WWW.BLOOMBERG.COM
March 20 (Bloomberg) -- The longstanding practice at U.S. colleges of admitting athletes with substandard academic credentials is coming under fresh scrutiny. The National Collegiate Athletic Association has launched a review that might limit the number of these so-called special admits. At the University of Oklahoma, which just completed a four-year review of admissions, Athletic Director Joe Castiglione says some students read only at a fifth-grade level. Read Full Article

SUN-SENTINAL.COM
Nova Southeastern Athletic Director Mike Mominey calls it his "Reality of the College Scholarship" speech. Mominey gives it when he visits local high schools to discuss how athletic scholarships are handed out. "There is a major misconception out there that every scholarship is a full ride. That just isn't true. I tell them the majority of scholarships are partial ones," Mominey said. Read Full Article

NOTE: There is one error in this article above that says - "Head-count sports are those in which every student-athlete gets a full scholarship. That is football and basketball for men, and basketball, volleyball, tennis and gymnastics for women" - =That is incorrect, not every student-athlete gets a full scholarship in head-count sports. The head count only refers to how many players on the team can receive athletic money. As an example, women’s tennis is allowed 8 scholarships but many if not most D1 women’s teams don’t have 8 scholarships available. If the tennis team wishes to divide money up to 8 girls, they are free to do so. If there is a 9th or 10th girl on the team, those players cannot receive any athletic money per the rules of head-count!

ORLANDO SENTINEL
GAINESVILLE -- Allen Johnson, Deltona Trinity Christian Academy's football coach, said he saw an opportunity to help kids get to college when he loaded up a school van for a trip to a Nike-sponsored football combine in Orlando last January. What Johnson didn't see -- what he says he still doesn't get from reading the Florida High School Athletic Association handbook -- is that rules forbid high-school coaches from transporting players to recruiting events. Read Full Article

UNION LEADER
DAVE AQUILINO called it a cool feeling the first time he got a recruiting letter from a college basketball coach in the summer before his junior year at Londonderry High School. "I wasn't even halfway through my high school career and I was already having the next step of my life planned," he said. Aquilino, now a senior, went on to be a 1,000-point scorer for the Lancers and was recently named to the New Hampsire Union Leader All-State second team. The team includes eight seniors and two juniors, all with aspirations to continue playing in college. Read Full Article

COPPIN STATE
One look into the Coppin State baseball dugout is all it takes to realize something isn't right. There's one part of a college baseball team that's missing, and it's a fundamental one: the players. Take yesterday's game against the Terrapins at Shipley Field. Even when the Eagles were in the dugout to bat, the Terps' dugout was still filled with twice as many reserves as Coppin State had total players. Read Full Article

ESPN
Think college coaches change teams often? There have been 54 men's D1 basketball changes recently. A rundown of Division I head coaching changes for the 2006-07 season: Link

ODDS N ENDS

I’m a big fan of a new stats program for college baseball called Game Tracker. If you visit the Lynn University site and click on one of the scheduled baseball games, you can see it in action. As a prospective recruit, you can use this tool to see who is playing on a daily basis for the team by position and see what year those players are. Link

Something significant happened in men’s college lacrosse on February 24th of this year. Perennial Power John’s Hopkins lost to Albany, a program only 8 years old. Can you tell me why? In 10 years only 10 new D1 lacrosse teams have been added, while over 56 new D3 men’s teams have been formed. The lack of opportunities at the D1 level is making all 56 D1 teams more competitive and more equal in skill as the sport explodes at the high school level.

The NY Times reported that Georgetown basketball player Mark Egerson Failed 13 classes in High School but somehow gained admission to Georgetown, one of the elite Universities in the country. Perhaps the school was impressed with his extra-curricular activities listed on his application?

The NCAA D1 Management Council approved a proposal to ban text messaging for recruiting. The vote now goes to the D1 board of Directors, which meets April 26th. I can’t wait to see how this one plays out.

If you play high school football in Florida and have aspirations of playing in college in your home state, you either receive and athletic scholarship or you have to leave the state. There are no D2 or D3 colleges that field a varsity football team in Florida. If you play in the Fort Lauderdale or Miami area, you will have to travel hundreds of miles just to find a team to play for that is not D1

Following up on my being recruited for the Ivy League article from the March Newsletter. Sam Dillon, a reporter for the Ny Times wrote an interesting article on admissions for the Ivy League – A Great Year for Ivy Schools, But Not So Good for Applicants to Them, April 4th 2007. Dillon reported that “Harvard rejected 1,100 applicants with an 800 perfect score on the Math exam, Yale rejected several applicants with 2,400 (perfect score) on the new SAT exam and Princeton turned away thousands of applicants with 4.0 GPA’s.” Here is a link to the full article, but you must be a NY Time online member to access article. Article

I was re-reading Bill Pennington’s articles on recruiting from last year in the NY Times and here are some of the more interesting quotes from college coaches.

