NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

Around the country, college coaches are huddled around their fax machines, waiting for the NLI’s from student athletes across the country, hoping that in the last seconds their rival school didn’t steal their top recruits. Today, NCSA had the pleasure to watch as one student athlete finally make his dreams come true. Maurice Fleming came into NCSA Headquarters at 8 AM to sign and fax his National Letter of Intent to the Iowa Hawkeyes. He was surrounded by his biggest fans: his mom, his grandma, and his high school coach.

Following this special moment he called his future coach to let him know that the fax was on its way. Both Maurice and the Hawkeye coaching staff could not be more excited for their futures together.

Maurice hopes to make an impact on the field as early as his freshmen year. During an interview with the Daily Iowan, a reporter asked him questions about his future with the Hawkeyes and how he felt switching from the offensive to the defensive side of the ball. Like any true athlete, he said that he was hesitant at first, but he knew that with hard work and his athletic ability, he would be able to transition into his new role as a defensive back just fine.

Despite missing the majority of his senior year due to an ACL tear, Maurice is expected to make a full recovery. He is already at 85% and working out five days a week, and thankful that the Iowa staff stayed loyal to him throughout his injury and recovery. He is prepared to take on the demands of being a college athlete and cannot wait to take the field in black and gold.

Everyone at NCSA is extremely proud of Maurice and cannot wait to watch him continue to be an Athleader,by empowering others to lead through sports and giving back in his community. Congratulations Maurice, you have just opened the doors of the rest of your life.

Dear Coach T,

I was  injured last week, should I tell the college coaches that are recruiting me?

Dear Coach Taylor,

My high school team is not very good should I transfer high schools to play on a better team? I’m afraid college coaches won’t recruit me because my team is bad.

Signing day is about a week away and many athletes out there are wondering what Coaches look for when they offer student athletes scholarships. Coach Bob Chmiel discusses the three things he uses to evaluate players. Coach Chmiel spent seven years as Notre Dame’s Director of Football Operations and Recruiting Coordinator/Assistant Coach. Prior, Chmiel was the University of Michigan’s Football Recruiting Coordinator, where he also served as an assistant coach. He was named one of the “Top 11 Recruiting Coordinators of All-Time” in Tom Lemming’s book Football’s Second Season: Scouting High School Game Breakers.

One of the reasons I encourage young people with the ability to be a College student-athlete to do so is so that they experience the amazing things that happen during those precious short years of their life. Things they will remember the rest of their life.

Like winning one for Grandpa Joe.

What is the National Letter of Intent?

The NLI is a binding agreement between a prospective student athlete and an NLI member institution

• A prospective student athlete agrees to attend the institution full time for one academic year (two semesters or three quarters
• The institution agrees to provide financial aid for one academic year 

Penalty for breaking this contract

• Student athletes have to serve one year in residence at the next NLI member institution

• Sit out for one season of competition in all sports

What is Signing Day?

• Signing day is the day you actually sign the NLI

Does every division 1 and 2 athlete sign an NLI?

• Most people will say that every D1 and D2 athlete will sign an NLI, but this is not the case.
• It is not so much about being in a certain division as it is whether or not the school is a member of the NLI program.
• There are 600 schools who participate in the NLI program
• All D1 schools are involved with NLI except for service academies and Ivy league.
• A majority of D2 programs participate in the program
• No D3, NAIA, Prep schools or 2 year colleges participate
• For a complete list of schools who participate in the NLI, visit the NCAA’s website (more…)

Bethel College (IN) men’s basketball coach Mike Lightfoot recently shared extremely important information for families to know about recruiting, and specifically about opportunities at the N.A.I.A. level (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics). NCSA speakers tell audiences, “The better your grades, the more opportunities for scholarships!” Lightfoot, who is in the NAIA Hall of Fame, verifies that here.

Bethel College men's basketball coach Mike Lightfoot

With over 630 victories at Bethel, Lightfoot made college basketball history by reaching 500 wins faster than any coach in history, including Coach K and John Wooden.

