NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

NCSA founder Chris Krause’ first book, Athletes Wanted is now available to pre-order for shipping June 1st! Athletes Wanted is the premise that athletes are indeed wanted in all areas of society. Just look at the record TV contracts for college and professional sports networks, the rise of ESPN and the conference networks, and the growth of collegiate athletics in popularity year in and year out.

The other areas athletes are wanted is on college campuses and in the professional world. Statistics prove that the recruited student athlete is much more likely to be accepted to a better college or university, and receive a better scholarship and/or grant and aid package. After college employers want former athletes as well. Just polling recruiters and CEO’s it is apparent- former college athletes are in demand for leadership position in every career imaginable!

Why? The book digs into the Athletes Wanted world and is designed to shed light upon why, and gives tips and anecdotes into how you can help maximize your student athlete’s athletic scholarship and eventual life potential.

Student athletes are taught life skills that impact them continuously. The former collegiate student athlete brand is something they carry with them always. Since the average person changes jobs over 25 times throughout their lives, this will come in handy in opening doors, building relationships, along with the learned skill set of hard work, leadership, goal setting, team work, time management, and achievement that will help them succeed at whatever they set their minds to. These invaluable tools will continue to help them thrive in a meaningful and rewarding career to provide for their families and be positive role models, spouses, friends and parents long after the cheers and roar of the crowd are over.

If you are a senior and haven’t chosen a school yet, don’t give up just yet. There is still some time, but not a lot. If you want to play at the next level bad enough, you can make it happen if you are willing to put the work in. There are some coaches that are still looking, but your options are going to be limited. You will have to be pretty open in terms of things such as location, size of school and level of play. Realistically, your opportunities will be at the lower level Division III schools because they do their recruiting last. There are always exceptions, but overall, that is where the most opportunities will be.Before you contact a coach, you must take a look at their website to make sure that academically it is a realistic option for you and athletically it is realistic as well. Look at the player bios and see how you measure up to the players on the team and what their experience was like in high school.

You need to contact as many coaches as you can and try to do it sooner rather than later. Send them an email with some background information on yourself as a student and lacrosse player. Be sure to mention major tournaments you have attended and any awards you have received on your high school team. Keep it short, but you want to highlight yourself to spark the coach’s interest. It’s a good idea to ask if they are still recruiting for 2009 as well because if they aren’t, then you will know to cross them off your list.

You will need to get comfortable speaking with coaches on the phone, if you aren’t already. Since time is short, you will need to get to know the coach fast and vice versa; this is best done by phone conversations. Always stress your interest in the school and how much you would like to play at the next level. There are approximately 330 schools offering lacrosse for women and 270 for men; the opportunities are there, you just have to put the work in to make something happen. No one else is going to do it for you.

NCSA: Describe the sort of work that was put into the recruiting process.

Eck: With the help of NCSA the recruiting process was made substantially easier. They helped me with the initial contact of the coach, my highlight video, recruiting page and it was my job to remain in contact with all the coaches that I received interest from. I then had to fill out the correspondence logs to keep my recruiting counselors updated.

NCSA:  What was the most challenging part of the recruiting process to be successful?

Eck: The challenges of the recruiting process was keeping in contact with all the coaches. Keeping constant contact week after week helped ensure that I didn’t count out any options in the collegiate search.

NCSA: What was the best part of the recruiting process?

Eck: The best part of the recruiting process was the actual commitment. It is a great feeling when you find a school that you like both socially, academically and in athletics. I felt that Washington and Jefferson College was a great fit in all of these areas.

NCSA: How did NCSA impact your recruiting process?

Eck: NCSA greatly impacted my recruiting process by making it easier to contact coaches and informing me on the recruiting process. Without NCSA I would have been lost and probably wouldn’t have had as many choices to choose from in the end. If you use NCSA to its fullest then being recruited almost always happen.

NCSA: What advice would you give student athletes going through this process?

Eck: Be proactive in your recruiting. Don’t wait for coaches to go out and contact you. Coaches like it when an athlete takes the initiative to contact them.

Thank you so much for your help throughout the recruiting process.

