NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

Katie Trainor coaches women’s lacrosse at Goucher College in Maryland. She had some valuable things to say to the Baltimore Sun in an interview, including the role of Camps and the importance of playing multiple sports in high school.

Coach, how many camps should a kid play in during the summer if she wants to play in college?

Katie Trainor: I think that is a decision that a player should make with her parents. Obviously camps are expensive and you need to do your research as to what is the purpose of the camp. If you want to be seen by a certain coach or spend time on a specific campus, then you should go to a camp at that specific college if it is offered. I do not think that players need to be participating in camps all summer — that is an expensive choice and I am a firm believer that the students these days need a bit more free time and fun in the summer. Too many are spending every waking minute of the summer being shuffled to and from lacrosse tournaments and camps, causing burnout.

Coach, are you a fan of multi-sport athletes when recruiting?

Katie Trainor: Absolutely. I think that multi-sport high school athletes have a lot to offer. It’s important not to specialize too early as it promotes a higher burnout rate and also creates situations of muscle overuse. Single-sport athletes can get sick of the sport when they get to college. Participating in multiple sports in high school is a great way to increase one’s overall athleticism in an organized, competitive environment.

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When I delivered College Recruiting Simplified at Warsaw High in Warsaw, IN (alma mater of former Laker Rick Fox), I had a long talk with athletic director Joe Santa. Joe had recently delivered a presentation on the value of multiple sports at a conference in San Diego.

He used current Chris Kramer as an example. Chris is currently a key player for Purdue Basketball. Many families might think, “Well, to get my kid to D1 Basketball in the Big Ten, we have to do basketball year round – nothing else!”  Chris Kramer and his family didn’t think that way. When Chris played at Huntington North (IN) High School, he played football, basketball and baseball. He earned eleven varsity letters over four years and set fifteen different school records in three sports. He had D1 offers in three sports.

You know why he played three sports? He said, “Because my friends are playing!”          

-Charlie Adams, NCSA Educational Speaker

NCSA Interviewed senior outside hitter Savanna Braziel about her volleyball career and recruiting.  Savanna plays for Iowa Park High School in Texas and also for the Texas Tornado VBC.

NCSA: What is your background in volleyball? When did you start playing?

Savanna: I didn’t start playing volleyball until my 6th grade year. Volleyball wasn’t a really big thing at my school and I hadn’t been introduced to it that much. I didn’t realize how much I loved it until around my 8th grade to Freshman year.

NCSA: What is the athletic experience you have ever had?

Savanna: I have played basketball and softball pretty much my whole life. I started that at a really young age, but I came to love volleyball way more as I got older.

NCSA: What is the best academic experience you have ever had?

Savanna: Probably being Academic All District my Jr year.

NCSA: What type of college are you looking for?

Savanna: I’m mainly looking for a college that isn’t too far away from home and has a good, solid volleyball program. Just somewhere I can fit in and be welcomed into. Also somewhere with a Physical Therapy program.

NCSA: What makes you really interested in a volleyball program after a coach contacts you?

Savanna: What I mainly look at first is the roster, just to see if I can fit in with the girls. I look at the location of the college and the overall atmosphere.  I’m also looking for somewhere that is a home away from home, basically. Somewhere I feel comfortable and I feel like I can contribute to the team.

NCSA: How has your recruiting process changed since starting with NCSA?

Savanna: I have gotten a lot of emails and calls from colleges and coaches I never even dreamed of talking to, and it has opened my eyes to a lot more opportunities I would have never known were there.

NCSA: If someone was just starting the recruiting process, what advice might you give them? 

Savanna: To respond to every coach that contacts you even if you aren’t interested because sometimes they have a lot more to offer than you think.

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.

When I discuss the 5 Things You Must Do with potential recruits, I am often told “I’m waiting on film from my high school coach.”  As this blog has stated over and over, it is not your high school coaches responsibility to get you a scholarship.  Video is often the critical element for most college coaches when making the decision to start the recruitment of an athlete.  That decision is being made earlier and earlier each year.  For that reason it becomes apparent that athletes can’t afford to waste any time.

That is why athletes and families need to plan ahead of time.  Sit down with your coach BEFORE your season begins to get a clear understanding of when you can expect footage.  If that date isn’t until after the season is complete I would suggest filming at least one game on your own.  Remember, recruits are competing nationwide for coveted scholarship slots. Time is of the essence!  Getting quality footage in a timely manner could make or break your future.  I recommend that athletes take this responsibility into their own hands!

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?   

Read Part One Here

Even though academic concerns should take priority when choosing a college or university, as a student-athlete your success in your particular sport will make your entire undergraduate experience more rewarding.  It’s tough to do well in the classroom if you’re struggling athletically. 

The following are some concerns an athlete might deal with before making a final decision on what college to attend:

1. How many returners are there at my position?

Competition is part of being an athlete.  If you don’t want to compete, you shouldn’t even try to take your talents to the next level.  At same time, it’s a lot easier to know how to set your goals if you know exactly what challenges you will face.  And don’t forget, the more experienced players will help you mature as an athlete.

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