NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

Combines are great. They are an effective way of gauging your own performance and improvement in strength, speed and agility, as well as the opportunity to compare yourself to other position players in your state, region, or even throughout the country.

But for those of you who are wanting a college scholarship just because your 40-time is 4.4 or you can max bench is 350 lbs., don’t hold your breath.   

Why? One, because although speed and strength are important for football, coaches also want to see you in game situations with pads. And secondly, because a lot of college coaches aren’t allowed to go to combines.

Now I want to clarify a couple of things. First of Larry Rubama, author of the above article, makes it sound like Bylaw 13.1.8.9.4 (which he didn’t cite) is a brand new rule. On page 93 of the NCAA Division I manual, however, the bylaw was adopted in January 2006 and put into legislation on August 1, 2006. The new part of the bylaw is bolded below, and was simply put in for clarification’s sake as far as what is acceptable:

Institutional staff members shall not attend any scholastic or nonscholastic activities devoted to agility, flexibility, speed or strength tests for prospective student-athletes (e.g., combines) conducted at any location at any time. Institutional coaching staff members may evaluate prospective student-athletes participating in scholastic practice and competition activities held under the supervision of the high school or two-year college coach whose high school or two-year college is hosting the activity — all athletics evaluations shall be limited to regularly scheduled high school, preparatory school and two-year college contests and practices and regular scholastic activities involving prospective student-athletes enrolled only at the institution at which the regular scholastic activities occur.”

My second qualm with Rubama’s article has to do with the source of the bylaw — the NCAA Division I manual. Rubama fails to mention that the “no coach restriction” is only placed on Div. I schools, and Division II, Division III, NAIA and JUCO’s have no restriction on this matter. That’s why combines, such as Hoosier Gridiron, can say that they have college coaches in attendance, because chances are, they will.

As far as what coaches or how many coaches will be there, that something the web site doesn’t say. They do say that “each participant’s combine results are provided to every college coach that attends the Combine, as well as, 200 college football coaches that have contacted Hoosier Gridiron requesting information on camp participants.” But as far as how serious those 200 mystery schools are going to take those results remains to be seen.

Like I said, combines are fantastic for performance purposes, but if you hope to get recruited and get a scholarship from one, you’re falling one rep too short.

Last week we discussed the first step that every student athlete must take:  Receiving an objective evaluation.  Once you have taken that step and you have developed realistic expectations, it is time to convey your academic and athletic abilities to the college coaches through the second step:  Building an Athletic Resume Website

Years ago, families would send hundreds of paper resumes to college coaches through traditional mail distribution channels, thankfully those times are behind us.  With the improvements in technology, information is easily updated and sent through the internet which has changed the way college coaches recruit.  In today’s recruiting world, student athletes need to have some sort of athletic online resume.

Why an online resume?

Let’s start with the obvious.  Every student athlete needs an athletic and academic resume.  This will allow college coaches to examine all the important measurable information they need to make decisions.  With that in mind, families can either create a physical paper resume or build an online resume.  Let’s look at the advantages of having that information online compared to paper:

• Customization: As student athletes progress through the recruiting process, the majority of their athletic and academic information will change. In some cases this information will change frequently. The idea of updating a paper resume and printing out a new copy for every change seems rigid and difficult. However, most websites and online resumes can be changed within seconds making them much more logical to use for this type of resume. Advantage: Online Resume

• Distribution:Let’s assume that a student athlete is qualified for 200 college programs. Each one of those programs has multiple coaches on the staff and each one should receive the information to ensure it will be reviewed. If each program has 4 coaches, that information now needs to be sent to 800 individuals. The thought of sending a paper resume through the mail to 800 people should make most families shudder. The evolution of the internet and email has now made traditional mail channels almost obsolete. Emailing the information to 800 coaches does not seem nearly as time consuming or expensive. Advantage: Online Resume

• Trackability: Once the information has been sent off to college coaches, the knowledge of whether or not it has been looked at will be critical in determining the next steps. When sending a paper resume through the mail, the only way a student athlete will be able to know that a college coach has seen their information will be waiting on a response or return letter which might never happen. Advances in technology provide student athletes the unique opportunity to place tracking capabilities in their online resumes. This means that if they email the college coach, they will know whether or not the college coach opened the information and provide them the understanding of how to follow up. Advantage: Online Resume

What should the resume contain?

To put it simply, the online resume should contain all the athletic and academic information a college coach might be interested in.  The information needed by the college coach will vary depending on the sport.  Every student athlete will not have all the information immediately.  It will be a process of gathering all the data needed throughout the recruiting experience.  However here is a list of some basic aspects that each resume should contain:

• Personal Info
• Statistical Info
• Scholastic Info
• Athletic History
• References

Remember, the purpose of this online resume is to spark the interest of the college coach and convince them to allocate their time and money towards recruiting that student athlete.  Of course the quality of the athletic and academic information being evaluated will be the single most important determining factor.  However, the coach might only look at the information for a few seconds, so the more professional in appearance and the easier to navigate, the better the odds are that they will take the time to evaluate the entire resume.

For an example of NCSA’s athletic resume website that we create for our student athletes, click here.

Next week I will discuss the third step in the process:  Highlight / Skills Video