NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

The College World Series of softball is underway at Oklahoma City where the top eight teams are playing for the championship over the weekend.  If you have it in your dreams to be playing softball at the college level – are you following the games?  There are some great individual stories of the players how they had to overcome odds to make the teams as well as how teams progressed through the season.  There is Georgia who is making their first appearance in the world series with the youngest NCAA D1 team with 10 freshmen players and only two upperclassmen.

There is a great story about the University of Florida, catcher Kristina Hilberth took to get where she is today. She began as a freshman walk-on to now a school record holder in career fielding percentage (.995).  Learn about how she ‘earned and worked’ her way to the starting catcher role.

Don’t miss on supporting and watching the Women’s College World Series games over the weekend and championship early next week.

Be sure to check out what softball teams won the other division championships – NCAA DII, NCAA DIII, NAIA, NJCAA’s. (D1), (DII),  (DIII).

If you are fortunate enough to have options to choose which travel baseball team you should play for over the summer here are a few questions to ask yourself:

1. Which team are you going to receive more playing time with?

The only way to get better in baseball is by actually PLAYING the game.

2. Which team is playing better competition?

In addition to making sure you are playing, you have to make sure it is against good competition. The best way to get better is to play against guys who are better than you.

3. Where is the team traveling?

The summer time is an important time that college coaches do their recruiting. One of, if not, the most important factor coaches take in to account is seeing you play in person. Playing for your high school summer team usually doesn’t fit the bill in terms of gaining exposure or playing against good competition.

4. What is your budget?

In these economic times this is a difficult question, but it is a factor you need to consider. Many times the more travel required, the more expensive the team is to play for.

Don’t forget to incorporate attending some college camps and making a few visits over the summer. If you are traveling to a showcase or tournament with your summer team don’t be afraid to stop by some campuses to meet with some coaches. Lastly, be sure to be pro-active in terms of inviting college coaches out to see your games.

Spring is here!! Even if it doesn’t feel like it or look like it in your area.  The college softball season has reached the mid-point and there are a lot of great teams emerging.  I’m certain we are in for another great finish come tournament time.   

Of course, it is an extremely busy time for high school softball players.  Your season has started and the school year is winding down.  But if you are serious about playing at the next level, remember you need to stay educated with what is going on in the college game.  There are still plenty of weekends left to go see a college softball game. Or, at least, get on the websites and see where schools are ranked and how their seasons’ are progressing.  The more information you gain, the better educated you will be when it’s time for you to make your college decision.   

A great resource to help you get started is the NFCA website.  The National Fastpitch Coaches Association keeps all of the updated information on every level of college softball.  Just click on the level you are interested in and they will provide you with schedules, scores, rankings and more.Once you click on the level, you will have the option of looking at the conference websites or the individual program websites.  It is quick and easy and will get you up-to-date on all that is happening right now in the world of college softball.  

While college recruiting for many student-athletes is a rewarding and educational experience, the process can also be extremely frustrating and overwhelming.  Unfortunately, this frustration often times results in too many student-athletes wondering “what could have been” and leaves everyone involved pointing the finger at someone else at the end of the process.  Typically, there is no “one person” to blame and the common excuses are entirely understandable given the lack of experience most families have with recruiting.

The good news is that due to changes in recruiting in the last decade, many of the common excuses for recruiting failure can be easily avoided…

Do any of the following statements sound familiar?

“I play for a small high school and college coaches will never find me…”

“I am stuck behind a talented, older student-athlete and will never get the playing time I need to be recruited…”

“My high school team is 0-15 and they are killing my chances at getting noticed…”

“My high school coach has done nothing to help me with the recruiting process…”

For those of you who have gone through the recruiting process as a parent or student-athlete, you have undoubtedly heard one of the above reasons for recruiting disappointment.  While these factors certainly have an impact on a prospect’s recruiting process, they do not make or break success the way they once did.

As a minor disclaimer…I thoroughly appreciate why these sentiments would frustrate a student-athlete and like I said, they will have an affect on the process, but….

Think about all the advances in technology and how they have made the exchange of information between recruits and college coaches much easier than in the past.  The internet has opened new lines of communication, created efficient distribution channels, and quite simply, changed the way college coaches recruit.  The recruiting playing field is more level than ever…you just need to know how to take advantage of it!

