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August 2005 Varsityedge.com newsletter - Newsletter Homepage
ARTICLES OF INTEREST
Not recruited? It never hurts to ask if there are any possibilities of playing?- Read Article
Recruiting camps. - Read Article
VIDEO
If you are a high school running back with aspirations to get a Division 1 scholarship, here is your competition. Oh, and by the way, this player is a SOPHOMORE! He averaged 35 yards per carry and scored 30 touchdowns and now will be living with Deion Sanders until he goes to college. Watch Video
NEWS ON INDIVIDUAL COLLEGES
Without going into great detail it looks like the dust has settled in the Baylor Basketball case. The team is barred from playing non-conference games for one season, the coaching staff has been restricted as to when they can recruit, and some scholarship money has been removed for a period of one year.
Florida A&M is eliminating golf, tennis, swimming, and diving programs because of budget concerns. No golf team at a college in Florida, is the world ending? For a kick in the teeth the school also reduced the athletic scholarship dollars available by 1/3. Go ahead, blame it on football! In unrelated news the football team lost 28 scholarships over a 3-year period, the basketball team is barred from postseason play for one year, and the school is recommending scholarship cuts in baseball, men’s track, and women’s track as part of over 200 NCAA violations found at the school. Perhaps they can save those other programs now that they have 28 available football scholarships?
Women's softball will be added to Chadron State College (Nebraska) in the spring of 2007.
The University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilt will add a men’s golf program this fall
OUTSIDE SCHOLARSHIPS
I received an interesting question from a book purchaser last month and wanted to share it. A parent from Georgia was part of an organization that wanted to establish some scholarships for soccer players in their town for the purposes of helping them pay for college. The scholarship awards would be based on an essay contest and awards would vary from $500 to $2,000. The NCAA told them that awarding money to athletes in this manner, while not based on athletic skill would represent “preferential treatment” to an athlete and be an infraction. I encountered a similar scenario in January when I was interviewing a financial aid department at a D1 school. The director told me about a scenario where a girl was recruited and awarded scholarship money for soccer. The girl was also awarded a private scholarship from her hometown based on her soccer ability. The two awards put the college soccer team over the equivalency and the girl had to give some money back. In the present case, while the award is for soccer players, the award is not based on soccer ability, so I had a problem with the NCAA’s answer in this case and didn’t think they put much effort into answering the question or providing alternatives. My recommendation was to contact the nearest school to them and try to speak to someone knowledgeable in the financial aid department and also speak to the NCAA liaison for that college. All schools have an NCAA liaison that monitors and handles all recruiting issues and financial aid awards for student-athletes, and if anyone would know, they would. I also found a few rules about 5 paragraphs above the rule that the NCAA submitted to this parent and it is as follows….
12.1.1.1.3.1 Educational Expenses—Prior to Collegiate Enrollment. A prospective student-athlete may receive educational expenses (i.e., tuition, fees, room and board, and books) prior to collegiate enrollment from any individual or entity other than an agent, professional sports team/organization or a representative of an institution’s athletics interests, provided such expenses are disbursed directly through the recipient’s educational institution (e.g., high school, preparatory school). (Adopted: 4/25/02 effective 8/1/02 )
12.1.1.1.4.1.1 Exception—Prospect’s Educational Institution. A financial award may be provided to a prospect’s educational institution in conjunction with the prospect being recognized as part of an awards program in which athletics participation, interests or ability is a criterion, but not the sole criterion, in the selection process. Such an award must also include non-athletics criteria, such as the prospect’s academic record and non-athletics extracurricular activities and may not be based on the prospect’s place finish or performance in a particular athletics event. In addition, it is permissible for an outside organization (other than a professional sports organization) to provide actual and necessary expenses for the prospect (and the prospect’s parents or other relatives) to travel to a recognition event designed to recognize the prospect’s accomplishments in conjunction with his or her selection as the recipient of a regional, national or international award. (Adopted: 10/28/99)
The solution in this case, might simply be to direct the funds directly to the school rather than giving the student a cash award or just give the money away and hope no one finds out.
ODDS N ENDS
I was reading an article this month on a popular soccer tournament in California. The reporter said in the article that college coaches can start to call juniors in high school after September 1st of their junior year. Well, that’s false. What the reporter was referring to was that colleges can start to send recruiting related materials in the mail starting September 1st of your junior year. Phone calls for all sports for D1 (with the exception of football) can start March 1st of junior year. D1 football is not till May. D2 is June 15th after completion of junior year and D3 has no timeline or restrictions. Be careful when you are reading articles that discuss NCAA rules because they may not be accurate.
