ODD’S N ENDS

• My friend is a high school basketball coach and he is helping some of the players who are interested in playing other sports in college with their recruiting process. He has one player who is a golfer and he recently asked what schools he was looking at. The player replied – “James Madison, Miami, Purdue, Arizona…” The coach pauses and asks “why those schools?” The player goes “hmmmm……not sure!”

• I was reading an article online about the North-South All-Star football game in Alabama. The game used to be held in July but has been moved to December and only juniors are allowed to play in the game. The benefits of this are two-fold. One, the players are in football shape having just completed their season, and two, it gives juniors a chance to get more exposure to college coaches earlier in their career. In order to assist the kids even more, the event held a combine similar to an NFL combine. Sounded like a good idea until the NCAA said college coaches would not be allowed to attend the combine or the game because of the dead period during part of December. Is there not one person who thought of checking about this before they changed the entire format of the event?

• There seems to be an unprecedented boom in college facility development and improvement going on right now and over the last few years. This isn’t an accident as schools are each vying for students that expect more from their schools than simply classrooms and cafeteria’s. Colleges are now trying to lure students to their campus with new dorms, new libraries, athletic facilities with rock climbing walls, batting cages, pools, lounges, etc. If a school you are looking at hasn’t started building something, there is a good chance they will soon. It’s always a good idea to ask what the school has plans for if you are visiting as things may be a lot different by the time you get there.

• Browsing women’s ncaa basketball scores last week (not sure why?) – (Uconn 83 – Providence 33), (Duke 101 – Holy Cross 42), (New Mexico 101 – Morgan State 22). As I have said in the past, there are D1 programs and then there are D1 programs. Knowing the difference and being realistic is important. Dream big, but have a fallback plan when Duke or Uconn don't want to recruit you.

• I opened up the paper today and saw that a sophomore from my high school jumped 6’5” inches in a recent track and field meet in the high jump. On the same page, I saw a review of recent college track meet in New England. This young fellow would have finished second in the high jump had he been at the college track meet. Let the recruiting begin!

• The Boston Globe ran an interesting story on Boston University basketball coach Dennis Wolf. His son Matt is on the team as a freshman and the coach/dad was commenting on NCAA rules and recruiting. He said he could attend his son’s high school games like any father would, but after the game he would have to leave the gym and couldn’t talk to his son until he got home, otherwise it would be counted as a “contact” and you can only have so many of those.

• I have heard of several instances of veteran players giving up their scholarship money so the coach can go out and sign new players to help the team. While not everyone is in a financial position to do this, I think it's a tremendous gesture!

• I cam across a recruiting service that does online video for athletes that helps them promote themselves to college coaches. Nothing wrong with that, I think it’s a great idea. However, I got a good laugh when I discovered that their online demo was from a player who was a top 10 pick in the major league baseball draft last year. The player ran a 6.3 60 (yes, that is really fast) and played for the USA Junior National Team in the summer of his junior year in high school. I’m betting you get some good exposure to college coaches by playing on that team? Am I to believe that a top 10 draft pick needed an online recruiting video to send to college coaches in order to help him get recruited? I found another service that said Division 3 colleges offer athletic scholarships for football. For several thousand dollars, you think they would know this not to be true.

• Calling all high school basketball players with talent. The University of Hartford men’s basketball team took on Boston University last week. Hartford put up 9 total points in the second half, didn’t make a field goal the last 17 minutes of the game, and didn’t score a single point in the last 12 minutes.

• Maurice Clarret isn't even playing football at Ohio State anymore and he is still getting other players in trouble.