Let’s address the traditional recruiting frustrations one at a time…

“My high school coach has done nothing to help me with the recruiting process…”

Although we have discussed why your high school coach cannot get you a scholarship in the past, it’s certainly worth reviewing again because every year it seems to be a common source of contention.  20-30 years ago, the high school coach played a much different role in college recruiting.  Much of this role centered on the access to game footage. 

Back in those days, high school coaches were almost always the only ones who had film, which forced college coaches to partner with them.  College coaches would plan recruiting trips that included stops at high schools that allowed them to review film.  This forged relationships that did in fact have a strong influence on recruiting. 

Today, college coaches have a variety of ways to review film.  Families can now film their own games with affordable video equipment and distribute it directly to college coaches.  While the high school coach can still be very helpful in this part of the process, they are no longer required.  As a result, any authority they might have had over a college coach has been greatly diminished.

Make sure to develop a strong relationship with your high school coach, because they can serve as a great mentor and a reliable reference, but keep in mind the average coach has fewer than 5 contacts with the college coaching community.  Recruiting responsibility ultimately lies with the student-athlete and no one else!

“I play for a small high school and college coaches will never find me…”

This seems to be the recruiting frustration most affected by the developments in technology.  Simply put, geographic location used to have a huge impact on college recruiting based on the difficulty coaches had in receiving information about prospects from rural areas.

However, with the internet and subsequent recruiting resources that have emerged, geographic location can be overcome to a certain degree with even the slowest of internet connections.  There are countless websites and online avenues that a student-athlete can utilize to gain exposure to college coaches. 

Think about this scenario…

The year is 1980 and a student-athlete is interested in sending their information to 50 college coaches.  Here is the process they would have to go through: First they would have to create a physical, paper athletic and academic resume.  The next step would most likely include a trip to the local library to search through a college guide to find the addresses of each college program on the list.  Once the list of addresses had been gathered, the student-athlete would have to put together a mailing list and send it out through the traditional mail…Seems rather tedious, doesn’t it?  To top it off, since the college coaches had most likely never heard of that student-athlete before, who knows if the information would have been reviewed at all?

Today, a student-athlete can create an athletic and academic resume on line in a matter of minutes.  They can then find the email addresses of most the college coaches in the country online and then put together an email campaign and send the information out.  Now that sounds a little better, doesn’t it?

“My high school team is 0-15 and they are killing my chances at getting noticed…”

While there are unquestionably some exposure advantages that can be had from playing for a state powerhouse with a tradition for winning, even student-athletes at a weaker quality high school program can gain exposure.  Using the internet as we have talked about and having a properly edited highlight and skills video can go a long way towards overcoming this obstacle. 

In the past, playing for an awful team might have truly hindered a student-athlete’s potential to play at the next level.  However, a student-athlete can now generate the initial exposure using the internet, and a college coach is ultimately looking for a qualified prospect regardless of the team’s success.  If a college coach were to watch film on a baseball player who is throwing 90 mph or a quarterback who can throw the ball 65 yards, they are going to recruit that student-athlete regardless of how many wins the high school team has.

“I am stuck behind a talented, older student-athlete and will never get the playing time I need to be recruited…”

This one is tough.  Yes, playing behind a quality athlete who might have the advantage of seniority can have an impact on a student-athlete’s recruiting.  However, if the student-athlete who is on the receiving end of this lack of playing time is truly a qualified student-athlete, there is no reason they cannot distribute their information to college coaches.  It will be important to capture any varsity game footage possible, even if its limited, and combine that with the athletic and academic information that college coaches would be interested in to get your name on their recruiting list.  This way, come senior year, the college coaches will already know your name, you will have started a recruiting relationship, and they can make sure to monitor your progress.  Waiting to get involved with college coaches until you begin playing every second of the game will significantly hamper the recruiting process.

Just as example of how you can use the resources available to overcome the playing time issue, here is a wonderful recruiting story that recently happened at NCSA.

We began working with a senior football player out of Texas.  Due to quality competition, this student-athlete was not even starting at the varsity level as a senior.  Although he received playing time, mostly late in the game when the outcome was not in question, based on his size and his willingness to pursue opportunities at all levels, our football department felt like he was someone we could help.  Using the limited game footage, we introduced him to a number of DII and DIII colleges.  Within weeks, this student-athlete, who hardly played at the high school level, had received two DII scholarship offers.