It takes a mature person to understand the keys to being successful and accomplishing goals. It is especially tough when the task is both physical and mental in nature. The steadfast and focused individuals are able to handle the ups and downs that eventually lead to success. The following is a road map for young athletes to follow if they are truly committed to being the best they possibly can be in their particular sport.

Keep All Doors Open

As an athlete, you need to give yourself every opportunity to succeed. The better you are in the classroom the more opportunities you will have in the future. Everyone would like to play at the top level of collegiate competition but we all know those opportunities are limited. If you are talented enough and dedicated, those chances may indeed come to fruition. The ultimate goal, however, is to end up at a school that is the best match for you. The better you are in the classroom, the more choices you will have from which to pick.

Be Committed

Once you have decided to make college athletics your goal, you need to set your game plan and be rigid in keeping your every action toward accomplishing that end result. It’s easy to stray from the disciplines it takes to be successful; only the strong-willed reach their goal.

Let Others Know Your Intentions

As an athlete, don’t be afraid to communicate your intentions. There are a lot of people who can be instrumental in the process. Relatives, coaches, administrators, and friends are just a limited example of those who can be important as you work to accomplish your goal.

Ask For Help

Even though the bulk of your success rests within tour attitude and your efforts, it’s smart to learn from those who have been where you want to go. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about physical training, improving technical skills, or mental maturity; seek help from those who know what it takes to max out ones’ potential.

Work to Improve

As you go up the athletic ladder the competition gets tougher and tougher. Everybody you will face at the next level will be as good as or better than the best of the best you have already faced. The great athletes thrive on competition and know if you don’t get better you are doomed for failure.

Ignore Naysayers

Remember that not everyone you come in contact with is as dedicated and committed as you. There will be those who try to deter you along the way; even though sometimes not purposefully. Others will be jealous of your successes. It is crucial to keep your eye on the target and not get off track.

Be a Leader

Just as others have done for you, you have an obligation to pay back and pay forward. The examples you set may well be the standard other athletes will use as their guidelines in the future. Remember, the best leaders are those who lead by example.

Learn from Failure

The road to success is a rocky one. There will be ups and downs along the way and it’s important to not dwell on the shortcomings but use them as motivators. Every failure is learning and growing experience. Getting knocked down is going to happen, the key is to get back up and go again.

Share Your Successes

Great teams celebrate together. As an athlete, never forget your success is a team success even if the sport is considered an individual success. Your team is comprised of may who have and continually helped out. Let them know your success is a direct reflection of their help and support.

Believe in Yourself

Confidence in yourself and your convictions is the self-motivator to finish the job. Never waiver from your belief in your own abilities. Others can help but you have to have the grit and determination to do it yourself. The long hours of physical and mental preparation fall solely on your shoulders; be proud.

The athletic department arms race has really heated up in the last decade.  New stadiums with luxurious new locker rooms and training facilities became the norm rather than the exception.  Coaches and administrators sold alumni that these new facilities were vital if they were to compete in the emerging landscape.  Along with the rising buildings being erected on campus, coaching salaries exploded as well.  Men’s football and basketball coaching salaries naturally led the way since their sports funded the rest of the athletic department.  Just as interesting though, is the rise in coaching salaries across non-revenue sports.  The Columbus Dispatch took a closer look at the Ohio State Athletic Department and their rising pay scale.

In the decade following 1998, salaries for some coaches and department administrators doubled and, for others, tripled, in inflation-adjusted terms. The pay raises were funded not by tax dollars, but largely by revenue surpluses in the football and men’s basketball programs.

Names such as Jim Tressel and Thad Matta might come to mind when you think of increasing salaries for coaches, but you could just as easily throw in the names of Bluem, Joe Breschi, Linda Kalafatis, Bob Todd, Anne Wilkinson and many other lower-profile coaches and assistant coaches.

All have benefited from the rising tide of college sports pay.
One way that Athletic Departments have funded these huge raises is by allowing and assisting coaches in earning supplemental income.

Breschi, the men’s lacrosse coach until he left the university last year, made the equivalent of $63,100 in 1998. Last year, Breschi made $232,500, fueled largely by a camp that pushed his bonus to almost $140,000. Overall, his pay increased 268 percent over the decade. Nationally, the average total pay for a lacrosse coach is about $197,000.