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SETTING EXPECTATIONS

I was reading an article on Randall Gay, a cornerback on the New England Patriots. Gay was from Louisiana but was being recruited by Alabama in high school but didn’t want to move that far away from home. LSU jumped in late and offered him a scholarship as a running back. By the time he got there and gained weight to compete at running back, he realized he wasn’t going to see any time at running back because there were several other talented backs on the team. The coaching staff asked him to try cornerback. It was a real challenge switching positions and the extra weight he put on didn’t help. Over time he learned the position with a little hard work thrown in. Gay may have thought he was being recruited to be a running back, but it’s possible that the coaching staff was recruiting “an athlete who could play different positions if need be.” Understanding what the coaching staff has in mind for you is an important factor in recruiting. In this case, the position switch worked out, but many players cannot even handle the request to play a different position, much less the actual challenge of it. I was asked to play a different position and I initially balked, but once it was conveyed to me that this wasn’t a slight on my ability but an attempt to get me more playing time at another position, I was more receptive to the move (or I pretended I was at least!). We continuously talk about not only putting yourself in a better position to be recruited but being ready and able to fill different roles on a college team. I think this is a great example of that. Playing another position will be more fun than watching other players play your position.

NCAA NEWS

Since 1994 there have been an increase of 81 schools competing at the D3 level, 21 schools at the D1 level, and 39 schools at the D2 level. While the numbers of high school athletes competing in sports is rising, so too are the number of opportunities for high school athletes to compete in college. While there was several teams getting cut in the past 2 years partly due to a shaky economy, D1 schools have raised the minimum # of teams they must sponsor from 14 to 16. The result of this has been the addition of many new teams, both men’s and women’s.

NEWS ON INDIVIDUAL COLLEGES

Daniel Webster College a small D3 school in New Hampshire has recently announced a new 4-year degree program for mechanical and aeronautical engineering beginning in the fall of 2005. It will be the only aeronautical program in New England aside of Boston University and MIT. The school offers 9 sports for men and women.

Purdue University in Indiana will become the first university to offer a four-year degree with a concentration in personal fitness. In case you had not noticed, this is an exploding industry.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute is launching a 4-year undergraduate degree in computer gaming next year. I suspect over the next several years computer gaming majors will be on the rise at more schools.

The NCAA has placed Lewis University (D2) on probation until October 2008, and the institution faces limits on recruiting, scholarships and official visits because of numerous NCAA violations for multiple sports.

Molloy College (D2) recently announced a partnership between the institution and Village of Rockville Centre that will allow Molloy student-athletes to use the newly renovated playing fields in Rockville Centre. The arrangement will make possible the addition of a women's lacrosse team that will begin play in the 2005-06 season. The Dean G. Skelos Sports Complex will contain two synthetic surfaces that will be used for men's and women's lacrosse and soccer

Adelphi University (D2) announced that it has added women's bowling as a varsity sport for the 2004-05 academic year. It will be the school's 17th sport.

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (D2) announced December 1 that it hopes to reinstate its men's golf program

Armstrong Atlantic State University (D2) will sponsor women's golf as a varsity sport starting with the 2005 season. Current men's coach Michael Butler will coach the team

Virginia Wesleyan College (D3) is sponsoring men's and women's track and field beginning this year, boosting its total of varsity sports to 19

Macalester College (D3) announced December 14 that it is canceling the remainder of its 2004-05 women's basketball schedule. The team was competing with seven players on its roster.

The Film Issue - A novel solution.

Ray at the AthletesAdvisor.com had some good advice for high school athletic departments in his December newsletter.

Some college coaches live and die with game-film when recruiting prospects especially for football recruiting. They all want it! They all need it! The high school coach is tired of being asked for it by coaches and parents. What do you do? Easy. Invent a new student intern position called Sports Information and Video Services Coordinator and manage it in conjunction with the schools AV/Journalism class so credit can be received by the lucky student!

Each spring you advertise the position and interview kids who apply. Maybe you "hire" a couple of interns. For example: "Wanted: team Sports Information and Video Services Coordinator. You will manage the game day video operations for the football team and produce highlight tapes, end of the season team video and college recruiting requests for player film. You will also produce player recruiting profiles and assist the athletic director and coach in promoting athletes to college programs. Class credit is earned and a small stipend is included. All interested parties please come to Mr. Smith's office and fill out an application." Just an example, I don't know if you have the stipend available but you get the idea.