At the NAIA level, they have athletic scholarship money and other ways for young people to have their college education funded.

ON WHY ACADEMICS ARE SO IMPORTANT TO GET SCHOLARSHIPS!

“When we say we have six athletic scholarships to offer at our level of N.A.I.A, think similar to the salary cap in pro sports. If a student athlete is a 3.5 GPA or higher in High School and maintains that at the College level, that athletic scholarship money he or she receives does not count towards those six athletic scholarships. If we can find a young man or woman with a 3.5 or higher and they maintain it in College, that becomes uncountable aid and we look at that person as a free scholarship for us and use that athletic money for someone that doesn’t qualify with a 3.5.

(more…)

Lamond Murray lit up Duke for 28 points and 10 rebounds in the 1993 NCAA Tournament, as his Cal team, led by Jason Kidd, knocked Coach K’s team out of the Big Dance. Duke had won the 2 two National Championships, had been to 5 of the last 6 Final Four’s, and featured Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill. Lamond is one of the team of Recruiting Experts for NCSA that speak on Developing Athletes into Leaders and the recruiting process at High Schools, Clubs, Camps and other events.

Former Cal and NBA player Lamond Murray with Charlie Adams

The 6′ 7″ 12 year NBA veteran was in the NCSA Athletic Recruiting Network offices in Chicago recently where I had a chance to talk with him about the recruiting process.

Because of Lamond’s physical size, skills and abilities, he was one of those players that ranked in the top 100 of the nation. Those athletes will be chased. Everyone else cannot afford to wait to be recruited. As Tom Lemming says, if you are not in the top 100 or 200 players in the nation in your sport, you cannot sit back and wait to be recruited. “I remember at one event they literally put the top 100 in one gym and all the college coaches went there to watch,’ recalled Lamond. “I was in there with other High School players like Jason Kidd, Glenn Robinson and Chris Webber.”

As a speaker on recruiting, I am all for athletes shooting for D1 if they have the God given physical size, ability, and commitment level. I spoke at Heritage Christian High in Indy, and folks there talked about alum Kelly Faris, now a big success for Geno Auriemma at UConn. At 5′ 11″ she has the physical size, strengthand ability to play at the highest level. With Lamond, look at his arms in the picture below He has, a a 7 foot wingspan. That kind of thing attracts high level D1.

Lamond Murray 7 foot wingspan

His arms (and overall basketball ability) made him an effective high-level player because of reach, ability to disrupt passing lines, and on and on.  Now, look at his hands. The picture down below is of Lamond’s next to a NCSA employee. When he palms a basketball, the basketball doesn’t look like a volleyball. It looks like a softball. Again, those are the kind of things that make an athlete a legit high level D1 prospect. That is why it is important to get a realistic 3rd party evaluation. If you have not had a verified, 3rd party evaluation, or if you have not had one in over a year.

To Learn What Level of College Sports You Evaluate to at this Stage (more…)

The University of North Carolina is polling as the number one team in men’s college basketball. Their highly respected head coach, Roy Williams, shares valuable recruiting insights in his book HARD WORK (Algonquin Books), which I recently read. I highly recommend it, and wanted to share with you some of the parts that specifically deal with recruiting.

NCSA Speaker Charlie Adams speaks with parents after a Talk

Williams started his rise through coaching ranks as an assistant coach at North Carolina. He worked the Tar Heels’ summer camps, then coached by the legendary Dean Smith. Williams writes about how they always wanted to get top prospects to their summer camps so they could watch them in person – and possibly offer a scholarship.

Williams had heard from trusted sources about an up-and-coming young player named Michael Jordan, and invited him to a summer camp. After watching Jordan’s every move during his first scrimmage, Williams told the rest of the staff that Jordan was the best 6’4′ player he had ever seen. Williams writes that Dean Smith had breakfast with Jordan one day, lunch another, and offered Jordan a scholarship before the end of the camp. Jordan didn’t accept the offer, but when he attended the prestigious Five Star camp, he found he had a new shadow: Roy Williams.

