NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

Coach Taylor, when sending highlight videos to colleges you’re interested in, should a cover letter be enclosed or just a note stating my interest. If so, what exactly should it state besides my desire to play for their organization?

I would definitely recommend including a cover letter. The only reason you might not include a cover letter with your video is if you already have sent one to this particular coach. It is a good idea to keep track of what you send to each coach.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when constructing your cover letter to coaches:

1. Most every coach now relies on e-mail to both contact and receive contact from potential recruits. That is the preferred method of communication. To find out the e-mail addresses for the coaches you are looking to contact, simply go to the college’s athletic website and look for a staff listing of names and e-mails or ask your Recruiting Coach.

2. Be brief. Coaches at all levels receive dozens and dozens of e-mails/letters from high school-aged players. All you are trying to do is show you have interest, pass along all of your contact information, your resume, and provide each coach with an upcoming schedule of your matches so he can see you play.

3. NEVER HAVE ONE OF YOUR PARENTS WRITE TO A COACH. You are the one the coach might be recruiting, so he/she wants to hear from you directly. (If the relationship develops and it appears that you might be attending that college, they’ll be plenty of time for your parents to have contact with the coaching staff.)

4. Provide contact information for yourself and your coaches. Nothing is worse for a college coach than to have to track down your coach’s e-mail or phone number. By having both an e-mail address and a phone number listed after his/her name, it allows for the college coach to quickly e-mail or call your private and/or high school coach to follow up.

5. Always include basic information about yourself such as grad year, high school, athletic history, GPA, SAT/ACT scores. Tell the coach why you are a good fit for their program.

6. Do not send a form letter that starts out with “Dear Coach” and does not mention anything specific about his/her program and school. The bulk of your e-mail will be kept the same for correspondence you send out to various coaching staff; however a portion of it should be personalized. Bring in something specific about it that you learned by going through the website. State your interest in the school and specific reasons (like “my Dad went to Madison and I want to carry on the tradition” or whatever fits you personally)

7. Detail is important! Be sure that you use spell check and proper English. This is a reflection of your ability. You may send your letter to NCSA to revise.

8. If you are emailing rather than regular mail, DO NOT mass email a bunch of coaches. This comes across as lazy and shows the coach that you didn’t take your time to personalize for them. Make sure to address the letter Dear Coach [[last name]].

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.

Do I have to play for my high school team in order to be recruited? What if I just play club?

You do NOT have to play on your high school team in order to get recruited. It might be harder, but yes, it is possible to play in college if you don’t play for your high school team or don’t contribute significantly on the high school team. Some sports, like volleyball, soccer, softball, etc. , with a high level of club, barely pay attention to high school participation. Not only is it in the same season, but with multiple chances to see you play travel/club ball, it is quite likely to be playing at a higher level than your high school team.

If your sport doesn’t have a club option, personal contacts with coaches will be crucial for recruiting, as well as attending camps, combines, and that specific college’s camp over the summer. This can be a great way to show your interest and showcase your skills to a specific coach.

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.

Charlie Adams brings 23 years of experience covering the recruiting process of high school athletes who reached their dream of playing college sports. Adams was an award winning sportscaster at television stations and a longtime professional speaker. He is also one of NCSA’s Recruiting Experts.

As a speaker, I have a few thousand conversations a year with families and coaches that are going through, or have been through, the recruiting process. I often share them in this blog.

During my son’s 12th grade season, I was at a top Cross Country Meet. A veteran South Bend (IN) High School Coach came up and told me one of his sophomore runners had recently done a Recruiting Analysis with NCSA. The Coach said it had an immediate positive impact on the young man.

“This athlete wants to compete at a high level in college,” the coach told me. “During the Recruiting Analysis he told the NCSA College Scout his times. The Scout told him they projected to be D3 or NAIA times. Well, that put a fire in him because he wants to eventually run at a higher level. Then the kid told the Scout he has a 2.5 GPA. The Scout chuckled slightly. It wasn’t in a rude way, but in a way where he was challenging the athlete that he could do better than a 2.5 and that he would need to do better to be in better position for scholarships. Ever since that Recruiting Analysis, the runner has been more focused in practice and has immediately started improving his grades. I have seen a distinct difference in his focus, even as a sophomore. I tell athletes these things all the time, but when it comes from that third party, it’s big.”

