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Varsityedge.com March 2004 News - Newsletter Homepage
ODDS N ENDS
This clip comes from Mark Blaudshun form the Boston Globe on 2/5/04 Recruiting? It’s as easy as ice cream, and I think it articulates how stupid some recruits and the recruiting process can be sometimes. Former Wake Forest coach Bill Dooley tells about a recruit he thought he had until the signing date. It was Wake and Clemson, in that order. Or so Dooley thought. But when the announcement was made, the recruit signed with Clemson. Dooley, as was his practice with recruits he did not sign, called the player to wish him well and ask what he had done wrong so he could do better next time. "Coach, the difference was that Clemson served soft-serve ice cream in the cafeteria and Wake Forest didn't." Dooley had a soft-serve machine installed the next day!
Talk about an official visit. A student-athlete arranged a visit with a college coach, but it took some time because the players mother was going through kidney dialysis. During the meeting with the player, the coach asked what blood type her mother was. After finding out the mother and coach had the same blood type, the coach got tested to see if her kidney would be a match. It was and the coach donated her kidney two months ago. To no surprise, the student enrolled in that college. Almost too good to be true!
I knew the economy was bad but, a town in Massachusetts will be eliminating their entire athletic program next fall because of budget cuts.
In the Making of a Student-Athlete, we discuss not jeapardizing your college athletic career and possibly a scholarship by participating in another sport that may cause you sever injury during your senior year. This can't be more evident than what happened to Brett Boone, the 3rd baseman (check that former 3rd baseman) for the New York Yankees. Fresh off signing a 6 million dollar contract for this year, Boone decided to celebrate by playing pick up basketball and went out and blew his ACL in half in his knee. There was even language in the contract that prohibited playing basketball. As you know, Boone was cut by the yankees and received some severance pay, and the yankees went out and signed some guy named Rodriguez.
Dean Smith, former basketball coach at North Carolina is advocating that freshman in college not be allowed to play athletics their first year before they prove they can be college students. While that has been proposed before, it unfairly penalizes thousands of student-athletes that have displayed a desire to learn and a strong work ethic in high school already. Are you telling me kids with 1500 on their SAT’s and straight A’s in high school should sit out? You can’t penalize smart hard working students because some students don’t care about going to class and getting good grades. A novel solution to this would be stopping teams from recruiting kids that can’t read, but can score touchdowns, rather than lump everyone together and making everyone sit out.
In The Making of a Student-Athlete, we have a section on personal training for high school athletes. At the gym the other day, there were 8 or 9 high school players working out and needless to say, they were doing most of their exercises incorrectly. If you are going to take the time to work out and are interested in becoming faster and stronger, you really need to learn the correct ways of training with weights, rather than simply going to the gym and moving weights back and forth.
After some overzealous patriots fans celebrated outside their Universities in Boston after the superbowl, a Boston Counselor is proposing a $50 fee per student billed to colleges to help defray the costs of police and fire services.
Most student-athletes think coaches have unlimited time and resources to scout for players throughout the country. While we have mentioned several times how many programs consist of just one coach, Marty Fletcher of the University of Colorado (Colorado Springs, D2) takes that to a whole new level. Fletcher is not only the senior assistant athletic director at the school, he is also the men’s and women’s basketball coach. I am sure he doesn’t have endless hours to scout for players, especially for two teams.
I can’t believe I take the time to do this, but over 70 new coaches were hired or announced in the last two weeks of January. Check with the athletic department first before you make any phone calls or send any letters and don’t assume a coach or assistant coach will follow up with you, because he may have resigned or been replaced.
Maurice Clarett, the Ohio State running back who has played a total of 8 games in two years sued the NFL over its policy that says players cannot play in the NFL until they have been out of college for 3 full years - (Clarett has only been out 2 years). Clarett won and will enter the draft this year. The rule isn’t in place to prevent kids from doing what they want to do, the rule is in place so some 18 year old kid doesn’t get lit up by a 300 pound defensive end that has been lifting weights in an NFL environment for 7 years. I have an easy solution, tell all 31 teams to simply not draft players that haven’t been out of high school for 3 years and those players will have nowhere to play.