So you make the kid a part of the team, give him some gear, make him/her report to you once a week for assignments and Bingo! you have the help you need making copies of tapes, mailing packages to coaches, etc. Some schools actually have a student sports information director who updates the school's web pages, writes articles for the school papers, etc. This is an extension of that idea.

If this is not possible, go to everyone's plan B - Ask a parent! If you need help just copying film, ask around, someone will volunteer. No parents? Try a local video company - offer them a free add in the football book if they can commit to a certain amount of reproduction of you. Be creative, but just get the job done for the sake of your kids first and the college coaches second.

I think this is a great idea, not only will it help athletes, but it will help some high school student interested in film and will look great on his/her college applications. What other company would offer a 16 year old kid the opportunity to shoot, edit, and develop comprehensive video packages? I can see the applications now – What extra-curricular activities were you involved in at your high school. Answer: I was the Sports Information and Video Services Director a newly created position at our high school to assist our athletes with the college athletic recruiting process. I was responsible for communicating with each of our varsity coaches to assist individual players in shooting and creating game and practice video to be used by families for the college athletic recruiting process. Once video was shot, I prepared individual game and highlight tapes as well as CD ROM’s for each athlete to supply to college coaches. Athlete video’s were usually 7-10 minutes in length, but I provided full length games on additional tapes and CD ROM’s for individual college coaches who requested more video. I was also responsible for researching and purchasing the proper equipment for these tasks. - There is nothing college admission officers love more than someone who has a passion for something and displays that passion in a useful manner.


For $2,000 bucks you could buy a computer with a CD ROM Burner (your school probably has one someone already), some video editing software, a VCR or two, a pretty good video camera, a tri-pod, and about 500 blank tapes and CD’s. If your school doesn’t have the money, I would be willing to bet that you could either raise the money through raffles, car washes, donations, or find someone to donate the equipment you need pretty easily.


LACK OF STATS, LACK OF HELP
I had a parent recently purchase our book via Paypal. Upon purchase, the parent answered a few additional questions that we ask for. Her son was a talented football player in the south and she needed help with the recruiting process. After a few emails back and forth, I learned that the player was a senior and that they were a little behind in the recruiting process. She forwarded her son’s resume and cover letter to look at that they were sending to several schools. I took a look and they looked really good. When I asked what led to them being “behind” her answer did not surprise me. – “We expected that the recruiting process would take care of itself. We've come to realize that expectation was unrealistic given the size of our school. We really like his coach, but he hasn't been as proactive as we'd have liked him to be.” - If I had a dime for every time I have heard that!

One of the other things I learned was interesting also. This player played for a talented football team that not only won games by halftime but won games by throwing about 60 passes all season or about 5-6 passes a game. They had a talented team and a superior running game and when high school coaches can run the ball at will and win, they usually will. By now you are guessing that this player played Quarterback. When you play in a system that doesn’t allow you to showcase your skills (you don’t get to actually throw the ball), it’s difficult to get recruited and sometimes even difficult to feel good about your skills and contributions to the team, let alone your potential to play in college.

When this player did throw he was pretty successful 40-60 for 1,075 yards (or 26+ yards per completion) and 11 touchdowns (or 1 TD for every 4 completions). Very respectable numbers. While this family had some expectations about the recruiting process that were not true (the process won’t take care of itself), they also played in a system that didn’t allow their son to fully showcase his talents. In this case, you wouldn’t want to focus on stats but focus on talent and potential. Stats are vaguely important to college coaches, and many will barely glance at them. Recruiting is about what you can do, not what you did, and racking up great stats against players who will never play another minute of organized sports after high school is certainly not the recruiting windfall you think it will be. While this player is a little behind, he has several things going for him. Size, strength, arm strength, brains, and tremendous recommendations from both his college coach and teachers that praise him for his talent, hard work, respect, and leadership. I will take those traits over pure stats any day and so will the right college coach if you put yourself in a position to be recruited by the right program. While it’s getting late, much of football recruiting is done by film and recommendations, so there is still an opportunity to find a place to play.
 
 
 
 
 

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