Does this happen to every backup varsity athlete?  No.  Is recruiting tougher if you are not playing full time as a Junior or Senior?  Yes.  However, if you are realistic in the level of competition you can play and you take advantages of all the resources that are available online and through technology, you can overcome many of the difficulties recruits once faced. 

Finally, your high school athletic experience no longer defines your recruiting success.  Club experience is now more accessible and more necessary than ever in many sports.  College coaches love club experience.  They view this experience as a higher level of competition and in some sports might not even recruit a student-athlete who lacks it.  Sports such as soccer, volleyball, softball, basketball, and baseball all have strong club and travel team presences.  Involvement with these types of teams in many cases will trump the high school experience all together, if not at least make up for a poor quality high school team. 

The recruiting process will indubitably cause some sort of frustration for even blue-chip recruits.  That reality is an unfortunate product of the current system.  However, families should be optimistic that there are resources readily available, if they are willing to be proactive, to help get past a few of the traditional roadblocks that have plagued recruits in the past. 

A couple of great websites that I look at often to keep track of which players are committing to what colleges are PG Crosschecker and College Baseball Insider. Check these sites out to see if any of your senior competitors have committed or who has committed to the college you are interested in.

In what seems to be a trend, SI.com ran another amazing story about recruiting.  This week, Andy Staples took a hard look at a number of different issues including how geography plays a significant role in recruiting and also how DI recruits pick their schools.  This article is truly a must read for anyone who watches college football, but I would like to point out two of the more interesting aspects that I took away from Staples’ piece:

How recruits pick their school

There are so many potential factors that weigh on a student athlete’s decision about which school they will ultimately attend and a model published in the February 2008 issue of The Journal of Sports Economics examined these and attempted to rank them.

From the article:

“A  trio of economists, in 2005, designed a model to predict the college choices of sought-after recruits. The model created by Mike DuMond, Allen Lynch and Jennifer Platania– rabid college football fans who met while Ph D. candidates at Florida State — found that among heavily recruited players choosing from among only BCS-conference schools, distance from home is the most important factor in a recruit’s choice. The model was published in the February 2008 issue of The Journal of Sports Economics.

The model found that a school’s academic standing — whether it’s in the top 50 of the US News and World Report rankings — provides a miniscule bump. So does the final poll ranking of the school the previous season. What didn’t matter to players shocked the economists more. According to the data, the players weren’t, on the whole, worried about the depth chart, how many national titles schools had won or how many players the school put in the NFL.

“Recruits tend to have short memories,” said DuMond, who works for a private economics firm in Tallahassee, Fla. In general, DuMond says, the top recruits are looking for “a place that is in a BCS conference with a big stadium that is close enough that they can be seen by family and friends.”

It is surprising to see how little impact the academic standing of the school had on recruit’s choices and even more shocking to learn about their indifference towards the depth chart.  Essentially, these recruits have minor concer for the degree they will receive and even less concern about the amount of playing time they will receive immediately.  From a personal standpoint, its almost the exact opposite of how I would pick a school. 

Where colleges recruit

The next intriguing part of the article was how geographically concentrated the recruiting efforts of the most successful colleges are.  Generally speaking, they would prefer to recruit close to home.  This “backyard” mentality is especially true with schools that are located in or around football talent rich states such as California, Texas, and Florida and more generally, southern, warm weathered schools.  It seems as though schools located in colder climates or less talent rich states such as Nebraska, Notre Dame, and Michigan face an uphill battle when recruiting players. 

From the article:

“So the coaches at schools in less talent-dense states must cast a wider net. They also must use their recruiting resources wisely, since they’ll have to spend more money than a staff that can drive to see half the players it recruits. Rutgers, for example, takes most of its players from its home state of New Jersey, but since other schools (Syracuse, Boston College and Penn State) also raid the Garden State, the Scarlet Knights must fill out their roster from somewhere else. Coach Greg Schiano, a former Miami assistant, grabs a huge supplement from Florida. From 2004-08, Rutgers drew 42.7 percent of its players from New Jersey and 25.4 percent from Florida. The program even rented a billboard on I-95 in Florida to advertise to potential recruits. “

This article makes me wonder if traditional powerhouses from the past like Nebraska and Notre Dame will ever return to their glory days given their inherent disadvantages.  What do you think?