Willie Williams, a top football recruit from Florida was writing a diary for the Miami Herald on all his school visits involving private jets, lobster tails and sweets at 5 star hotels. Williams was arrested last week and the arrest is his 11th in the 19 years he has been alive. The DA is also bringing 3 new charges against him. Williams had been offered and accepted an athletic scholarship to the University of Miami. When asked to comment on Williams, The Miami AD has this to say, “With the events of yesterday (the arrest), the University of Miami will delay the processing of the application of Willie Williams. There is also an NCAA clause that stipulates recruits be treated no different than any other potential student. At dinner one night, Wiliams became shocked to find the price of lobster tails at nearly $50 per tail and decided not to order one, when several other recruits ordered lobster tails, Williams called the waiter back and ordered four lobster tails and two steaks. I am sure every student that visits schools is afforded the same opportunities.
Here is a good story from co-author Ray. http://www.athletesadvisor.com/articles/basketball/emerson.htm
Predicting your Acceptance Chances
There is a disturbing new trend, websites that predict the probability of being accepted at certain schools. The newest site, www.thinkenvelope.com will tell you your chances of being accepted to 80 of the nations most competitive colleges. The only catch is that you have to pay $80.00 to submit your information. Turns out there are many other sites that charge money for this. Guidance Counselors are scoffing at this practice saying it undermines their job and takes money away from people for no real service. This leads me to another disturbing trend, Private College Counselors. I don’t know how some of this information finds me sometimes but a woman who runs a private consulting business in New York that assists parents and students with acceptance to Ivy League schools has a platinum package she offers that costs, are you ready, $28,995. It includes one hour of phone time a week and 24 individual sessions. Amazingly, all 20 openings for this package are sold out. I must be in the wrong business. The woman also offers nursery school counseling for those looking to get an early start. As Frank Costanza says, Serenity Now! Start with purchasing The Making of a Student-Athlete at $29.95, and if you still think you can’t get into Yale, you can take the $28,967.05 you saved by buying our book and can pay this lady for help.
Did you Know?
Division 1 Basketball coaches are limited to 12 official visits and are only recruiting 3 or 4 players a year. On the positive side, Division 2 and Division3 have no limit. If you are not extremely talented, a coach might not extent you an official visit, and if you are not extended an official visit, your chances for a scholarship are probably not as good as players who were extended official visits.
Despite the limitations placed on college coaches as to when they can call you, you can call them at any time in any grade. High school coaches and parents can also call any time. College coaches can also call club or high school coaches whenever they would like as well.
Some college coaches will try to sway recruits by saying bad things about other coaches and schools. Some recruits will say bad things about schools and coaches, usually after they stopped being recruited by a school or coach. Recruiting is ruthless, take anything bad you hear with a grain of salt and talk to people that know programs well, like players on the team.
In 2006 over 90 schools will require their own writing test for admission that is separate from the SAT test.
NCAA INFO
The NCAA is considering a policy change on how endowment funds are used. To review, endowment is money controlled by a school that can be used for any purpose such as new buildings, new teams, new programs, financial aid, academic aid and so forth. There is support for ending endowment funds specifically set aside for student-athletes and if the policy goes forth, student-athletes and students will be evaluated as one group. While not all teams can offer scholarships, institutional money for student-athletes is a powerful force in the recruiting process and often the deciding factor for many coaches and athletes alike.
The NCAA is considering a policy to allow student-athletes to contact other institutions about transferring without having to get permission from their current school. Currently any athlete under scholarship needs permission from their athletic department before they speak to another school or coach, or are spoken to by another school or coach.
Just as drug use among athletes is running ramped, the NCAA is considering dropping their drug test suspension from one year of competition to half a season.
The NCAA is evaluating a policy that would allow D2 coaches to make unlimited calls to prospects after the national letter of intent signing date. Coaches claimed they wanted this so they could advise walk-on prospects about the process and their chances. Student-athletes felt that the calls would just be recruiting calls to talented athletes that didn’t sign letters of intent and that the calls would become excessive and annoying.
