You can now download the first excerpt of NCSA President, Chris Krause’s new book, Athletes Wanted. This installment explores the 8 Rules to Help Your Child Get an Athletic Scholarship. We encourage you to download, email, forward and share this critical college recruiting information with as many different sources as possible!
Q: How do I get noticed by college coaches?
A: There are Five Things You Must Do to get recruited. An athlete has to:
1. Get Evaluated: Coaches don’t have time to look at every player so they have to rely on credible sources to get their information.
2. Post your academic/athletic resume online: This is a fast and easy way to get connected with coaches.
3. Create a winning highlight/skills video: Again, coaches can’t personally look at every recruit so they need a way to see your talents.
4. Contact coaches: They can’t recruit you if they don’t know who you are!
5. Start building relationships and following up with coaches now: The recruiting process started yesterday! With how competitive recruiting has become, athletes need to start building relationships with coaches as early as junior high.
The SEC recently released it’s latest recruiting budgets and the numbers are extremely interesting. Comparing the football, basketball and baseball numbers show exactly why its so important for student-athletes to be proactive (especially those in non revenue sports)! Comparing Mississippi States 3 year budget averages you realize that the Baseball budget is only 7.9% of the football teams!
Can this budget actually cover a coaches expenses to thoroughly search for athletes across the country? No Way! That is exactly why athletes join NCSA’s recruiting database, Recruit-Match, to be seen for free across the country.
(Final number following football spending indicates the recruiting ranking according to Rivals.com for that year)
FOOTBALL
2005-06
Tennessee: $1,071,264 (23)
Florida: $643,406 (2)
Auburn: $621,115 (10)
LSU: $577,393 (7)
Georgia: $534,004 (4)
Arkansas: $490,771 (26)
Ole Miss: $436,948 (16)
Miss. State: $300,100 (44)
Kentucky: $291,370 (36)
S. Carolina: $248,585 (24)
Alabama: $237,774 (11)
Vanderbilt: N/A (60)
It might be a bit premature to suggest the NCAA will finally be forced to compensate athletes with anything more than a scholarship, but the day could be around the corner. Former UCLA Basketball star Ed O’Bannon, with the help of sneaker legend Sonny Vaccaro, have filed a lawsuit against the NCAA for using the likeness of former players long after they have left campus.
Ed wrote about his reasons for the lawsuit to the Lost Letterman:
I’m not in it for the money. I’m in it to help open eyes about how the NCAA has exploited tons and tons of student-athletes in basketball and football.
The Vaccaros came to me with an opportunity. And I thank God for this opportunity to represent these student-athletes, so they would at some point see some compensation for it.
Cutting Down the Nets in 1995, the NCAA is still profiting
I just think it’s my duty, as a former student-athlete, to open a door and let everyone see what’s going on. There are a lot of student-athletes who have played basketball and football whose faces are being sold. Their jerseys are being sold. Their images are being sold.
Below are some of the various opinions across the web on the implications of the lawsuit.
“When you’re in school you’re obligated to live up to your scholarship,” O’Bannon said. “But once you’re done, you physically, as well as your likeness, should leave the university and the NCAA.”
Hausfeld notes that the very forms the NCAA cites in controlling all revenue are for one-year terms. ” [The scholarship] requires annual signing,” he said. It’s proof that the NCAA has no right over former athletes.
“What it does is emphasize the illegality with the Association essentially saying by reason of these annual, limited grants of right, the Association and the universities can exercise the right to use the image of the former student-athlete eternally,” Hausfeld said.
“The entire program is focused on the student-athletes’ enrollment in a university as well as the athletes’ eligibility,” he continued. “You’ve got two absolute qualifiers. You need to be a student and you need to be eligible. Once that ends, there are no rights the Association acquires over you.”
What’s nominally at stake is control of the $4 billion market for collegiate licensed merchandise, but the lawsuit, orchestrated by crusading former sneaker impresario Sonny Vaccaro, is nothing short of an attack on the NCAA’s antiquated and evermore untenable notion of amateurism, in which the NCAA profits wildly off the rampant commercialism it pretends to decry. You can read all about the implications here. It’s a worthy fight, of which Ed O’Bannon, one of the more spectacular basketball flameouts in recent memory, is now the public face, a “sort of Curt Flood of college sports,” in Wetzel’s phrase. There’s something sort of sweet about that. The guy couldn’t crack the mid-’90s Nets lineups, and now he might very well wind up taking down the NCAA.
