• If you are interested in playing college football, you should know the answer to this question (without looking it up) -Who won the last NCAA Division 2 national football championship?
• Replay may be coming to a college football game near you.
• Among changes being considered for football recruiting are requiring recruits to pay their own way, banning all off-campus entertainment and forcing recruits to sleep on campus. What, more private jet rides for football recruits?
• Most interesting piece of information I heard from a college coach this month. “We will not sign an out of state player to be a role player, it’s too far to come not to play”
• How did Brandon Hunter, the 56th pick for the Boston Celtics celebrate his first NBA start in which he scored 15 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, both career highs? By driving to the Celtics practice facility 25 minutes away after the game to shoot free throws for an hour at 11:30 at night because he went 5-12 from the line and the Celtics lost by 4 points.
• My former college baseball coach must be a good scheduler. In the teams first 19 games after their spring trip this year, 18 are home games. This saves time on traveling and allows you to do more before the game and after the game. Of course only 5 of the next 19 games are at home, so there will be a lot of traveling. Check the schedules of schools you are interested in to see what time restraints you will be working with.
• In March a college lacrosse player died after he was hit in the chest with the ball and collapsed. This is the first case I have heard of someone this age being struck by a ball in the heart and dying. This type of accident has occurred several times in little league, which caused some leagues to adopt chest protectors.
• Good to see some Webber State basketball players celebrating their NCAA bid by getting arrested for drug possession. That has to make the coach really confident about your attitude towards college sports.
• I imagine the interest in playing basketball for Saint Josephs next year will skyrocket due to the team going 25-0 before losing and getting a one seed in the NCAA tournament this year.
• And I guess we aren’t going to Florida after all. I think the best part of college baseball when you live up north is going down south in March to play for a week or two. Unfortunately a hazing incident at a local college forced the cancellation of the team’s trip to Florida. Well, it’s 27 degrees up here and there is 6 inches of snow on the ground, which makes for really good baseball weather.
• A little league coach used a function hall as an underground bar for minors by charging a cover charge and a fee for a cup for keg beer. As my friend said, “there has to be a better way to make money illegally that has less risk involved than this scheme.” I think he is right!
• A “hockey dad – and coach” unhappy with a call in a youth hockey game, grabbed the ref by the neck and basically tore his jersey off. The father is facing a lifetime ban from hockey, not sure what that means, but it doesn’t sound good.
• A high school volleyball player was crushed in a pile after a game winning celebration following a big victory in February. The player suffered partial paralysis and now his athletic scholarship is in jeopardy. This is the first time I have heard something like this, but wouldn’t be surprised to find out that plenty of people are hurt this way.
• It’s good to see the University of Colorado Scandal having a major impact on how big time schools recruit. On a recent visit to a “school near Canada” some players on a college football team took a recruit to Canada for a little drinking, gambling and strip club activity.
• According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, at least 21 fatalities during the period 1979 to 1994 have been linked to unanchored or portable soccer goals.
• Chris Webber’s high school has been asked to forfeit 3 state basketball championships it won. The Michigan high school association ruled that he should not have been allowed to play due to his “relationship” with a Michigan University basketball booster. The high school says there is no proof, but the University of Michigan already forfeited 112 games over 5 seasons because of the alleged payments made to Webber and other Michigan players during the “Fab 5 era”. Call it the Unfab 5 now!
• If you are interested in playing football at the college level, you should know the answer to the first question above. If you don’t, it tells me that you are not doing your research on different programs and are not aware of teams past the D1 level.

RECRUITING SEMINAR
I attended a recruiting seminar at a local high school put on by two local athletic directors from other high schools, one being a former college coach. Now, I don’t claim to be an “expert” in the college recruiting process, and frankly, I don’t think it is a subject that can be mastered. Ok, I have written a book on the subject and operate this website. But based on what I saw, I realized that there is more to the recruiting process than simply being a former coach or current athletic director. I didn’t think the presentation was very good (is there any surprise there). They tried to give too much information in too little a timeframe and rather than concentrating on a few important topics, they glossed over too many random topics without going into any sort of detail. The best line was when they said “you gotta work at it” meaning the recruiting process, but they didn’t tell people what to work on. You gotta work at it means very little when you are dealing with parents and students who are starting a process they know little about and unless you tell them what to “work on”, they won’t know. Yes, you do need to work on the recruiting process and it takes time and effort, but until you have a basic understanding of what is going on and what is required of you, you won’t know how to work at it. I felt bad for the people in the audience, because frankly, I don’t think they left with any better understanding of what to work on. They talked about how it was important to write letters and call coaches, but they never discussed once how to research different programs (on an athletic and non-athletic level) and how to evaluate your own skill and how it applies to those schools. In the end, you need to find schools that are a good fit for you and your skills and despite their efforts to encourage people to contact coaches on their own, if you don’t understand how to target the right levels, your contacts will be in vain. I guess the moral of the story is, that despite peoples backgrounds and qualifications, you can’t always believe what one person says or use one person as your source of information. Several people who have purchased our book have also purchased other recruiting books to make sure they have all the bases covered.