THAT can be the power of a Recruiting Analysis. It is important to do one to see where you stand in recruiting. If you have not done one yet, or never set up a time after hearing a NCSA speaker, contact us

Charlie Adams

cadams@ncsasports.org

Charlie Adams brings 23 years of experience covering the recruiting of high school athletes who reached their dream of playing college sports. Adams was an award winning sportscaster at television stations and is one of NCSA’s Recruiting Experts.

I was driving near Indianapolis this week and heard former Indiana University Basketball Coach Dan Dakich hosting his daily talk show on 1070 the Fan. A caller called in a little ‘bent out of shape’ that IU Basketball Coach Tom Crean had recently received two commitments from players that had yet to play a second of High School basketball. Two highly rated 9th graders had made their decision to attend IU. The caller just could not understand how they could be doing that at such a young age. Dakich, who was an assistant coach at IU for years and knows recruiting inside and out, wasn’t surprised. He said back when he was evaluating talent he could often tell if a 7th grader could play at a major D1 level like Indiana and the Big Ten. In recruiting, basketball is especially accelerated and seasoned evaluators like Tom Crean can project early if a kid can play. Back in the 1980′s, Bob Knight went down to Bedford, IN to watch a legendary 8th grader named Damon Bailey play a game. In the book, “A Season on the Brink” Knight made a comment to the author John Feinstein that “Bailey is better than any guard we have right now. I don’t mean potentially better, I mean better today.” Bailey ended up going to Indiana and was a very good player at that level.

It’s not that way for every basketball player that eventually plays D1, but it is for the special ones. Trey Lyles is one of the two players to commit to IU. He stands 6’9″ as a 9th grader. The other one is James Blackmon, Jr. His Dad was a very good player back in the day at Kentucky. Tom Crean and his staff have no doubt those two project to be winning Big Ten players. As Dakich said on his radio show, the IU coaches know what they are doing because they are seasoned evaluators. They have been watching those kids in the July evaluation events.

Less than 1% of the High School athletes will get this kind of “fawning over.” The rest have to be proactive in recruiting, and understand the process starts early whether you are a 6’9″ ninth grader or not. A 5’9″ 9th grade basketball player that is not even on the varsity team needs to understand how important it is to make his baskets in the classroom so that he can have more options in recruiting when he is a junior or senior. That kid may never get a D1 offer, but if he and his family get educated in recruiting and he works his tail off, by the time he is a junior and senior he will have more options in recruiting.

Charlie Adams

cadams@ncsasports.org

Charlie Adams brings 23 years of experience covering the recruiting of high school athletes who reached their dream of playing college sports. Adams was an award winning sportscaster at television stations and is one of NCSA’s Recruiting Experts.

I had a long conversation with a mother and father whose daughter, a soccer player, had just found the right fit for college.

She was found by the college coach when he was looking at another recruit’s video. The other recruit was not clearly identified on the video, and the college coach noticed their daughter making plays on it. This is why you cannot make college coaches play detective in trying to figure out where you are on video, or some other kid will get a scholarship off your tape. I have found the NCSA guidance in this area critical. An arrow pointing at the recruit at the start of a play is very important. One of the points of College Recruiting Simplified is to make a “winning Highlight/Skills video.” The key word there is ‘winning.’ Families often have no idea how much more successful they will be in recruiting if they had a better understanding of how to work the video process. I continue to be amazed at how many families don’t even have a plan for it, and don’t have video of their kid – even as 12th graders sometimes!