Sports Illustrated:
The stakes of O’Bannon v. NCAA are enormous. If O’Bannon and former student-athletes prevail or receive a favorable settlement, the NCAA, along with its member conferences and schools, could be required to pay tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars in damages — particularly since damages are trebled under federal antitrust law. The marketplace for goods may change as well, with potentially more competition over the identities and likenesses of former college stars.
A victory would also necessitate substantial changes in the relationship between the NCAA and student-athletes. Namely, the NCAA could be required to advise student-athletes of the importance of legal counsel and of ways in which student-athletes can obtain counsel.
Proponents of such an outcome would likely hail the creation of a more equitable bargaining relationship between student-athletes and the NCAA. Critics, in turn, would likely bemoan a more litigious experience for both student-athletes and athletic department officials. They might also worry about diminished NCAA protection of student-athletes, with swindlers and charlatans potentially having easier access to student-athletes as they transition into the real world.
A common complaint that we receive from student-athletes is that the majority of the letters they receive from college coaches tend to be generic and impersonal. It is amazing how a personal contact from a college coach can influence a recruit’s opinion of that school. In fact, we have noticed that some recruits who have seemed dead set on attending a DI university completely change their tune by receiving a simple phone call from a DIII coach. Everyone wants to be wanted, and understandably the personal touch goes a long way towards impressing a recruit.
What most recruits do not realize is that the same line of thinking holds true in reverse. College coaches receive an awful lot of information from potential recruits interested in their program. Unfortunately, some of the information can seem just as general and broad as the form letters that the coaches send to recruits.
What does this mean?
Get personal! If you are writing a letter to a college coach, make sure to individualize the letter for that college coach. Do some research beforehand and learn about the program and school. Express specifically what interests you about the college and why you might be a good fit for the program. If you talk to a college coach, make the conversation memorable by being more prepared than the other recruits that coach is talking to. When going on a visit, try to stand out by displaying the ability to effectively communicate and fit in with not only the coach but also the rest of the team.
An evaluation is made by both the college coach and the recruit after every single form of correspondence. That particular step in the process is either going to make the college or recruit more or less attractive. Keep that in mind the next time you are going to communicate with a college coach!
Zac Wolf, Baseball, Dominican University
Kyle Severns, Baseball, Penn State Brandywine
Jonathan Dorsey, Baseball, Alcorn State University
Tyler Spencer, Baseball, Kansas City Community College
Brenden Kalfus, Baseball, Saint Mary’s College of California
Brett Balkan, Baseball, San Diego Mesa College
Karl Fiske, Baseball, Brookdale Community College
Kyle Campbell, Baseball, Stetson University
Scott Thornton, Baseball, San Joaquin Delta College
Joshua Brooks, Baseball, Ottawa University
Colin “Mana” Greig, Football, University of Oregon
Anthony Stephens, Football, University of Redlands
Tyler Verga, Football, Monmouth College
Gabriel Castillo, Football, Navarro Community College
Nick Hammaren, Football, Santa Rosa JC
Emir Lopez, Football, University of Nevada–Reno
Aaron Wilson, Football, Butler County CC-KS
Christopher LaBouff, Football, Sacramento State University
Michael May, Football, Mount Union College
Gage Ford, Football, North Carolina Wesleyan College
Landon Greve, Football, University of Central Oklahoma
Garrett Coontz, Football, Bakersfield College
Drew McAllister, Football, University of Indianapolis
Robert Daigle, Football, Central College
Ethan Elzinga, Football, Long Beach City College
Craig Morris Jr., Football, East Texas Baptist University
CJ Wilson, Football, Brevard College
Michael Bilton, Football, Drake University
Joseph Grieci, Football, Western New England College
Alex Jones, Football, Florida State University
Gino Trinchero, Football, Western Oregon University
Aaron Edwards, Football, Christopher Newport University
Brendan Evans, Football, Springfield College
Heath Parling, Football, NCSA