If you were looking for the best junior golfers in the country (and coaches) they were all at the US Junior Amateur in July at Longmeadow CC in Western Massachusetts. Since gas crept down to $2.36 a gallon I decided to make the 180 mile round trip to check out some golf. My first impression of these players is that they are really, really, really good. They hit the ball 300 yards, they spin the ball, they control their yardage and they are just plain good! As far as coaches go, I rubbed elbows with several coaches from the top programs throughout the country. Texas, USC, Stanford, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Texas Christian, and Cal were just some of the coaches I saw proudly wearing their school colors walking the fairways. Without naming names here is some information I received from them. One coach from a school in California says that his list of golfers he is recruiting tops out at about 20 a year and he can only recruit players from California because of their scholarship limitations. The NCAA allows 4.5 full golf scholarships for men but they were not fully funded. He said that pride usually gets in the way of any player they try to recruit out-of-state because they cannot give that player a significant scholarship offer and when you are dealing with a top junior golfer (and his family) that has just spent $50,000 on lessons and travel to tournaments for the last 5 years, anything less than a significant scholarship just won’t do, even if they can afford the school (which they can). I don’t tell people how to spend their money but if you find a program and school you really like and you see a great opportunity and you can afford to go to school there then I think it’s something you should consider. But that’s just me. After a player from California tee’d off, he said “Dave nice to meet you, I’m following this group today.” I also walked about 8 holes with a coach from a private school in Texas and that was really enjoyable. When he found out what I did, he asked as many questions as I asked him. He said that he gets about 30 inquiries a month but only 25% of those players have the skills and academic background to get into his school, so at the end of the day his pool of potential players that are a fit for the school and golf program is smaller than some other schools. He also said that if you contact them and send them information they will make every effort to look it over and get back to each player and that he has also recruited players without seeing them play in person. This is one of the advantages of golf because you can have scores on a national level that pretty much say you are a good golfer, even though most coaches like to see a players demeanor and how they handle pressure. This coach also gets lots of faxes and emails from services that he says are basically fishing expeditions that are worthless to him. One of the interesting things about college golf is that there are only 8 to 12 players on each team and at a given tournament only 6 or 8 players might play. This basically means that a college golf coach might only be recruiting between 1 and 3 players a year depending on the team needs. The most interesting thing I saw was that all the coaches there were following basically one player for the entire round. One of the top players at the tournament had no less than 7 D1 coaches following him throughout the round and several other coaches I met were there to see a specific player. This is all part of the courting process especially if you are looking to recruit only one or two players a year. It’s important for those players to know that you really want them and following them for the entire round isn’t so much about seeing them play as it is them (the player) seeing you! Ease dropping on the putting green, one of the funniest conversations I heard involving an adult and a soon-to-be senior was as follows…”Hey how’s the recruiting going?” “Not much going on, I need to start sending out some letters, but I had some good tournaments recently so I think that will help.” If I was scheduled to play in the US Junior Amateur, you can be sure that there would be about 60 coaches that knew my name and knew I was going to be there long before the tournament started.
A male hockey coach recently filed a lawsuit against a D1 University after he was turned down for the job of assistant coach for the women’s hockey team over two female candidates. The coach said he was the most qualified, but that the school felt they needed to hire a woman for the position. If you were a recruit or player on the women’s team, do you think it would be better to have at least one female coach on the team?
I was talking to a parent about recruiting for football at the Ivy Level. The family was fairly knowledgeable about recruiting and also realistic and the father said, “You know, when our son is a senior there might only be 20 quarterbacks in the entire country recruited for all the Ivy schools combined.” That’s assuming each team recruits 2 quarterbacks in a given year which may not be true of they have a few others on the roster already so that number each year might be 10 or 15 quarterbacks a year, depending on team needs. While the pool of quarterbacks in high school that can play and get accepted to an Ivy School is relatively small, the odds are still pretty slim in this case.
The NCAA claims there is about 1 billion dollars in athletic scholarship money available at the D1 and D2 level. Divide that by roughly 126,000 student-athletes who actually receive money and it comes out to about $8,000 per athlete.
Bumped into a D1 baseball assistant coach in July. Here is what I got in 40 seconds of conversation. “We have 7 scholarships to offer (the max is 11.7) but most parents assume we have tons of baseball money. We try to give a lot of scholarship money to a few very good players and fill out the rest of the roster with a few small partial scholarships, but a lot of kids won’t see one dime of scholarship money and that’s just the way it is. We have a really good pipeline going in Canada and our school is switching leagues so we will be able to attract some new recruits in other parts of the country. We also do a hitting clinic in the winter and we encourage anyone interested in our school to attend that as it’s a great opportunity for us to evaluate you.”
After I read about a D3 tennis team paying several foreign players, I concluded that there is no NCAA sport at any level that is safe from corruption.