The mother, father and daughter made several unofficial visits during her High School days. The young lady evaluated out to be a NAIA or D3 player, so they met with several coaches. One young head coach got all wound up during their meeting and talked about how they would have a “D1 mentality” at the D3 school. He was a little too gung-ho. They appreciated his fever and enthusiasm, but wanted to find someone a little calmer. They continued the process, made more visits, and found a school with a veteran coach who still had the fire for coaching. It wasn’t the reason they picked the school. Their major reason was the school would allow her to grown in her faith, athletics and academics, but they felt this particular coach had the calm, steady approach and decades of experience to better fit her. Now, the next kid might eat up that other coach’s wound-up approach. It’s all part of getting out there and finding the right fit. I spoke at the Mizuno Mid East Regional Volleyball Qualifiers in Indianapolis earlier this year. I talked with one mother whose daughter had already been on three unofficial visits in the Fall of her junior year, and was close to firming up the right fit. It was because she was “out there.”

For an Evaluation of your College Recruiting potential

Charlie Adams

NCSA Senior Speaker

cadams@ncsasports.org

Looking back at any past decisions you’ve made would you say that there have been a few where you wish you could have that decision back to do it differently? For you parents out there maybe it was the decision to take a new job that looked promising, or placed your kids on a team that took you down a couple of levels. For you high schoolers, maybe it was not doing so great on a test you didn’t study for, or didn’t make that team that you didn’t work hard enough to make. Point is, looking back on any of those past decisions, would you have done anything different now to change what happened in the past?

Here’s a tip for you athletes and parents of athletes…don’t make it that way with recruiting!

Just recently I got off the line with a great family with a daughter that has a ton of talent on the pitch playing midfield for her varsity soccer team. Her body of work: Four years of varsity experience, four years of participation on a competitive club team, 3.6 GPA and a 25 on her ACT. She was in cookie cutter form of a soccer player that has some potential to play in the college level. Will you find this girl in the World Cup, probably not, but you could very will find her playing for her college somewhere. Problem though is the chances of you knowing about her and her skills are pretty low because of the way the family is handling the recruiting process. Sure she has good talent but this family truly believes the recruiting process is like the movies. Being a senior, she has received no phone calls from any college coaches (allowed), no official visits on the calendars (also allowed), no scholarship offers verbally given (allowed3) and only a few e-mails from some D3 assistant coaches a few months ago but no contact recently with these coaches. They had a YouTube video posted on her skills but not on any verified source for coaches to see and they haven’t been reaching out to college coaches. Yet the mother of Rachel refused to open her ears up to listen to anyone trying to offer her advice to get on the right path. She believes that this year her daughter will get discovered during the season by scouts that are coming to her games and she refused to listen to anyone but her husband, daughter, and her daughter’s coach.

For all you parents out there, here are two of the top myths of collegiate recruiting: 1) your high school coach will take care of the recruiting process for you 2) College scouts just discover talent at the games they go to. Remember these scouts and coaches are people too. Let’s take a step back and remind ourselves that their time is valuable and their connections are limited. Scouts go to games to evaluate talent that they have been watching for quite some time; rarely do they look at anyone else. Coaches have limited college contacts, usually five at most, a curriculum to teach, papers to grade and a family to take care of, how much time during their day are they going to have to recruit your son or daughter? I’m not trying to preach, but the importance of getting your facts straight can be the difference in D1 or D3, or how much money your family will receive in scholarship money or financial aid.

Don’t you owe it to your family and your talents to make sure that you are sure with the hands you are putting your future in? Like anything in life, the college decision is ultimately a big leap of faith to hopefully land in the right place. The place to transform you into that adult that you want to become, to learn to grow, to play your sport, and have pride in your new home. Be smart in these next four years, trust the people that you trust, but remember to always take advice with an open mind and go to trusted sources to help you reach your goals. Sometimes this process requires help to get there! Good luck!

We’ve always said that choosing where you go to school isn’t a 4 year decision, it’s a 40 year decision. Being such a big decision, high school kids should be able to take their time in making such a hard choice, right? Minooka DE Zach Colvin unfortunately learned the hard way that you don’t have all the time in the world to make your decision.