Sylvester Moore Jr, Football, Charleston Southern University
Michael Bonacci, Football, Utica College
Giles Menard, Football, Louisiana Tech University
Tyrone Jackson, Football, North Carolina Central University
Andy McAteer, Football, Fort Lewis College
Ty Fields, Football, Tusculum College
Cody Dunaway, Football, Mississippi College
Kyle Hansen, Football, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps-McKenna College
Kellen Pagel, Football, Bowling Green State University
James Michael Miller, Football, Texas Christian University
Ryan Samuels, Football, Coastal Carolina University
Brandon Esposito, Football, University of Kansas
Sebastian Frausto, Football, College of the Desert
Samuel Juzbasich, Football, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
Robert Hodges, II, Football, Johnson C. Smith University
Travis Duffey, Football, Southern Virginia University
Robert Franco, Football, University of California–Los Angeles
Shawn Khanamuenwai, Football, Old Dominion University
Jake Wallace, Football, Emory and Henry College
Derek Todd, Football, University of Idaho
Arvin Williams II, Football, Ventura College
Kris Dearie, Football, Norwich University
Hayne Darby, Football, Bridgewater College
Joel Teal, Football, Hiram College
Sam Stratton, Football, University of Wyoming
Cole Daniel, Men’s Basketball, University of Alaska — Fairbanks
Jonathan Sauls, Men’s Basketball, Coker College
Christopher Frey, Men’s Basketball, Mount St. Mary College
Amir Smith, Men’s Basketball, Santa Monica College
Antowan Epps, Men’s Basketball, Madison Area Technical College
Tanner Reno, Men’s Basketball, Reinhardt College
Matthew Trelenberg, Men’s Basketball, Hope College
Brandon Laubach, Men’s Basketball, Austin College
Colin Smart, Men’s Basketball, College of Mount St. Joseph
Kyle Martin, Men’s Basketball, Warren Wilson College
Andrew Beischel, Men’s Golf, Valparaiso University
Dominic Lingua, Men’s Golf, College of the Canyons
Alex Wohl, Men’s Lacrosse, SUNY College of A&T–Cobleskill
Kleckner Charles, Men’s Lacrosse, University of Vermont
Riley McCleister, Men’s Lacrosse, Florida Southern College
Joe Wolin, Men’s Soccer, University of San Francisco
Christopher Henderson, Men’s Soccer, St. Joseph’s College
Christian Batch, Men’s Soccer, California State University–San Marcos
Blake Swanson, Men’s Soccer, Cypress College
Steven Baudoin, Men’s Soccer, La Sierra University
Jon Martinez, Men’s Soccer, Spalding University
Jacob Rose, Men’s Soccer, Santa Clara University
Sean Moran, Men’s Soccer, Stonehill College
Andy Grossman, Men’s Track, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse
Demetrius Jacobs, Men’s Track, University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point
Tyree Leonard, Men’s Track, Rider University
Garrett Crow, Men’s Track, Fresno State University
Joshua Alonzo, Men’s Track, Texas A&M University–Kingsville
Ethan Harbison, Men’s Track, University of Alabama – Huntsville
Sherwood Egbert, Men’s Track, Moorpark College
Alexis Garrison, Softball, Susquehanna University
Lindsy Robison, Softball, Jackson Community College
Alyssa Hara, Softball, Methodist University
Jaclyn “Jazz” Kellon, Women’s Basketball, Goucher College
Ashley Torres, Women’s Basketball, Lamar Community College
Christina Jackson, Women’s Golf, Loras College
Jacqueline Gonzalez, Women’s Soccer, Bluefield College
Jasmine Parker, Women’s Soccer, Alcorn State University
Brianna Smith, Women’s Soccer, Canisius College
Alexandria Jimenez, Women’s Soccer, San Jose State University
Julie Larsen, Women’s Track, Brigham Young University — Provo
Candice Vaughn, Women’s Track, Albany State University
Gabrielle “Mandy” Irizarry, Women’s Volleyball, Augusta State University
Paige Mitchell, Women’s Volleyball, University of Hawaii–Manoa
Belinda Nwagbara, Women’s Volleyball, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Brett Kingsley, Wrestling, Lindenwood University
Today’s Wall Street Journal ran an interesting story about Ivy League athletics. As a Yale grad, when I tell people where I attended college their first reaction is always “great school” rather than “great sports”. For decades the Ivy League has maintained its reputation as the best in the world when it comes to, well, almost everything. The Ivy League is number one in every academic field, consistently offers the most aggressive financial aid packages, has world renowned fine arts programs, etc, etc. The Ivy League has built a reputation of dominance and superiority yet they are often regarded as second tier when it comes to athletics. How can such a competitive group of business folk and scholars be okay with not being number one on the playing field?
