NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

The downturn strikes again.  The New Mexico State University student newspaper The Round Up is reporting that $70,000 for football recruiting from 2008 to 2009.Earlier this month, New Mexico State University football coach DeWayne Walker announced the signing of his first recruiting class – 13 players from California, three from Texas and Arizona and three from Las Cruces and El Paso. But, for parents to be able to watch games in person and to reduce travel costs to and from campus, many highly recruited athletes may decide to stay closer to home, national football recruiting analyst Tom Lemming said.

“In our case, Coach Walker has identified areas of Texas, California, New Mexico and possibly Arizona, so obviously the travel is significantly reduced,” Athletic Director McKinley Boston said. “We can fly Southwest Airlines from El Paso directly into L.A. or San Diego or almost any other place in California. That’s going to be his strong hold in terms of recruiting, so in that regard that is not really going to be a problem.”

However, if you are an athlete outside of a school’s primary recruiting area there is still another option.  Coaches will be relying on the internet to evaluate players like never before.  Athletes can leverage resources like NCSA’s Scouting Report and Recruit-Match Database to open up doors that may have previously been closed.  Building strong relationships with college coaches will continue to be the key to unlocking your recruiting potential.  Finding creative ways to build them will be valued at a premium.

Researching schools is an essential part of the recruiting process.  A great new website that potential student-athletes can check out is Unigo.com.  The site is entirely free and while it is overseen by editors its built on content submitted by actual students at the university.  The information submitted isn’t just simple reviews, but a robust array of pictures and videos to give prospective students a more accurate view of what its like to actually attend a school.  You can also create customized social networks of potential students interested in specific schools or common characteristics.

Obviously, there is tremendous value in getting information directly from current students.  Athletes have a unique opportunity to get a snap shot inside a college’s athletic program by taking unofficial and official visits.  A little understood rule, is that students can begin taking unofficial visits as freshman.  The more schools you visit, the better your chances of finding the right fit. 

This week Forbes released a list of the top college sports towns.  My beloved Indiana Hoosiers finished a respectable 10th in the rankings based on Forbes formula based on a variety of factors.

To create our list of the best college towns, we started with the top 50 finishers in the Director’s Cup, an award issued through the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to schools based on their performance in every sport. Football and basketball are important, but for the sports fan, part of the college-town experience is access to top teams in track, water polo, soccer, baseball, tennis and other non-marquee sports.

From there, we looked at quality of life measures, since wins and losses aren’t everything. Using Coldwell Banker’s Home Price Comparison Index, we looked at the price of a four-bedroom, two-bathroom, 2,200-square-foot home in each market and compared it to the median income.

Next, we mixed in statistics on public-school quality and crime from NeighborhoodScout, drawn from No Child Left Behind data and the FBI. Durham, N.C., home to Duke, may be more affordable than nearby Chapel Hill, home to UNC-Chapel Hill, but Chapel Hill’s superior school system and lower crime rate push it past Durham on our list.

The reason I want to highlight the rankings here it to make the point that Forbes developed a formula based on an extensive list of factors.  Student-athlete’s and families going through the recruiting process need to base their decisions based on a similar wide range of issues.  That is one more reason why its so important for families to start the recruiting process early.  By extensively researching all your options and getting to know a college and athletic program student-athletes greatly increase their chances of finding the right fit.

For most families, the day their son or daughter commits to a college is a joyous occasion. All those years of hard work, travel, and expenses have finally paid off in the form of a college acceptance letter, roster spot, and in many cases a scholarship. Parents brag to their co-workers about their outstanding son or daughter.  The high school student sports his or her college t-shirt to high school, breathing a sigh of relief that the biggest stress of senior year has magically been lifted. A college commitment should certainly be a source of pride, but what many student-athletes fail to realize is that the hard work is just beginning.

Signing on the dotted line and committing to a college athletic program can be a life changing event. You are joining a team that is, in most cases, much more competitive and intense than what you knew in high school. Don’t downplay the meaning of the word “commitment”. You are not only commiting to play for a college team, you are actually making a commitment to work for the coach. One of the biggest mistakes a student-athlete can make is to take the spring and summer off of training.

Most college coaches will mail incoming freshman a copy of their summer workout.

If your coach does not send you a workout book, ask for one!

Follow your college workout religiously. Those athletes who come to campus in the best physical condition will prove to the coaches that they are serious and committed, and in return will have the best chance of playing early. If you do not understand the workouts, call the coach and ask questions, see if there is an upper-classmen who lives in your area and can help, or consider a few private training sessions at a local gym or training facility.

Set goals for your freshman year and be sure to stay out of trouble. Remember that one wrong move could jeopardize your entire collegiate athletic career. I recently heard from a father of an athlete who had to come home after his freshman year of college because he was not mature or responsible enough to survive on his college campus, despite the fact that he was a star on the baseball team. Once you get to campus it is time to prove to your new coaches why they recruited you. They are looking for student-athletes who will make a positive impact not only in competition, but on the college campus at large.

