During the academic year, competition is permissible against the member institution’s team in a tryout.
  • You must have your high school athletics director’s approval in writing.
  • The prospect or (if under age 18) the prospect’s parent (s) must sign a waiver absolving the institution of any and all responsibility should an injury occur.
  • An institution may provide clothing and equipment to a prospect if it is returned at the conclusion of the tryout.

You can always send your recruiting questions to askcoachtaylor@ncsasports.org

You can also get your questions answered directly by contacting an NCSA Recruiting Coordinator at 866-579-6272

Dave Long and his family are relieved he has connected to the “right fit” to be a college athlete and that he has earned significant scholarship for his athletics ability.

NCSA Senior Speaker Charlie Adams

Dave and his father (also named Dave) came to hear me deliver College Recruiting Simplified at Northridge High School on a December night. Athletic Director Dave Harms brings in Recruiting Education each year so that Raider families would understand the recruiting process. At the time, Dave was going into his 11th grade golf season. He had won the Regional Championship as a freshman with a round of 73 on a tough Orchard Ridge course, but his sophomore season had not been as good. He had a 3.8 handicap with a 78 average for 18 holes. He was a good, a really good young man, and an athlete with a really nice golf swing and great potential.

“We did our Scouting Evaluation with NCSA Scout Will Smith,” said Dad Dave. “Will was great. I just enjoy honesty and my son is the same way. Will Smith is brutally honest. He tells it like it is. He laid down the law on academics and athletic expectations. Kids need to hear that from the outside. At the time, David hadn’t played his junior year of golf. He was a 3 handicap. Will told him where he needed to be in golf and in the classroom. It visibly affected Dave.”

“Being in NCSA was huge,” added his Dad. “We’re busy parents here in Elkhart County. We don’t have time to sit here and pump out letters and videos not knowing if they are even being opened up. What I found with NCSA is that it is like pre qualification for the College coaches. They know if NCSA has already looked at the athlete then it is worth their while to look at the Profile.”

The College Coaches looked at his verified transcripts, video of his golf swing, and accomplishments in the high school season and summer tours such as Mt. Dew Junior Tour, Masters Tour, and Jr. PGA Tournaments. They then started reaching out to him when they were allowed (NAIA and D3 can contact anytime).

“We had a ton of NAIA schools after him, around twenty. We had about six D2′s and about six D3′s. Dave really liked Bridgewater College in Virginia. That was probably his second choice when all was said and done. The experience was busy. It was exciting, but now I am glad it is over. We visited Colleges from Virginia to the Carolina’s to Illinois, Missouri and Iowa and points in between. What we found is that when the College Coaches saw him in person and got to meet him that made a big difference. He is a good golfer and one of the late maturing players physically. When Coaches saw him hit balls, they saw that.”

That is why families need to start taking unofficial visits early, so that relationships can start to develop and College Coaches can get a feel for the character of the young man or woman. They can also do the “eyeball” test and look the athlete over. In sports like football, that is especially big.

“Through this process my son went from wanting to play D1, which a lot of kids do, to being thrilled to find the right fit in NAIA,” said Dad Dave. “He will play right away. I told him go where you can compete early. I know some kids want to go to North Carolina or someplace to be a part of a bigtime program, but my son has a friend from High School golf that is on the Ball State Golf team. He is a junior in College now and has yet to play in a match.”

“It ended up with the right fit for him being Missouri Baptist University in St. Louis,” said Dad Dave. “We took three visits there. On the third visit the coach wrote an offer. Their tuition is right around $18,000 a year. Dave got a significant part of that covered through athletic scholarship. That is what I love about NCSA. Where else, in this economy, can you get that kind of return on investment? He is still working on other scholarships with the University.”

“He really connected with the Coach at Missouri Baptist,” added Dave. “Their Coach, Justin Hoagland, is a fulltime PGA Teaching Professional as well as having his own Golf Academy (manages GolfTECH, the world’s largest golf instruction company). I spent ten years as a professional in golf. I have been out of it awhile, but my son grew up around it. All he wants to do out of College is to be a teaching professional. His College coach has such credentials. He has taught under Hank Haney. He is a strong Christian man, and we could tell he really cared about our son. During recruiting, he encouraged Dave to take the SAT again. The Coach pushed the admissions process and was very involved. He went to bat for us. We were looking for a Christian school and this one is in an affluent part of St Louis, ten minutes from downtown. “The location is six hours away. It is all interstate. The team has a player from England and a player from Scotland, so an added benefit is he will broaden his horizons.”

Dad Dave added that although his son originally wanted to go far off to College, Dad made it clear it needed to be a place he could drive home within a day. St. Louis certainly met those criteria. Kids are different. Some want to be at a College in their home town. A lot of others like being 2 to 3 hours away. Then you have those that like 6 hours away, and those that like being way off.

Young Dave’s handicap is down to about a 2 and his scoring average is 75 going into his senior season of golf. He could possibly one day play on a professional Tour. Lindsay McBride also went to Northridge High School. She played College golf at D2 University of Indianapolis, won the National Championship, and is now aspiring to make the LPGA Tour.