The eye-popping statistic isn’t his total salary, its the $140,000 he made through bonuses like his camp.  Keep in mind the Ohio State team only had 9 freshman last year!  Just imagine how many hopeful recruits attended camp with little to no chance of being recruited!

Large camps like this are proof that athletes need to be in contact with college coaches before they commit to attending a camp.  Once they have been identified as a bona fide recruit attending a large camp can be beneficial.  Until, you are sure that you are more than just a $dollar sign$ I recommend contacting college coaches.

Think college coaches aren’t evaluated players on social networks like Facebook?  Guess again.  NFL scouts even go to length of creating fake profiles of attractive women and friend potential draft picks to see how they will interact.  Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports reports on why coaches can’t afford to leave any stone unturned.

“It works like magic,” said a personnel source that was familiar with his team’s tactic of using counterfeit profiles to link to Facebook and Myspace pages of potential draft picks. The source directed Yahoo! Sports to one of the team’s “ghost profiles” – a term he coined because “once the draft is over, they disappear. It’s like they were never there.”

Most NFL players and draft picks still have their own profiles on social networking sites. Every potential first-round pick in this year’s draft currently maintains a presence on Facebook. But many of them learned long ago to scrub their pages of anything that would give teams ammunition to use against them. Perhaps they followed the lead of their predecessors.

“I have a Facebook page. I’m rarely on it. But when I was in college, I didn’t have anything to hide,” said Houston Texans defensive tackle Amobi Okoye, a 2007 first-rounder. “But I was just mindful of whatever was on there. If you had the slightest doubt that it might create some controversy [it wasn't on there]. My whole thing is that I live by the phrase ‘You don’t want to give anybody a reason.’ ”

If NFL coaches are going to this length, so are colleges.  Recruits need to be ware that photos posted of them in Middle School have the chance to later impact their recruiting efforts.  My advice is to avoid any potential scenario where you could be seen to be involved in questionable behavior.

But, recruits could take the idea one step further.  Since they know coaches will be following their activities online, why not use their page to highlight their best attributes?  Use it to show off their highlight video.  Use it to display the charity work they have done in the community.  Take another recruit’s smoking gun, and turn into an advantage.

Coaches ask players to switch positions all the time.  Many times players fear that switching positions will hurt their ability to be recruited.  Lacrosse is typically not one of those sports.  The Ithica Journal took some time to look at the Cornell Lacrosse program and their team philosophy.

Cornell’s recruiting philosophy has been largely founded on finding the best combination of character, student and athlete — not necessarily the best lacrosse player — and steadily developing them, regardless of high school positions.

The philosophy may not produce top ten recruiting classes, but it has produced a Final Four appearance and consistent top-25 rankings.

Senior George Calvert is the latest example of that philosophy bearing fruit. A standout left-handed attackman at Lawrenceville High School in New Jersey and during a post-graduate year at the Hotchkiss School, Calvert was converted into a shortstick defensive midfielder in 2006-07, where he started for two seasons alongside 2008 graduate Danny Nathan. The position is akin to an offensive lineman’s in football — you get noticed only when you get beat, with the added nuance that opposing offenses specifically pick on you.

The rationale behind the move was pure math. In Calvert’s freshman year, Cornell was stacked at attack with the likes of David Mitchell, Derek Haswell, Henry Bartlett and Eric Pittard, so Calvert saw virtually no playing time. But when shortstick defensive midfielders Dave Bush and Cam Marchant graduated in 2006, there was an opening.

Calvert took it.

It was easy to embrace, he said, because as a former football and hockey player, he loved to hit.

“Coming in, they preach team and family and character,” said Calvert, an athletic 5-foot-10, 170-pounder. “And kids with character don’t mind playing different positions. Look at Ethan. He was a stud goalie, he’s still a great goalie, and to go out there and play longstick and have such a great attitude, he was a great example for all of us.”

My advice to any player asked to switch positions is simple; Accept your assignment, gain new skill sets, and impress college coaches with your versatility and team play.