 I was recently reading an article on Rounding Third – How To Play Baseball At The Next Level, a great baseball blog, and found a study from a parent in California. If your son plays baseball in California please click on the link above to read the article named ”A Numbers Game” to learn about the limited opportunities for collegiate baseball in California.

At NCSA we encourage our athletes to look at every division level.  The reason is to open the maximum amount of options for student athletes.  Even the very best recruits should at least look at smaller schools to see if the smaller student bodies and different approach to athletics fit what they want from a college experience. 

As you can see from ESPN’s coverage of Mount Union 10th championship this weekend the excitement and effort put forth by the athletes on the field is no different.  They compete just as hard on every single play.

The NCAA Eligibility Center has recently adopted a new policy for high school student-athletes who have demonstrated a high level of academic achievement during their first six semesters of high school. Qualified student-athletes will receive an early certification waiver prior to high school graduation.

In order to qualify for an early certification waiver a student must meet the following criteria:

A minimum SAT (math and critical reading) score of 1000 or minimum sum score of 85 on the ACT;

For Division I:  Core-course GPA of 3.0 or higher in a minimum of 13 core courses:

• 3 English;
• 2 Math;
• 2 Science; and
• 6 additional core courses.

For Division II:  Core-course GPA of 3.0 or higher in a minimum of 12 core courses:

• 3 English;
• 2 Math;
• 2 Science; and
• 5 additional core courses.

During their senior year, the student-athlete will receive confirmation that he/she has met the academic certification requirements.

If you have any questions about early certification you may contact the NCAA Eligibility Center directly at 877-262-1492.

Last week NCSA Educational Speaker and former Dallas Cowboy, Izell Reese, had a chance to return to his home high school to help potential recruits learn some of the lessons he learned from going through the recruiting process.  Izell learned these lessons the hard way when he was forced to walk-on at UAB after being overlooked by virtually every college program.  He sat down with his hometown paper to share his experience.

“I want to get the kids from the Wiregrass more exposure,” Reese said.

As a high school star at Northview, Reese received letters of interest from many colleges.

“I put some letters on the wall and others in a shoe box under my bed,” Reese said. “Guess which ones made the wall? Auburn, Alabama, LSU, Georgia Tech.

“I thought it was only a matter of time that coaches would be knocking on my door. I was in the Honor Society. I took academics very seriously. I was a standout player.

“Guess what? There wasn’t a scholarship for me.”

Reese points out that the real opportunities for him rested in the “shoe box under my bed.”

That was a big part of his message to the students.

“What they see on ESPN is the Top 25 teams,” Reese said. “There’s over a million kids playing high school football across the nation. Only about one percent get a scholarship to a Division I school.”

After not receiving a scholarship offer following his successful high school career, Reese decided to walk-on at UAB, which at the time participated as a Division II football program.

Willard Whitcomb was the Northview coach when Reese graduated in 1993, and Whitcomb’s son, John, was a quarterback for the Blazers.

“I was considering going into the military,” Reese said before giving UAB a try.

Once he got back on the football field, Reese knew he belonged.

“The first thing I thought about is there were a lot of guys I played with or against in high school that could have played college football,” Reese said. “I led the team in interceptions and didn’t get a dime (school funding) for it.”

During his career at UAB, the program went from Division II to Division I-AA to Division I-A status.

Reese eventually was put on scholarship and became the second player in the school’s history to be selected in the NFL Draft when the Dallas Cowboys picked him in the sixth round in 1998. He spent seven years in the NFL, playing for Dallas, Denver and Buffalo before retiring in 2005.

“My personal story is a Cinderella story,” Reese said. “It doesn’t happen very often.”

Which is why Reese is so passionate about providing information, exposure and opportunities for others.

“When I look back, I shouldn’t have been a walk-on in college,” Reese said. “Don’t have tunnel vision and just focus on the big-time programs.”

Reese finished his speech Wednesday night with encouraging words.

“I’m here to tell each and every one of you, you can live out your dreams,” Reese said.