“When Jordan went to one court, I followed him. When he moved to another court, I followed him. It was like there was nobody else there. I watched every step he took.”

The next year, Jordan signed with North Carolina.

Williams was an assistant coach at North Carolina for many years, then served as Head Coach at tradition-rich Kansas. He returned to UNC in 2003 to be Head Coach there, and has won two National Championships (and counting) since then. In his book, he writes at length about recruiting:

“I recruit through a process of elimination. If I see a big guy who can’t run, I don’t recruit him because I want our team to run. If I see a point guard who can shoot, but has no savvy, I won’t recruit him, because I need a point guard who makes great decisions. Whenever I go out and recruit, I’m thinking, ‘This is the way I want to play. Can that kid do what I want him to do?’”

“If I am there to watch one individual, I’ll watch every move he makes. If I’m watching a group of players at an All-Star Camp, I wait for somebody to jump out at me and I’ll write his number down on my pad every time he does something I like. One summer I was at a tournament in Louisville and they had four games going at the same time. My assistants had me watching a player on Court 2. Every time the play would stop on my court, I would glance over to Court 3, and number 34 was just killing people. I kept writing down the number 34 over and over. He was so outrageous with his effort and rebounding and how he could run. At some point in the second half I just turned away from my court and started watching number 34. That player’s name was Richard Scott and he ended up being a three-year starter for me at the Kansas.”

Of course, at a top-tier basketball program like the University of North Carolina, a coach has to make talent his number one priority to field a competitive team. Character is his number two priority – ahead of Academics.

“I once had an elementary school principal in Wichita, Kansas, tell me, ‘Coach, I wish you’d say academics is the second priority.’ “No, ma’am,’ I said, “because if he’s a great player and a 4.0 student but he’s going to be a pain in the rear end, I want it to be somebody else’s rear end.”

“I remember going to recruit Marvin Williams, and in one game he had 36 points. But that wasn’t what sold me on him. Marvin fouled out of that game, and while the crowd was giving him a standing ovation, he walked over to the end of the bench and grabbed five cups of water and handed them to the five guys who were going back into the game. I said to myself, ‘I really want this kid.’”

“They have to be kids that I’m going to enjoy being around every day. Since I became a head coach, I’ve had three recruits visit campus that my players thought wouldn’t fit in, so I stopped recruiting all three.”

At the Division One level, recruiting is so competitive that coaches like Williams go all-out to let their top prospects know how much they want them.

“During warm-ups before we (Kansas) played the 1991 national championship game against Duke, I went around the corner from our locker room to a phone and made a recruiting call to Jason Kidd.”

“Shane Battier had the most organized recruitment I’ve ever been involved in. He selected six schools and said he was going to have phone calls every Monday night. Each coach had 15 minutes. I made the phone call every Monday at 9:30.”

Recruiting has accelerated over the years, with coaches identifying prospects at an earlier stage than ever before. Williams writes about it.

“The whole thing is an insane experience. Players are being recruited when they are still just kids. There are guys in 9th and 10th grade thinking about making commitments, and our admissions office will say, ‘How can we decide if a kid should come to college when he hasn’t taken sophomore English?’”

HARD WORK is out in paperback and it has a lot of valuable content that would benefit parents coaches and athletes, especially those who have set playing Division I as their goal. The book also has a companion website with more resources. The video on Coach Williams’ background is inspiring, and will motivate young people to understand the power of a hard work ethic

The Roy Williams Book site

Charlie Adams, Speaker, NCSA Athletic Recruiting Network

cadams@ncsasports.org

‘Stoke the Fire Within!’

To learn more about what level of College Sports you would qualify for at this stage of Recruiting, click here

When NCSA’s team of over 30 Recruiting Expert Speakers deliver hard hitting Presentations, a point of emphasis is finding the “right fit” for athletes at the next level. This article will give you powerful examples of how one young man is nailing the “right fit.”