I was reading an article about a player who wasn’t getting much recruiting contact from college football coaches. It was discovered that a bio on the player said he ran a 4.8 40-yard dash. College coaches didn’t know that time was recorded his freshman year. The player went to the Nike Combine and ripped a 4.36 and immediately was put back on the recruiting map. Make sure whatever information on you is as accurate and updated as soon as possible.
I Came across someone selling recruiting information that included an NCAA guide for the college bound student-athlete, NCAA transfer guide, NAIA guide, and NAIA transfer guide. These are all available online for free at their prospective websites, you don’t have to pay for this or feel like you are getting some additional bonus for free. They are free and anyone trying to sell these or include them for free with other stuff they are selling in my mind is simply in the business of making money.
COMMUNICATING WITH COLLEGE COACHES
In April, Ray at the athletes advisor bumped into a parent he knew at a baseball game. In the fall, his son had gone on a recruiting visit to a school in Maine. The meeting went well but the coach had not seen his son actually play. The coach told the family to apply to the school but not to send in any deposit money or enroll until the coach notified the family if in fact he was interested in having the son play for the team. A few months went by and they didn’t hear anything from the coach. They placed a few calls to the coach, left plenty of messages, and still didn’t hear back. The father finally said, “What do you think all this means?” Ray, unfortunately had to tell him that it appeared the coach wasn’t interested, especially if he hasn’t returned any of your phone calls. Most coaches will be pretty honest if they want you and usually will be honest if they don’t want you. In this case, it’s probable the coach was never truly interested (especially having not seen the boy play) and may have given the family a little bit of hope in case he was short on players. We always try to tell people they are part of the recruiting process to, and just as a coach is making decisions, so too, do you have to make decisions. Recruiting is not a one-way street where you sit and wait for coaches and it’s important you push coaches to make decisions in a timely manner. If they are not interested, you need to know so you can look for other schools. In this case, the family put their eggs in two baskets and only have one other active school on their list that is a D1 program the son probably cannot play at. It’s no surprise that they were waiting for this coach to call, since they didn’t have anything else on the table to fall back on really! After a few more weeks they finally got a hold of the coach and the coach said, “I thought you knew you were in, I want you to come play for me.” At this point I would have to guess the coach is short on players and is probably taking anyone he can.
COLLEGE CHOICES
I am all for students selecting any school they want using any criteria they want, but I am always interested in the thought process some students use. In May the Globe did a story on a senior from a nearby town and the college process he went through before making a decision. Time to Decide by Paysha Stockton May 15th, 2005
The schools he was accepted to were as follows. San Diego State, Indiana, Colorado, Iowa, Georgia, Maryland, and Miami, James Madison, Virginia, and Tulane. Two important criteria were getting out of the cold northeast (I certainly don’t blame him) and going to a school with a good athletic program but he didn’t really specify if it was to play or just to watch athletics. On some campus visits he discovered that he neither wanted a spread-out campus or a small school “where you know everybody”. I went to a school with 3,000 people and I didn’t know half the people in my graduating class let alone the other 2,400 people in the other 3 classes. The reason you know everyone in high school is because you have been going to school with most of those people for 10 years, but that’s beside the point. He ended up applying to 6 schools that he never even visited which seems odd. James Madison, San Diego and Indiana were eliminated because the academics weren’t strong enough. Iowa was cut because it was too snowy and isolated. Why apply? Colorado was cut because of the recent football scandal, but he wasn’t getting recruited or interested in playing football. Last I checked it snows a bit in Colorado too so not sure why that school was on the list if you are trying to escape the cold weather of New England. That left Miami, Maryland, and Georgia, which probably don’t have a stronger academic reputation than San Diego, Indiana, and James Madison? Tulane was still an option and had the strongest academic programs but the young man feared he would party too much (think Mardi Gras and Burbon Street). I have been to New Orleans and you can’t walk to the French Quarter from Tulane, you have to get on a Trolley and ride for a bit so it takes some effort on your part. I thought this was a strange decision. Your academic success will have little to do with what school you attend and all to do with how disciplined you are and how much effort you put forth. You can get just as drunk at the University of Alaska as you can at Tulane or any other school for that matter, so it’s simply a question of discipline and to turn down an opportunity at a good school because you think you will drink too much is odd! I won’t even get into Miami and South Beach in terms of partying but lets just say Miami can certainly give Tulane a run for it’s money in the college party department! Ultimately the choice came down to Maryland because “they have a top-rated lacrosse team” and he was considering trying out as a walk-on. Where lacrosse came into the picture I am not sure? It didn’t seem to be a criteria in the beginning of the college search but apparently he is a big lacrosse player and obviously has a desire to play at the college level (maybe?). Top-rated lacrosse program may be an understatement for Maryland. In 2005 Maryland was ranked the 4th best team in the country in a pre-season pole. While walking on may be possible, the question is, is it probable as a means to playing time if you are really interested in playing college lacrosse? If academics are important, is playing at the highest level of college lacrosse at one of the most competitive programs in the country going to contribute to your academic success as well? This was just an odd story to me all around, and honestly, I am not sure what the criteria or game plan was going into this college selection process. If he is happy with the decision, that is all that matters, but it never seemed like he really knew what he wanted? His parents also never gave him any input until he made his decision. It’s important that you give your son or daughter some leeway in what schools they pick, but if you are paying the bills you have the right to express your concerns and voice your opinions in this matter and not being involved in the selection process is something I would not recommend.
LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO PLAY
I got a call in July from a parent in Florida who said their son just graduated and was looking for a college to play baseball at. I knew the reason why, but of course I still asked why they were looking for a school at such a late date. “We thought he would be recruited and we thought our high school coach would help more.” If I had a dime for every time I heard that I might be able to pay my credit card bill! I then asked if they had contacted any schools and was told that they just started to call schools! Well, needless to say things haven’t gone as planned so the question is what to do now.
The first important thing to remember is that if schools have openings, they will take new students up to the start of school. Sure there are application deadlines, but a college can do anything they want, and if there are students who want to attend, and they have beds to fill, they will take students at a late date. There are also coaches who for one reason or another might still be looking for players to fill out their roster. Maybe a few players signed with the draft, got cold feet and didn’t want to go to school, transferred, got hurt, or quit the team, so the coach may need additional players. The college baseball season is a long season with many games, and you need players to make it through.
At this point there is three things I would recommend. The first is to find anyone in the baseball community that can either help you assess your skills or help you find a place to play, i.e., someone that might have some connections and can make a call to a college coach. The second thing is to call a bunch of coaches and plead ignorance. “Coach, my recruiting process didn’t go as expected, I am really interested in playing baseball in college, I am looking for a place to play, and was wondering if you had any openings or had any recommendations for me.” The third thing to do is realize that the choices you make today will not necessarily be something you have to live with tomorrow. If the goal is to go to college and play college baseball, look at the bigger picture. Ask yourself what would be most beneficial for me in the short term and what do I need to do to find a place to play at a school I feel comfortable with. The answer may be to attend a local college for a year, get good grades, and give yourself time to research programs and contact coaches for next year. The loss of one year of college baseball doesn’t mean the loss of your college baseball career if you look at the big picture. Giving yourself an additional year may in the long run be more beneficial than enrolling in a baseball program you might not be comfortable with. The other option is perhaps Junior College, again with the goal of giving yourself more time to find a 4-year program that would be happy to have you. Some families panic at such a late stage and they take any offer thrown their way rather than deciding what’s best in the long run. Most Junior College coaches know that your ultimate goal will be to go to a 4-year program and they will help you accomplish that goal. Enrolling in a 4-year program with the hopes of transferring after a year will in the end be more difficult for many reasons, two being the limitation the NCAA places on contacts and the lack of help you may receive from your NCAA college coach who may be offended you want to leave his program.
MIKE AND MITCH
In January a parent by the name of Mike purchased The Making of a Student-Athlete for himself and his son who was a sophomore football player. Several months later Mike emailed me and thanked me for the “wonderful” book we wrote. He said his son was possibly interested in attending a school in the Northeast and he asked if there were any camps that I recommended. I gave them a camp that I knew had lots of college coaches in attendance each year and they enrolled. In July Mike and Mitch spent a week in New England attending the Yale Camp, Harvard Camp and the New England Elite Football Camp. They also toured a few other schools and met with a few coaches at those schools. One coach spent an hour with them asking and answering questions and they didn’t even have a meeting scheduled when they showed up at the school. Mitch hasn’t even played a down of varsity football but he already has an idea of where he wants to go to school, he has already toured several schools, he has a resume prepared which he is giving out and has already met and shook the hands of several coaches who now personally know him by name and face. Not all 16 year old’s are ready for that, but apparently Mitch is. Mike bought me breakfast while in town before they headed over to the last camp. At the New England Elite Camp he spent 4 days throwing passes in front of 20+ college coaches from the area and had several coaches personally tell him that they would be contacting him next year. After one good conversation with a coach, Mike said he might have to buy me more than breakfast! Mike and Mitch learned what they needed to do, made some decisions as to what they were looking for, and took some action in order to increase their knowledge of different schools and to display Mitch’s skills to some coaches who are now interested in him. All this without throwing one ball as a varsity athlete at the high school level thus far. Mike asked me for more advice and I simply said to keep doing the things you are doing, keep communicating with coaches, remember that you have a say in the process, keep giving yourself options, and keep working hard to find the right fit. Mike made a decision to purchase our $29 recruiting guide and they are waaaaaay ahead of other potential recruits right now because they understand what their role and responsibilities are right now.
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