NCAA INFO

• Field hockey rules changes at the NCAA level. For the 2004 season, home teams will be required to provide a minimum of three substitution cards for each team. Also for next season, teams with game shirts that do not meet specified rules requirements will be offered the chance to change game shirts, but if that team is unable or chooses not to do so, it will be assessed a yellow card. In championships play, however, a yellow card will automatically be assessed and the team captain will serve the penalty. Also in 2004, the color of the socks and/or shin guards must match the uniform shirt.

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• Well, Kenyon College (D3 Ohio) closed out its 25th NCAA men’s swimming championship in March. Apparently the women are slacking as they have only won 20 NCAA championships in a row. And who said D3 athletics aren’t competitive? There is Division 3 and then there is Division 3 and if you don’t know the difference, your recruiting process will be more difficult. You can read more about Kenyon here in a recent article I did on choosing schools by division. GO
• Santa Clara University has announced that Stephen Schott, owner of Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics, will donate $4 million toward the construction of a new baseball stadium.
• Southern Methodist University in Dallas is dumping their men’s track program as a result of Title IX cuts.
• Cal State Northridge was placed on probation for men’s basketball for numerous violations.
• Jacksonville eliminated the Athletic Directors position.
• The University of Findlay has announced that it will discontinue its hockey program.
• Robert Morris will begin varsity hockey in the 2004-05 season.
• Seven teams that are either newcomers or independents in NCAA Division I-AA football have formed a conference that will begin play this season.The Great West Football Conference, announced at the member schools on Wednesday, will have California Davis, Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, North Dakota State, Northern Colorado, Saint Mary's (Calif.), South Dakota State and Southern Utah.
• The Air Force Academy is considering playing a basketball game on an aircraft carrier along with North Carolina, Navy, and Michigan State to open next years season. There has to be a better use of military hardware? Rumor has it that the ship will have a giant Nike swoosh on the side of it.
• Boston University is close to finishing a fantastic new facility for hockey and basketball. Now if only there was a place to park down there!
• Gardner Webb University has been placed on 3 years probation for multiple violations, including grade point average inflation, improper usage of financial aid for athletes, and not certifying foreign athletes correctly. Hard to believe all this happened given the NCAA discovered that the school had not hired an experienced compliance coordinator.
• St. Bonaventure was placed on 3 years probation for men’s basketball infractions. This was the team that quit playing last year. One junior college transfer transferred with a “certificate of welding” degree to the program and was ruled ineligible (seems surprising). As a result the team will lose 3 scholarships, 2 next year and one the following year, the coaching staff loses 10 evaluation days (there are 40 normally), they lost 2 official visits, only 2 coaches can recruit off-campus. Who does this hurt, you and other high school athletes because the school has lost scholarships, official visits, and recruiting days, which hurts your chances to be recruited.
• Nicholls State University will discontinue its men’s outdoor track and field program. On a positive note, any men’s track athlete that is also good at tennis can play on the new men’s tennis team the school will be starting.
• University of New Orleans will add women’s swimming in 2004-05
• SUNY Binghamton recently opened a new 33 million dollar athletic facility. SUNY stands for the State University of New York and there are several SUNY schools.
• The University of New Haven is dropping football, women’s golf, and women’s indoor and outdoor track and field.
• Worcester Polytechnical Institute will discontinue varsity golf and tennis programs.
• Macalester College announced that men’s and women’s skiing will go from varsity to club status.
• Harvard University has announced that they will waive tuition for any students who gets accepted that comes from a family with an income of less than $40,000. Given that tuition is $40,000, I think this is a good thing. Speaking of Harvard, I saw a funny shirt someone was wearing. On the back it said – What do Harvard and Yale students have in common? They both got into Yale. – It takes a second, but I think you will get it!