College athletics is a very serious business, and universities cannot afford to sit around and wait for an offer to be taken. Sometimes, the college coach may offer a scholarship to more than one student athlete, and the one who responds the fastest gets the spot. This is an aspect of college athletics that the high school student athlete might not think about or have trouble understanding the concept.

Zach Colvin, 6’4” 225lbs, had a rude awakening when he found out in July that a Big Ten BCS school was withdrawing their offer that he received the offer 4 months earlier. Currently, Colvin has offers from Northern Illinois, Air Force, Bowling Green, Ball State, Memphis, Central Michigan and Wyoming but continues to hold out for that Big Ten perfect offer that he feels comfortable with. Minooka Coach Bert Kooi was quoted in the Chicago Sun Times, “We’ve all learned a lot about the recruiting process. He wants to play at the highest level. We believe he can. [Mid-American Conference] schools have recruited him as hard as anyone. But he is looking for a Big Ten offer.”

For players like Zach, who has many full scholarship offers, doesn’t have to worry too much about not getting any money, but he was humbled by realizing that the coaches list of prospects is a lot longer than he might think, and that coaches just can’t afford to wait around on one player for 4+ months. As important as the decision on whether to take the offer or not, it is the coach’s job to put together a winning team, and who knows if they wait for you and you end up saying no, they could be missing out on someone else on the same level. Time is something that needs to be thought about a lot in athletic recruiting and if taken lightly, may cost you a scholarship offer.

In this article by Curtis Eichelberger found on Bloomberg News today, you can read about the advantage students who play sports in college receive in employment after college.  You should read the entire article, but here’s the money quote:

“Athletes can bring something extra that’s necessary for success in finance, Werner said.

“In a business where it tends to knock you down a lot, they tend to get back up,” he said. “That drive, that level of discipline, the rigor they have in their own personal lives and their willingness to take on hard challenges; a lot of that gets taught to you on an athletic field.”

NCSA is THE Athletic Recruiting Network.  We empower our student-athletes in their chosen careers through our network of employers who hire student athletes.  You can find out more about that here.

When we sent out our newsletter promoting everyone to share their sports story with us, we had the privilege of getting in contact with a student athlete’s mother, who wanted to share her son Luke’s very inspirational story with us.

His story is an inspirational journey through adversity, set in a football environment. Like many of student athletes in high school who have also shared their stories with us, Luke was a high school football player anxious to finally play on Friday nights with the varsity team his junior year at Edison High School in California.

The week before two-a-days, July 2008, Luke developed a nosebleed that lasted over 2 hours. After going to the hospital, the Gane’s were told that Luke had a rare blood disorder called Severe Aplastic Anemia, which is known to be fatal. The bone marrow in your body, when you have this disorder begins to rapidly malfunction and ceases to produce more new blood cells. The Gane family saw this nosebleed as a very important “blessing-in-disguise” because if it did not occur, one big hit during football practice would have caused internal hemorrhaging, killing him.

A month later, Luke under went chemotherapy, but it became evident that he was in need of a bone marrow transplant. Coming from a family of 5 boys, they tested the family and found that two of his brothers were a match. When Jim, Luke’s father, asked who wanted to volunteer to be Luke’s donor, both brother’s hands shot up, but it was 10 year old Jacob Gane’s hand that went up first. The surgery was a success! The Gane’s community was extremely supportive in anyway they could, setting up multiple fundraisers, when the Gane family had not asked for anything.

Luke fought back extremely well and made a full recovery! He was able to play every game, both ways, his senior year.  He helped lead his team to an undefeated regular season, losing only in the CIF championships to a rival team that supported Luke during his illness.  Luke Gane then found himself accepting an offer as a preferred walk-on at UCLA for football beginning this Fall!

We are very grateful to  for sharing her family’s story with us. If you have your own inspirational sports story that you would like to share with us and countless student athletes and their families across the nation, please submit yours today on our “What’s Your Story” Facebook page! We’d love to hear your story!

If you are interested in reading more about Luke Gane’s incredible journey, here are some places to find out more:

Luke Gane Video

Luke Gane’s Blog