(Editor’s Note: Charlie Adams has a powerful example here of how being a College student-athlete can impact the next 40 years of life, plus the importance of Character, a recruiting example from a place kicker, and more!)
I am a strong believer that true college student-athletes are in position to have amazing futures. As Chris Krause’s book says, Athletes are Wanted!
I have been to the IMG Academies in Bradenton, Florida over eight times to speak on recruiting to families from around the world. One mother, a former Michigan State swimmer, told me she has a daughter who will be on the Tennis team at Duke University. She said her daughter had been encouraged to look into being a part of the CAPE program at Duke. That is short for Collegiate Athlete Pre-medical Experience.
When I got back I researched it. The DukeMed Alumni News wrote this about it:
“CAPE mines highly focused undergraduate female Duke athletes who have an interest in medicine and gives them unprecedented access and insight into the medical world. The goal is to engage them with mentors, role models, lectures, discussion groups, and clinical experiences so they don’t become discouraged in the still male-dominated world of medicine. It is the only program in the country that gives undergrads such deep exposure to the field of medicine.
Allan Friedman, deputy director of the Tisch Brain Tumor Center, put it this way: “If you want to tap into a pool of motivated, team- and goal-oriented women with great time management skills who are interested in medicine, what better population is there than successful Division I athletes?”
Friedman’s comments reminded me of what Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in March of this year:
“College sports–along with the military–are arguably among the most important and largest developers of future leaders in the country.”
The mother told me the bottom line was they felt that female student-athletes at Duke had the toughness to persevere to make it to the medical world, whereas a lot of non female athletes bail out because they get discouraged in the male dominated field of medicine. Her daughter would be able to apply after her freshman year of varsity tennis and be in CAPE as long as she maintained varsity status.
The mother and I talked about the impact of her experience of being a swimmer at Michigan State. She went on and on about how that prepared her for the world. “There were so many things I took from being a college athlete that led to success in the business world,” she said. She had just recently retired from Motorola after 25 years. Yet another example of how playing college sports is a 40 year decision, not just a 4 year one.
The mother also told me something interesting. She said the Duke Tennis coach was actually happy that her daughter had not been playing year-round tennis in the years leading up to become an athlete at Duke. “I could tell that the coach felt burn-out is a factor with many recruits these days,” she told me.
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At the IMG Camper Orientation, I came across a young man named Brandon Tarpley. He was there to attend the Brandon Kornblue Kicking Camp. We struck up a conversation. He told me he was going to be a kicker at Central Florida University (Division One). Having talking recruiting at Kicker-specific camps, I know that kickers and long snappers face a different animal when it comes to their recruiting process. They get recruited a lot later, and many times have to go in as preferred walk-ons and earn scholarships.
Brandon is an example. He told me ESPN has him ranked as the 5th strongest leg and in other rankings he is 10th in the nation in putting and 10th in field goals and kick offs as far as high school kickers. Basically, he is a stud and one of the best around. He also told me he will start at Central Florida as a preferred walk-on. He said that the coaches told him that if he progressed and showed them what he could do, he would get a full ride, probably very soon. He told me it could be in August of his freshman year, after they had seen enough of him on campus to justify the scholarship. That’s just the way it is with most kickers, punters and long snappers. College football coaches first award scholarships to other positions, and then are often hesitant to award a scholarship to a kicker until he has proven himself.
Brandon, who is from Palmetto, Florida, told me Alabama had offered him to be a preferred walk-on. Schools like Vanderbilt and Tulane had brought him in for Official Visits, but he decided on Central Florida. He told me his Dad had passed away, and that before he died he had promised him he would look after his mother. Central Florida, just 2 ½ hours away, was the best fit.
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One of the saddest sights from the Speaking Trail recently was when I was in Greensboro to speak to top Track and Field athletes at the New Balance Track and Field Nationals. In between Talks, I was at the NCSA booth with former Illinois runner Rachel Hernandez, a Speaker Event coordinator for NCSA. A top athlete from 5-A powerhouse in Indianapolis, IN stopped by. He had to be good to be at Nationals, so we talked about recruiting. He said he didn’t have anything going on.
He had finished 12th grade. It was June.
“I am really getting stressed,” he told me. “My coaches at school told me the college coaches would find me, and nothing has happened.”
The look on his face was so sad. At that point, I didn’t know his whole story. I didn’t know if grades were a factor, but it was a sobering reminder that you have to start the recruiting process early and just because you are good doesn’t guarantee that college coaches will beat your door down. Unless you are John Wall, you need to have ways to let coaches know what you are all about, athletically, academically, the works!
NCSA Senior National Speaker Bob Chmiel passionately talks about the importance of Character for student-athletes. I whole heartedly agree. I spoke several times at the Track and Field Nationals. I can remember one Talk when one of the top sprinters in the country, an 11th grader, sat right up front. He had excellent posture and maintained eye contact with me the whole Talk. Afterwards, he came up, shook my hand, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Thank you for that information, Mr. Adams.”
There’s a kid college coaches will be all over. He had excellent athletic credentials, and was a young man of character.
At a later Talk, a young track star flopped across a chair in the back of the room and texted the whole time I was talking. People kept looking back at the kid wondering if she would stop. Basically, her attitude was, “I have great times in Track. I am only here because my parents made me come to this Talk. I don’t need it, so I will just text my friends.”
On the way back from speaking at the IMG Academies this past weekend, I picked up a copy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper before changing planes. There were tremendous recruiting insights in a story by Jay Stone on University of Texas freshman sprinter Chalonda Goodman. She had won State in the 100 and 200 all four years at Newnan High School in Georgia. Those accomplishments earned her a scholarship at the University of Texas.
I am a big fan of all levels of college sports, but one thing young people need to understand is that it is a major commitment to play at the high D1 level like Texas. In the article, it said a normal day her freshman year was 6 a.m. weight training, class from 8 until 1 pm, track practice at 2:30 pm, study hall from 6 to 8 pm, and then back to the dorm for more studying until 11 pm bedtime.
“I learned how to manage my time my senior year in high school,” she told the Journal-Constitution, “but I really got put to the test when I got here.”
For athletes that have the God given ability to play at the highest levels of D1, and the time management skills, and the drive, it is absolutely the place to be. As one D1 coach told me, what is wrong with striving to be the best you can be academically and athletically. You may miss out on some of the other experiences of college life, but this young lady is dead set on reaching the Olympics. She was a long way from home in Georgia, and said she got homesick at first, but being busy and productive helped her overcome homesickness.
Chalonda finished her freshman year with a 3.83 GPA, so the hard work and discipline is paying off. However, multiple injuries kept her from competing in the outdoor 100 and 200. Again, here is an example of how being a college athlete prepares people to excel their entire life. She said she looks at it as something she has grown stronger both mentally and emotionally from, and that she plans to come back even stronger. Athletes have to overcome adversity, and that’s what she is doing.
Charlie Adams
cadams@ncsasports.org
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