To those student-athletes who have signed a National Letter of Intent or made an equivalent commitment to a college athletic program – congratulations. Now get to work!

Every parent who wants to help their child play at the next level will be investing a lot of time and money in that goal.  99% of parents I speak with don’t have the experience or knowledge on how to allocate those scarce resources (time & money) to maximize the recruiting opportunities for their child.  They compound that inexperience or lack of knowledge by relying on information from non-experts.  Non-experts on recruiting include HS coaches, Club coaches, friends and relatives who may have had a successful recruiting experience, or hear-say.  As lawyer friend told me, “a person who represents himself in court, has a fool for a client.”  A college decision for your youngster will impact them for the next 50-60 years.  Should a parent leave that process in the hands of amateurs?  I guess it depends on how serious a parent is about finding the right academic and athletic fit for their child. 

 So let’s get to the point:  How much time and money needs to be spent on a child’s recruiting?  Let’s start with some assumptions based on facts.  First, unless your child is the bluest of the blue chips, they will not be discovered by college coaches.  There will be over 75,000 high school student athletes graduating this year who will be on college rosters next school year.  Less than 7,000 of them will fall into the “Blue Chip” category.  The other 68,000 student athletes will have engaged in a lot of effort to make recruiting happen for them.  The sad reality is that 1/3 to 1/2 of those students will make a wrong choice because they had to settle for what was available.  How does a parent avoid this for their child?  They MUST invest in the recruiting process.

You’ve read on these pages the 5 things you need to know and the 5 things you must do.  But no one has written about specific costs.  Regardless of the sport your child plays, they will need to participate in events outside of their high school team in order to get placed on a college coaches’ radar.  Depending on the sport, those are club, travel, elite, premier, AAU, or other teams.  These clubs spring up and die all of the time so make sure your travel team is participating in the right tournaments.  If your child is a football player, they’ll need to attend camps and combines to improve their skills.  From the time a kid is in 6^th grade until they graduate, a parent can expect to pay $3,000 to $5,000 per year on club fees, travel, lessons, personal trainers, etc.  If you aren’t doing that, you’ll have a severe competitive disadvantage with families who are doing that. 

The frustrating thing for parents is that all of that investment will not get a kid looks by college coaches.  A travel coach will promote her/his team by saying s/he participates in all of the right tournaments and that 100’s of college coaches will be in attendance.  While the college coaches will be in attendance, they come with a list of specific players to evaluate in person.  They do not attend with the idea of discovering players.  So, in addition to all of the funds parents have spent on the above activities, they still NEED to market their child.  Marketing costs break down this way:

Most parents don’t have the time to devote to all of these activities.  If they separate these activities among different vendors, they run the risk of not using an expert.  For example, how many video companies use music to enhance the video?  How much are you paying for that feature?  Now, how many college coaches have the volume turned on when they’re watching the video?  ZERO.  Then what parent has the expertise to lay out a comprehensive marketing plan for their child?  What parent can transfer ownership of the process to their child?  As a parent who has been through this, the hardest thing some parents can do is to encourage their child to do the work necessary.  Where does that empowerment come from?  It comes from an expert’s knowledge.

Parents who truly want the best for their kids and want to help their kids achieve their dreams, must be willing to invest the TIME and MONEY to make that happen.  Only in the rarest of cases, will a parent hit the lottery with a gifted, hard-working student-athlete who will get discovered and recruited by her/his dream school college coach.  In all other cases, parents should not rely on “LUCK”.  As a wise man once said, luck is the residue of clearly defined goals and hard work.  If you need help defining that game plan, start here.

On this blog you’ve learned a great deal about the recruiting process, including the 5 things everyone should know and the 5 things everyone must do.  One thing that all student-athletes must do is contact a minimum of 100 college coaches.  If you wonder why, check out what happened to this highly rated D1 football prospect just 4 days before signing day.  What would you do?  Should you always have a back-up plan?  Even 4 days before signing day?  What do you think?   

 Making phone calls to college coaches is an extremely important part of recruiting.  Recruits need to able to effectively reach out to coaches to initiate contact and to follow up effectively.  In order to be adequately prepared for a call with a coach, there are a couple things you must do.  

1. Most importantly, you need to make sure that you are enthusiastic when talking to coaches! 

2. Before you have your first live call with a coach, you need to have a couple practice runs.

- Role play with a teammate, friend, or parent and go over the questions you are planning to ask as well as the questions coaches usually ask.

- Practice leaving voicemails for coaches on your cell phone or house phone. 

- Listen to your voicemails and see how you do! 