Bo Calhoun of Washington High committed to D1 Ball State University before his seniors season. Here is a break-down of key factors:

Bo Calhoun of Washington High in action

The “Realistic Fit” Factor: Ball State is mid level D1. Bo Calhoun is 6’7″ and 210 with long arms. He averaged 18 points a game as a junior for Washington High, located in South Bend, IN. As recruiting went along, schools most interested in him were schools like Ball State and Western Michigan. North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky and those big boys were not wound up about him. Bo had the wisdom and discernment to see what was a realistic fit athletically for him at the next level.

Rod Creech is the highly respected President of the Midwest Basketball Academy and Director of MBA Select Boys Basketball. He and his staff have been with Bo during this whole process.

“With Bo,” said Creech, “we talked to him about the difference between the College coaches love you and the ones that simply like you. Western Michigan University and Ball State really loved him and a lot of others liked him. Ball State and Western wanted him to commit early because they loved him so much. When you find those kind of schools, you don’t get lost in the shuffle with other players and end up eventually transferring.”

“We talked to Bo about finding the right fit for him,” added Creech. “Take Visits, listen to coaches, get to know them, their teams and Universities. His 6’7” frame and athleticism put him in play with a lot of Universities. He ended up being the number one recruit target of Ball State.”

The “Work Ethic, Character and Academics” Factor: When a person has a combination of God given size, and athletic ability like Bo, and a work ethic, look out! His High School Coach, Chad Johnston, said this to the Star Press:

“He’s got a great work ethic. In the summer I told him he needs to take a week off to let his body recover a little bit. A couple of weeks ago when it was super hot out, I got a call about him working out on the track. I took a Gatorade out to him and said, ‘What are you doing?’ He told me, ‘I’m working to get better, coach.’”

Rod Creech is passionate about preaching fundamentals and work ethic to players MBA works with in their development. It is vital that young athletes talk with their High School and/or Club Coaches at a fairly young age and state what their dreams or goals are, and ask to be held accountable in reaching them.

“Bo has always been a great kid with big dreams,” said Creech. “As a freshman he met with me and made me promise to help him and hold him accountable to do the things it would take to get a scholarship. He knew basketball was a way. He wanted to be a College player so bad, and he knew his family could not afford to pay for College, so basketball was a way to get that Scholarship. We held him accountable with his work ethic and told him the door of opportunity will open and shut quickly. You have to have the character, academics, and stay out of trouble.”

Athletes: Meet with your coaches and guidance counselors, tell them your dreams, and ask them to help hold you accountable to reaching those dreams!

Bo carries a strong 3.1 GPA. He is getting it done in the classroom. No excuses! Through Visits and Research, he also knows enough about Ball State to know he wants to enter their School of Business. While someone with his physical abilities could possibly think NBA or Pro Basketball overseas, he knows the odds are stacked so high that he wants to make sure he gets his education and degree first. Bo comes from a strong Conference, the Northern Indiana Conference, that is close to another strong Conference, the Northern Lakes Conference. These Conferences include power High Schools such as Penn and Warsaw, the South Bend and Elkhart schools, and more.

Know how many of their products are currently in the NFL, NBA, Major Leagues and WNBA? Two. None from his city of South Bend. From where Bo comes from, about 0.0005 % of High School athletes are making the NBA, NFL and MLB.

The “Know Your Weakness” Factor:

College Coaches go to trusted, verified sources to get the scoop on recruitable athletes like Calhoun.

“The first thing College Coaches ask me about are character and academics,” said Creech, who played College Basketball and is also a College Referee, “then once that is cleared the rest can almost be easy if the kid has the ability.”

As we talked about this point, Creech elaborated on how he and other trusted third parties like the NCSA Athletic Recruiting Network have to develop a realistic evaluation of a recruit.