According to the Journal, the Ivy League accepts they will never be supreme in athletics because they refuse to sacrifice their academic ideals in order to build world class teams.
Why are the Ancient Eight increasingly irrelevant in the most competitive arena of all? The short answer, the long-accepted one, is that they choose to be: that they won’t sacrifice their academic ideals by giving athletic scholarships to athletes. But other factors-like a long-standing ban on postseason football games and the schools’ academic standards for athletes-appear to be dragging the league down.
The Ivy is never going to be the Southeastern Conference-and nobody is suggesting it should be. The schools don’t need the exposure of sports to attract students and alumni donations. But some of the league’s alumni complain that the schools offer their students the best of everything, except in this one area. “Why not give them the same opportunities and the same platform in athletics that you do in academics?” says Marcellus Wiley, a former NFL defensive end who played at Columbia in the 1990s. “I think they should revisit everything.”
I agree with Wiley, not former Harvard president Derek Bok who believes that the Ivies should let this one go. The second shift was the Ivy’s 1981 expulsion from Division I-A, college football’s premier classification, which occurred because larger-conference schools desired greater control over TV-contract negotiations. They voted to restrict I-A membership to schools that had 30,000-seat stadiums or averaged 17,000 in attendance over the previous four years, which not all of the Ivy League schools did. The Ivies didn’t contest the decision.
“It was clear that’s not where the Ivy should be,” says Derek Bok, Harvard’s president at the time who scoffs at the idea that the Ivies must excel in all endeavors, athletics included. “If we have a bit of humility, we have to understand that nobody can be excellent at everything. There’s no reason why, because you’re good at teaching and research, that you have to be good at football. That’s a historical accident, not a necessity.”
Come on. Sure, there must be some areas where the Ivy League can forfeit its superiority but sports should not be one of them. It would not be that hard for the Ivies to make a commitment to producing national contenders and I believe they could do without severely compromising their academic standards.
Deciding to play College Sports is not a 4 or 5 year decision. It is a 40 or 50 year decision. The impact can be felt for decades.
I recently delivered “College Recruiting Simplified” at the Ecelerate Football Combine in Greensboro, N.C. I struck up a
Henri Fitzgerald
conversation with a man standing at the fence watching the athletes do Combine drills. His name was Henri Fitzgerald. When I found out that he had played College Football, I asked him to share his story.
“Charlie, I played football at Emory and Henry College in Virginia, a Division 3 school,” he said. “My education there was 100% paid for. I owe it all to football.”
Now, Division 3 schools don’t offer athletics scholarships, but there’s a slew of different ways for athletes to get all, a big chunk, or a decent chunk of their education paid for at that level.
“Being involved in community and charity activities in high school really helped me,” he said. “I got the Bonner Foundation scholarship and that opened the door to all kinds of other scholarships. I majored in Political Science and Business Management. I later got my Juris Doctor at Wake Forest. I am now Vice President/Senior Planned Giving Advisor for Wachovia Trust. I do Investment Management for Non Profits. Again, I owe it all to College Football.”
Henri played receiver at Emory and Henry College. Playing College Sports gave him a distinct advantage in the job market over people who were just regular students in College.
“Having that I played College Sports on my resume was very important,” he said. “When I did my job interview with the Senior VP, he noticed that I had been a College Athlete. That’s mainly what we talked about in the interview. The College Athlete brings so many things to the table character-wise.”