3. Make sure you have a list of questions to ask the coach written down.  Also be sure to have a pen and paper ready.

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 The current economy is affecting families across the country.  Many businesses across America have been reining in costs to combat lost revenue.  The business of college sports is no different.  Athletic departments are being forced to trim costs in any way possible therefore recruiting budgets are taking a hit.  However, since a coach’s job is still tied to their winning percentage rather than cut back, coaches are getting creative.  Today’s New York Times outlined how some schools are changing their ways:

At Amherst College, coaches have been asked to be more selective when sending out a bulk of recruiting letters and encouraged to send e-mail messages to recruits instead of worrying about telephone bills.

Amherst, a Division III college in Massachusetts, is mobilizing its alumni in an effort to have select graduates monitor their local newspapers and academic honor roll announcements to identify potential recruits. The college’s athletic director, Suzanne R. Coffey, said the alumni recruiters might meet on conference calls with coaches to discuss their findings.

“Before the financial crisis occurred, we were talking about ways to identify prospects outside our normal channels,” Coffey said. “Then in the past couple of months, we said this is the type of thing that will make even more sense with financial constraints even more prevalent.”

The Associated Press also put out a story on cost cutting efforts by schools and the NCAA:

The San Jose State football coach says he’ll avoid hotels when possible on recruiting trips. The athletics director at George Washington is wondering whether it’s time to turn out the gym lights earlier each night to save on electricity and heating bills.

Like the rest of the country, college sports is in economic meltdown mode, and not even a grand locale for the NCAA’s annual convention – along the Potomac River just south of Washington, D.C. – can mask the belt-tightening that is under way.

“It’s going to affect travel,” George Washington AD Jack Kvancz said. “It’s going to affect lodging. It’s going to affect all those things that you would obviously think it’s going to effect. You’re going to see schedules affected.”

With coaches cutting back on travel, phone calls, and letters it is more important than ever for recruits to take matters into their own hands and give coaches a vehicle to evaluate their talent.  It will be vital for athletes to use tools like NCSA’s Verified Scouting Report to give coach’s a cheap yet extremely effective tool to evaluate their athletic and academic credentials. 

It will also put more responsibility on families to follow up aggressively.  If you haven’t gotten a phone call from a coach it is up to the athlete to make sure they call directly.  Even if they don’t get an immediate call back athletes will not to continue to stay on the offensive to make sure coaches get a chance to evaluate their Scouting Report.

In a challenging economy athletes have an opportunity to have their education paid in full, but it’s up to them to give coaches the chance to cheaply evaluate their talent.

NCSA conducted a survey with over 9,000 Takkle.com users to determine the most asked recruiting questions by student athletes.  Here are their questions and our answers.

How do I get my information to scouts to look at and evaluate?

College coaches depend on verified information from trusted sources to find talent.  Most coaches attend tournaments, games and camps with a set list of student athletes they intend to evaluate, not with the hopes of discovering prospects.Take advantage of credible sources to get your name in front of college coaches!Unless you’re a “top-1%-in-the-nation” athlete, you will most likely not be “discovered” by a college coach. You need to be pro-active in getting your name, academic scores and athletic achievements in front of coaches.

I run track and I was wondering, are recruiters at the big meets such as regionals or do they look at your stats and records online. If I’m hoping to go to a college far south from where I live, how would recruiters see or find me?

College coaches do a majority of their initial evaluation by looking at video – requested or received from credible sources – often delivered online or via e-mail. After watching video, a coach may decide to have a member of his or her staff make an in-person evaluation.Make sure to have your highlight video online in a format that can be easily distributed to college coaches.What is a good size for a division 1 athlete?

Take a look at NCSA’s Sport Specific Recruiting Guidelines. They take our entire Recruit-Match Database and average the size and speed of players at every single division level for every sport.

Do you have to be a certain age to be recruited?

Academic performance/requirements count from Day One of freshmen year. College coaches can begin sending letters to potential recruits as early as freshmen year, and potential recruits can write, call, and visit college coaches at any time. Bottom line – recruiting starts freshmen year!

Is there any way I can reach out to coaches and take the initiative? Am I guaranteed to be heard by them?

Absolutely, unless you’re a “top-1%-in-the-nation” athlete, you will most likely not be “discovered” by a college coach. You need to be pro-active in getting your name, academic scores and athletic achievements in front of coaches. That means sending out RecruitMe Sheet, following up with phone call and sending out game tapes.

What should I do if college coaches are not responding to my emails or website links?

College coaches are extremely busy. If they don’t get back to you right away, don’t give up! It can take several phone calls and follow up attempts before you reach a coach.

A must read from The New York Times about Coach Tom Donnelly, the long-time track and cross country coach at Haverford College.  He feels so strongly about the importance of t he team over the individual that he tosses every coaching trophy in the garbage.  Even in an individual sport like running, recruits would be wise to look fora coach that values the college learning experience.

I don’t want any of those trophies. I appreciate the gesture, but a coaching award distracts from the essence of a coach’s job, which is to educate the students. You can only justify the existence of a team at a college campus if being on the team benefits the athletes’ educational experience.