Chad Musser, Football, Sterling College
Jack Lazar II, Football, University of Saint Francis
Ethan Kagy, Football, University of Toledo
Jeffrey Heiner, Football, Lindsey Wilson College
Jeremy Caseltine, Football, Miami University–Oxford
Paul Fackler, Football, University of Dayton
Tyler McClure, Football, King’s College
AJ White, Football, University of Texas-Austin
Pablo Gross, Football, Fort Lewis College
Roderick Thomas, Football, University of North Alabama
Anthony Tucker, Football, Augustana College
Casey Monaghan, Football, Virginia Tech
Justin Rayome, Football, Fort Lewis College
Justin Wortman, Football, University of Arkansas
Jamar Rogers, Football, Winston-Salem State University
Tyler Burns, Football, Loras College
Jacob Lilly, Football, Benedictine College
Brian Holman Jr., Football, Oklahoma Panhandle State University
Darrell Harris, Football, University of Charleston
Connor O’Hara, Football, University of Dayton
Quinton Pirl, Football, Robert Morris University
Jonathan Zytkoskee, Football, Wheaton College (IL)
Christopher Tozer, Football, Foothill College
Austin Kubit, Men’s Basketball, St. Xavier University
Taylor Alex, Men’s Lacrosse, Northern Arizona University
Jesse Brennan, Men’s Soccer, University of California–San Diego
Jake Geiger, Men’s Soccer, University of Dubuque
Kyle Adams, Men’s Soccer, Delta State University
Luke Snow, Men’s Soccer, Louisiana State University–Shreveport
Kenny Harriman, Men’s Track, Colorado State University
Courtney White, Softball, University of the Cumberlands
Autumn Taylor, Softball, George Washington University
Renae Tubergen, Softball, Aquinas College
Alyssa Bergquist, Softball, Whitworth College
Erin Johnson, Softball, Iowa State University
Catherine Hensley, Women’s Soccer, New Jersey City University
Katherine Sanderson, Women’s Soccer, Marietta College
Tara Simon, Women’s Soccer, California State University–San Marcos
Lauren Pfister, Women’s Soccer, Philadelphia University
Kyrsten Rezac, Women’s Swimming, University of Arkansas — Little Rock
Tamara Gagne, Women’s Track, Pittsburg State University
Betsy Stevenson, Women’s Volleyball, University of Montevallo

 It has been called “the window.” For example, experts say the Phoenix Suns have missed “their window” to win the NBA title.  The Cleveland Cavaliers are in “their window” to win it.

There is also a “window” to play college sports.

Last summer I was at State University of New York at New Paltz. I was talking with one of their college athletes. She said that when she was in high school she figured she had her four years of high school sports and four years of college sports and that was it. Sure, there would be adult league basketball and slo pitch softball and all of that, but she didn’t want to miss out on “the window” of playing college sports.

This past weekend I delivered “College Recruiting Simplified” at the NIKE Football Combine put on by ESPN RISE. Before speaking, I was talking to a high school football coach from Ohio. He talked about how precious the years were to play high school and college football. Once they were done, serious organized football was over for the great majority of players.

“I am over 40 years old,” he told me. “I can get a few of my buddies and we can play a basketball game. But I am not going to be able to get 21 of my buddies and play a real football game. Kids have one shot to play college football, and after that . . . ”

My advice – do everything you can to make college sports a reality. Don’t let “the window” go by.

Charlie Adams

The time is finally here – you have found your dream school. You can not wipe the grin off your face while you call your new coach to inform him that it’s official. Your parents take you out to dinner to celebrate. Your classmates give you high fives in the hall. Congratulations on making your final commitment but you still have one step left.Do you know what it is?

Notify the other coaches that were recruiting you.

Now is the time to contact all the other coaches who courted you throughout the last few years. A phone call is a nice gesture but in most cases a simple email will do the trick. Just do not neglect this courtesy. These coaches spent a lot of time and money telling you about their school and trying to prove that it was the right fit for you. Even though you made another decision, you still owe these coaches a heartfelt “thank you”. There is a good chance you will face off against these coaches for the next four years and in the tumultuous world of college coaching, you never know what the future will bring.

You have put a lot of time, energy and work into your recruiting process, and yes, you deserve some time to celebrate. Soon, however, you must begin your preparation to become a college athlete so do not leave any unfinished business behind you when you enter this next stage in your athletic career.