“When College Coaches call me about a kid,” said Creech,” I tell them the truth. I tell parents of players that my credibility is on the line and I have worked hard for 15 years to develop trust with a Network of College Coaches. I tell College Coaches about the strengths AND weaknesses and something that is important for athletes to know is that I tell the College Coaches if the kid is working hard on the weakness. With Bo Calhoun, his weakness used to be his jump shot, but he worked so hard on it. I also told the College Coaches about his upside. The weight program isn’t the greatest at his High School. When he adds 20 pounds to his 6’7” frame he will explode.”

Remember, College Coaches project when recruiting. You think they are looking at you as you are, but they are often picturing you at age 20 after being in their weight program.

The “College Coaches are Watching more than your Athletic Abilities when they see you in Person” Factor:

Understanding the importance of being at the right kind of recruiting events is important. Bo really shined at July Showcase events for his MBA Select team, and the College Coaches were there to see him. While Ball State coaches were evaluating him, the South Bend Tribune reported that his team was not doing well and he couldn’t buy a bucket. Calhoun stepped up in a leadership role and righted their ship.

“(The Ball State coaches) knew he could play,” Coach Johnston, his High School coach, told the newspaper, “but when they saw him handle a tough situation, they became very interested.”

That is a HUGE point. The College coaches went from interested to VERY interested based on leadership skills displayed. College coaches know if they want to win they not only have to have kids that can play and handle the academics of college, but that have the leadership skills, competitive fire and the other elements that make up championship teams. If you are at an Exposure Event and on the Lists of Colleges, know they are watching all kinds of things, from how you carry your bag from the bus to how you ask your parents for a sports drink.

“In that game,” said Creech, “he wasn’t playing well offensively but rallied his team with his words. At MBA, we talk daily with kids like Bo about leadership, mental toughness and about TEAM. Offensive won’t always be there, but the ability to support the team in other ways will always be there.”
The “Knowing Who Else is on the College Roster” Factor: The Ball State Coaches have told Bo that he projects to possibly replace 6’9″ BSU senior Jarrod Jones. He has a chance to compete for playing time early. Part of finding the right fit is studying rosters to see who they have coming back. A glut of young players at your position is not the best situation to enter into in College. Bo knew there were only three other post players on Ball State’s rosters and their coaches expect him to play a lot as a freshman. Notice they didn’t promise, but expect, which is the way it should be.

The “factors” that Bo nailed are ones that you need to be thinking about as well. They really go on and on. In talking with Rod Creech, he shared these other valuable insights:

Charlie Adams is one of over 30 NCSA Speakers that can come to your School or Club

“Charlie, parents often think because they get a letter their kid is being recruited. That College may have sent 10 or 200 or more letters out. It’s a start but unless you do the work and the marketing of your child, that may be all you ever get.”

“Charlie, parents also often think that when they get their kids to these recruiting exposure events that everyone there is to watch them. They don’t understand what it takes when they get to these venues. A kid has to be prepared. A lot of parents think you play on a team and go and success finds them there. You have to work hard and be prepared to take advantage of being in that situation.”

Parents have got to understand that College Coaches go to these events primarily to evaluate prospects that they have learned of through trusted, verified third parties like a Rod Creech, the NCSA Athletic Recruiting Network and other credible sources. SO many parents trot their kids to various basketball, volleyball, soccer and other Showcases thinking their kid will get discovered. When Bob Chmiel, a NCSA Speaker, was Recruiting Coordinator for Michigan and then Notre Dame, he “discovered” two kids in all his years. Tim Biakabutuka, who flew under the radar from Zaire, and Rocky Boiman. Chmiel always had a list that he developed through trusted sources. It is critical you understand this concept if you want to have maximum success in the recruiting process.

To Talk with a College Scout to See if You Qualify for a Recruiting Evaluation click here

Charlie Adams

Educational Speaker and Recruiting Expert

cadams@ncsasports.org