Lacrosse Recruiting continues to expand west as the number of scholarship opportunities grows. The sport has seen explosive growth over the last 20 years and doesn’t appear to be slowing down. The Wall Street Journal reports on how the sports interest has grown at the high school and college level.
These days the sport is showing serious growth. Participation in high school lacrosse has about doubled this decade, to a total of 143,946 boys and girls playing on high school lacrosse teams in the 2007-08 school year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, which tracks participation by sport. In 2000-01, there were 74,225 high school lacrosse players.
And the fervor goes beyond high schools. A 2007 survey by the National Sporting Goods Association found an 
estimated 1.2 million Americans over age 7 had played lacrosse within the previous year — an increase of 40% since 1999.
Johns Hopkins is one of the 56 men’s Division 1 college lacrosse teams, based on NCAA data from the 2007-08 season. Including Divisions II and III, there are some 239 men’s college lacrosse teams nationwide with 8,900 athletes, double the number of participants two decades ago. On the women’s side, there are now more than 300 college lacrosse programs across Division I, II and III, according to the NCAA, triple the number seen two decades ago.
It’s also growing when compared to other sports. In the 2007-08 school year, 17 colleges added women’s lacrosse, more than any other sport. Meanwhile, a dozen men’s teams were added in 2007-08, far more than sports like basketball, which added three teams; football, which added two and baseball, which added just one team.
A number of factors have contributed to the sport’s growth, including an increase in media coverage, the availability of athletic scholarships and the sport’s growing appeal at schools west of the Mississippi. Indeed, the game has steadily migrated as former players and coaches moved West. Lacrosse Magazine says that of the 2,427 men’s lacrosse players on D-I rosters in 2009, 118 players came from five key Western states: California (55); Colorado (37); Washington (13); (Arizona (9) and Oregon (4.)
“The game has just exploded in the three years that I’ve lived in San Diego,” says Dave Herman, the varsity boys’ lacrosse coach at Francis Parker School in San Diego.
The availability of college scholarships is also a draw. Chuck Cohen, who helped launch a youth league in Orangetown, N.Y., that has grown from 70 boys in grades five through eight to more than 300 boys and girls from first to eighth grades, says, “Many of the D-1 teams are offering college scholarships, and there are tournaments and recruiting camps where college coaches can watch the kids play.”
As the talent base spreads from east to west and more college programs pop up on the map recruiting will become increasingly unpredicatable for college coaches. In the past a few top prorams could mine the east coast power houses for top talent while everyone else fought for scraps. With this expansion of talent more and more programs are closing the talent gap by recruiting nationally in areas that would have been unheard of only a few years ago.
Potential lacrosse recruits need to understand the fact there is simultaneously more opportunity and competition than ever before. Simply playing for a top program or shining in a showcase may not be enough to prove to a college coach that you are worth a scholarship.
The NCAA has made their official ruling on Twitter. Shockingly (at least to me) they have determined that the social media service can be used to directly message recruits. In my opinion this
“We view that option on Twitter the same as we view normal e-mails,” Cameron Schuh, Associate Director of Public and Media Relations for the NCAA, told ESPN. “It’s just you can’t post those (direct messages) on your main page.”
“We view Twitter as a blog. As long as coaches are on there talking about what they’re doing with their day and how their practice went or things like that • not getting into specific terms, that’s fine. They can’t talk about a person they’re recruiting, or they can’t use it to talk about their whereabouts on a recruiting trip.”
The fact that Twitter can hook directly to any cell phone makes this a realistic alternative to coaches that miss the ability to text message recruits. There is no doubt in my mind that coaches will be rushing to this new medium to contact recruits in a new “cool” way. Good recruiters will be able to seperate themselves by direct messaging recruits useful tidbits in real time and positively enhancing their programs image on their public tweets.
If you are a recruit I would recommend joining Twitter and making sure your Tweets are athletically focused. Its especially ideal because the recruit can choose who’s messages they allow. they need to follow a coach to allow a direct message and give specific permission for that coaches direct messages to link up to their phone.
I predict Twitter’s explosive growth rate will soon be taking off with coaches and recruits alike. The only question will be who jumps on the bandwagon first and who uses it most effectively.
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