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ROSTER READING
We have spoken about roster reading in the past but I think it is worth mentioning again. A college roster tells you a lot about where the coach recruits, what players are playing, and what the needs of the team may be. Many rosters follow patters where you will see kids from maybe one or two states where the school is located then a few players from another state further away. This is the coach recruiting locally, but having some type of pipeline or connection with another state or an event in another state. Often is the case when a local player leaves to go to a school, other younger players take an interest in that school or that one player may recommend other players back home. Other teams recruit locally and then have one or two states that they also are actively recruiting in. I know many local football programs that will recruit only in New England, but add Florida to their recruiting travels because there are many talented players in Florida. Many state schools will have rosters consisting of players from that state, because tuition is cheaper and their scholarship dollars go further towards in-state recruits (assuming that state has talented players). Many football teams in Ohio consist of players mostly from Ohio because football at the high school level is extremely popular. Hockey on the other hand hasn’t made it to Ohio Apparently. The Ohio State hockey roster does not have one player listed from Ohio. Florida is another state with many talented local baseball players. Since there are so many good baseball schools in Florida, there is less incentive for a high school player to leave the state to play somewhere else. The University of South Florida baseball team has 31 players on its roster and 30 are from Florida Why? Well, there is an unlimited pool of local talent that the coach can recruit and the staff will not be flying to Nebraska to recruit a player. Unless the school has a chance to evaluate you without investing much time or effort, they probably won’t recruit you. The one out-of-state player they have was a pitcher from New York. How did he get recruited you ask? Well, his junior year he struck out 110 batters in 43 innings and followed that up by striking out 90 batters in 44 innings his senior year and posting an opponents batting average of .035. Stats aren’t enough to get you recruited though and its possible that this player just threw harder than the 16 and 17 year olds he was facing could hit. I imagine the player from New York competed in a showcase or tournament in Florida where the coaches were in attendance and impressed them enough to warrant being recruited. While USF and other teams in Florida have enough local talent to recruit, it doesn’t mean they will not recruit a player from another state. If you come across a roster consisting of all local players with a few players form other parts of the country, check the bio’s of those players. It’s a good bet that the players from further away have a pretty impressive high school background and found a way to convey that to the coaches somehow.

ATHLETIC CAMPS
In The Making of a Student-Athlete, we discuss the benefits of attending college athletic camps for recruiting purposes. While summer camps at colleges are not run specifically for recruiting, they give the coaching staff the ability to see a lot of talented and enthusiastic players. The Boston Globe recently ran a great story on how successful this can be. Senior point guard Kevin Fitzgerald from New York who plays for Boston University was discovered by coach Wolff at the age of 13. No, coach Wolff wasn’t in New York scouting 13 year old players, coach Wolff was running summer basketball camps of which Fitzgerald attended. Fitzgerald attended several summer camps starting in 7th grade and his decision to attend the school come college selection time was an easy one as he was already familiar with the school and coaches and had a good rapport with them. Now, this doesn’t mean you can attend any camp and expect to be recruited as many summer camps at high level D1 programs are lightly used to look at student-athletes the school is interested in recruited. They aren’t supposed to do this but who are we kidding. If a coach is interested in seeing you play more, he may “suggest” you attend their summer camp. A word of caution, its against NCAA rules for a school or booster to pay your way to a camp. Here is a quote from another college coach about camps. "Our campers get a feel for university life and the soccer program; this helps them evaluate us. Meanwhile, coaches are evaluating campers in an intense week of training; it's an important part of our recruiting process, and many potential players have been identified in their way."

What does American Idol have to do with college recruiting?
Well, nothing really! However, American Idol shows that despite “exposure” if you can’t sing worth a lick, you aren’t going to get selected to move on or be offered a record deal. Everyone talks about exposure, getting in front of college coaches, writing letters, and making phone calls. Those things are all very important. But, in the end, if you don’t have the talent to compete on a certain college team or level, no amount of letters, phone calls, or showcases are going to help you. American Idol goes a good job of showing not only really good singers, but really bad singers as well, and some are “really bad”. These “bad singers” are being seen by millions of people around the world and I imagine a few thousand music executives and talent scouts as well.

We all remember William Hung, the California college student who belted out “she bangs” by Ricky Martin in dramatic fashion then told the judges he had no professional singing experience (as if we didn’t know that). While William is enjoying his 15 minutes of fame and even a little more, he won’t be competing against Faith Hill at the Grammy Awards anytime soon.

And while I am not a Clay Aiken groupie, I’ll admit it, the kid can sing. While American Idol gave Clay “exposure” - in terms of singing, Clay was a Division 1 talent with full scholarship potential, and he doesn’t have a CD out because he was on TV, he has a CD out because he was blessed with amazing “talent.” You can’t buy talent and exposure will not make you more talented!

Recruiting services have done a good job of pushing “exposure” as the single most important aspect of your recruiting process. Last month I featured this quote from a recruiting service – “It does not matter how good you are, to be recruited and be in line for a college scholarship, you need to aggressively reach out to college Coaches and Recruiters.” If that was the case, virtually everyone appearing on American Idol would “get recruited” by music executives because they had so much “exposure”. Did that happen? Of course not! It’s a combination of exposure at the right level, coupled with athletic talent, academic success, and the desire of the coach to feel a specific need on their team. Work on evaluating your own talent, evaluating schools that you think you can play at, and personally contacting those coaches at those schools and try to find out what it will take for them to consider you. Coaches don’t recruit kids that cannot play and you can attend 20 showcases, 10 camps, and send out 5,000 letters to different schools. In the end you have to have the physical talent to be recruited by certain schools.


 
 
 
 
 

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