• One coach immediately crossed off one girl from her recruiting list after the girl said – “I think I am division one talent” citing the fact that the coach isn’t interested in recruiting attitude for 4 years.
• One coach spent an entire day at a showcase watching over 150 players play and only wrote the name down of one potential prospect he will pursue.
• In a quest to recruit 8 girls one coach will start with 1,000 names, "Of 1,000 I've contacted, about half will reply, about half that reply will be academically qualified. About half of them will be truly interested in Haverford. About half of them will be actually good enough to play volleyball for us. About half of that group will apply for admission. About half of them will get accepted. And about half of them will decide to come here. "If that happens, that's a really good year.
• At another summer recruiting event, the coaches 18th of the year, one coach crossed off the names of 120 players that wouldn’t be academically eligible to gain acceptance to the school.

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READER FEEDBACK

Thank you for your newsletters and publications, they have been very helpful with my sons recruiting. When we started the process in his Junior Year, I never realized how long, challenging and fun it would be. He has worked hard on his athletic training and academics, and me with marketing his talents. The Making of a Student Athlete has been a tremendous source of information and guidance.

He graduates in June, we are approaching the end of the recruiting process and I was hoping that you could provide some additional insight to my son and me. Perhaps it would be helpful to your other readers also.

****** was recently accepted to a 1AA University and was recruited as a “Preferred Walk-On” by the football team. He has been offered a slot on the roster with no tryout. At this point, the coaches have said that they have not determined who will be invited to camp in August. As you know, they are limited to 90 until classes begin. They expect to have about 100 to 105 on the roster when school starts. They told him that he will be Red Shirted. I verified that they do this to all incoming freshmen, with the exception of 1 or 2 players the past few years.

I think we have gone through the proper motions; meeting with and sizing up the coaches, evaluating the squad and trying to determine that there are good opportunities in his positions, reviewing the list of 2007 scholarship athletes, etc. We just returned from a very positive weekend visit with the coaching staff, went to a practice on Friday and watched the inter-squad Spring Game on Saturday. We were fortunate enough to interact with the parents of existing players and heard great reviews about the program. Unsolicited, we even had parents say that the coaching staff treats the athletes the same, regardless of whether they were scholarship kids or walk-ons. Everyone earns their spot on the field and onto the starting line-up.

His high school football coach is concerned that if he is not invited to camp, it is very negative. The coach did not articulate to him the negative aspect of this or at least ********* was not able to relay the concern to me. So my question is; do you perceive it to be a negative?

If it is, I would greatly appreciate your insight so that I can help him understand the shortfalls and to make his decision.

Thank You

FEEDBACK: One of the biggest challenges for athletes, especially talented athletes who are going on to play in college is adjusting to the fact that they are going from being the top player on their high school team to being just another player on a college roster that might have 99 other players who are bigger, stronger and faster than you are.

Like everything in life, you have to start somewhere, and I imagine your son might not have started on Varsity when he was a freshman in high school?? Playing in college is often a progression for many athletes, some are lucky to start or play their freshman year but for most, it takes time.

I can't get into the minds of the College coaches but from their perspective, they are dealing with over 100 players and decisions with that many kids are never easy.

If he is going to be red shirted anyway as you mentioned, then what is he loosing by not being invited to camp? His first year will be primarily spent practicing with the team, so there will be plenty of opportunity for him to display his skills to the coaching staff over the next year........

Since games start the first week of September, the coaching staff has a lot on their plate in August to get ready and they need that time to work with players whom they know will be contributing to the team in the next few weeks so I imagine that time is not really spent evaluating players but installing the offense and defense and getting ready for games. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. It’s a 4-year process not a 4-week process. He will get his chance in practice soon enough.

READER QUESTIONS:

I played d-1 baseball last season, which was my freshman year. The only reason why I chose to go to this particular school was because they were the only d-1 school heavily recruiting me. There were a couple of nationally ranked d-3 schools that were recruiting me but I let all of the d-1 baseball glamour get in my head. I also would like to switch my major but what I want to study is not offered at this school. A year later I feel as if it was the worst decision I ever made and I am trying to get a release from the school to play at a d-3 school. Sounds easy but for some reason the coach does not want to give me a release. I chose not to play this year but I am still enrolled at the school. What can I do if the coach continues to deny my release????

ANSWER: The NLI only covers the students responsibility to be at the school for the year. However, NCAA rules require schools to receive a release for a student whether they are playing the sport or not and even if they are not in school for a period of one year.

If you are denied a release, you have a right to a hearing with someone outside of athletics regarding the release. This is similar to appealing lost financial aid. Also, realize there are really two releases. One is permission for other colleges to talk to you and the other is for the one-time transfer release that will allow you to play right away.

While the coach may be disappointed that you are no longer interested in playing for him, he has to realize that your life is also important and that your priorities or needs have changed and denying you the opportunity to study what you want and to play for another program is of no benefit to anyone.

I would first recommend you try the civil way and request a hearing and state your case. If that doesn’t go over so well, I would call the sports reporter at the regional paper and ask them if they would be interested in writing a recruiting article about choosing the right school and how if you wish to transfer as a college athlete you apparently can't do it at this school.

The Making of a Student-Athlete: Succeeding in the College Selection and Recruiting Process for High School Athletes, Parents and Coaches. ORDER TODAY