“Who knows?” wondered Dad Dave. “He could play professionally one day. If that happens, it happens, but he is realistic with his goals, and his main one is to be a PGA Teaching Professional one day.  He loves the game. He is a gym rat on the golf course and he is still maturing. He is 6’3″ and 142 pounds. We are beefing him up this winter. When he adds strength he will be able to knock it out there with the big boys. The College coach saw that his swing was literally flawless and knows he will keep getting better. College coaches project a lot in recruiting. That’s why you have to develop relationships with them as early as possible.”

Dad Dave makes a living in the Sales world, so he knows what it is like out there. He had candid comments about several topics, including the bright future of true College student-athletes.

“I know what it takes to be successful in the corporate world,” said Dave. “You give me a chance to hire a regular student with good grades compared to a young woman who played College softball and made good grades or a young man who played Golf or Baseball or something and made good grades, and I will hire that student-athlete every time.”
He also implored families to start the recruiting process early. The Long family got started before his son’s junior season but looking back would have started earlier if they had known how recruiting is today.

“He has had a pretty good weight lifted off his shoulders,” said his Dad. “He is a different kid since he made his decision. He has a College home and knows where he is going. He has friends that waited too long to start the recruiting process and panic mode is setting in. They are kicking themselves. So many get caught up in playing bigtime D1, and I understand them wanting to play at a high level, but they don’t understand all the opportunities out there, especially at the NAIA level like we learned.”

“If a family has an athlete that is fairly talented and loves their sport’” said Dave, “it is ludicrous that they don’t take advantage of NCSA. I am dead serious. If you want a walking billboard for how much it means, it’s me! How much money we saved on College because of NCSA is remarkable. Not in a million years would we have connected with all these good schools.”

2012 UPDATE: Here is Dave’s College Golf Profile:

Click here to see it

Charlie Adams, NCSA Athletic Recruiting Network Senior Speaker

To learn how to get into the Recruiting Database that worked so well for the Long family, cadams@ncsasports.org

To bring College Recruiting Simplified to your High School, Club or Special Event

In honor of National Signing Day NCSA will be giving away an iPad to help ALL students (Not just the just the lucky few signing on ESPN!) with their course load in college next year!

How can you enter?  Just post something on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/ncsasports and tell your friends to LIKE it!

-You can post a video of your recruiting story!

-A short post about how you achieved an academic scholarship

-A picture of you signing a national letter of Intent

Anything posted on our Wall will constitute an entry!  The winner with the most LIKES will win an iPad! The contest will run for 2 ½ weeks and we will notify the winner February 18^th.

**This is open to all students and athletes**

            At the start of 2011, social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter have become the center of online communication.  Facebook, with over 500 million active users, is the fastest way to communicate with and learn about a person.  There are countless users of social networking in college sports, from recruits to college athletes to college coaches.  Recruits can use the site to meet and communicate with coaches, and coaches doing the same with their recruits.  College athlete’s pages are often times very similar to a celebrity’s, viewed by all kinds of fans and supporters.  With all of the scrutiny going into the social networking profiles set up by these individuals, many still do not seem to realize the importance of keeping all of the content appropriate.

            “What kids don’t realize is that once something is posted on the web, it’s permanent,” says Kevin Long, CEO and Founder of UDiligence.  What Long is referring to is the inability of any social website user who posts inappropriate content to correct their mistake.  “That information is out there, and it will still be out there when athletes are out of college looking for a job.”  UDiligence  is a hosted solution contracted by various college athletic programs to automatically watch  for certain content on the Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace accounts of that college’s athletes and coaches.  Long says that the biggest every day problem UDiligence sees is with profanity use in communication on these sites.  Whether it is a Facebook wall post, a Tweet, or a quote on a Myspace profile, so many profiles seem to be loaded with inappropriate language.  College programs contract UDiligence both to ensure the preserved reputation of their program and university, as well as to protect the future of every student-athlete after he or she is through with college.  “We see pictures every day of college athletes with guns, flaunting stacks of cash, and inappropriate revealing of bodies,” says Long.  All of this content can be ridiculed by fans, other students, and the online community as a whole.  

            As both Long and UDiligence clients both agree, protecting the student athlete’s future is the primary purpose of the service.  When a student athlete is out of college and looking for a job, the same web content will still be available to find by their prospective employer.  Any inappropriate Tweet or Facebook picture that is posted now will still affect the athlete beyond the college years.

            As for recruits, the future they are looking to protect is happening now.  A college coach could friend request a recruit on Facebook, and if the coach sees this recruit has a bunch of inappropriate content, swears all the time, or anything of the like, the recruit might be crossed off the coach’s list immediately.  College coaches are not only looking for athletes to fit a team, but good people to fit a community. 

            Student-athletes, both in college and high school, need to understand the importance of the content on their social networking pages being appropriate.  A Facebook page or Twitter account is the easiest way for a college coach or employer to get a first impression of someone.  Make sure that the impression you are making is the right one.