From NCAAsports.com - In response to the recent allegations involving recruiting practices at a few Division I institutions, NCAA President Myles Brand announced the formation of a task force to immediately review NCAA recruiting rules and recommend possible new standards by late April. – Wow, what an incredible suggestion, I can’t believe no one thought of this before. I guess there was never any problems with recruiting in years past.....
News on Individual Colleges
Longwood University (Virginia) is moving their athletic program to Division 1. You may see them featured on a Pepsi can in Virginia. Not sure why?
Rockhurst University is adding varsity women’s softball. 25 new opportunities for any girl interested in getting involved in a new program.
College Misericordia will start a varsity tennis program in 2004 to go along with the schools new tennis facility.
A student at Roger Williams College in Rhode Island is ruffling some feathers with a “whites only” scholarship. The scholarship was created as a parody to scholarships that only minority students can apply for. It started at $100 bucks but people have been sending the young lad more money and supporting his cause. Sometimes there is an assumption that all whites are rich and all minorities are poor and only minorities need scholarships, when in fact this is not the case at all.
St. Johns University dismissed several players from the basketball team (and from the school) after several team violations as well as some other stuff I rather not get into. Anyone who puts their athletic scholarship in jeopardy is not really using their head. These players will have a tough time finding another scholarship and a tough time even getting into another school and basketball program. The AD threw coach Jarvis under the bus on this one.
Northeaster University (Boston, MA) is investing 75 million dollars in their school to become more competitive hiring 100 new professors and adding several new facilities. Last year the school received 21,000 applications for only 3,000 spots in the freshman class (that’s pretty competitive). In the last 10 years, their freshman retention rate has gone from 70% to 88%. Northeastern also set up a website with pictures of 24 students who were photographed destroying property during some vigorous celebration after the Patriots won the superbowl, and asked for help identifying the students. 12 students have been identified and their names have been turned over to Boston Police. If expelled, the students will lose any tuition payments they have made. Northeastern made headlines again when the school canceled a concert for the rapper Ludicras (someone can correct the spelling of his name for me) by saying the students behavior after the superbowl was a concern and they didn't feel the concert was in the best interest of the community.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has formed a partnership with Miami Dade College to assist academically qualified students with transferring to MIT.
Recruiting Services
Here is the most irresponsible statement I have ever seen from any recruiting service in my life. “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.” - Um, it matters how good you are. Coaches don't recruit kids based on their aggressiveness, they recruit kids on their talent, academic qualifications, and personality all which need to be conveyed to a coach by you through phone calls, emails, visits, letters and any other means possible. Being a poorly skilled athlete, but "aggressive" isn't going to get you recruited.
Found another recruiting service that for $699 will email/fax your sports profile to every college at the D1-A, D1-AA, and D2 program in the country. I cannot stress how wasteful and ridiculous this is
Things like this are really starting to bother me. Unless you are a top player in the country, there are simply too many programs you cannot play at, needless to say that there are many schools that you cannot gain acceptance to based on your academic record alone no matter how good you are. Don’t pay to send stuff to schools you cannot play at or cannot gain acceptance to. Services like this are all about exposure, the more, the better. While exposure is important, you have to understand that skill (athletic and academic) as well as being able to fill a need is what recruiting is about, not simply exposure. You could be talented and exposed to many schools that simply do not have a place for you on their team, maybe they have 3 centers already or 3 quarterbacks, or 3 goalies and are not recruiting for that position that year. If your skills do not warrant you playing at the high D1 level, no amount of exposure will get you recruited there. You can send 10,000 letters to the coach, but it won’t matter. You need the skills, you need to find a program that you fit into, and you need to find a coach and team that has a need for your skills, and you need to find a school that you can gain acceptance to and will enjoy being at for 4 years. Sending out 400 profiles to every school isn’t exposure, it’s a piece of paper or an email that says very little about your skills as an athlete, and your personality. I sent an email to this company and asked them why they do this and their reply was that I know nothing about recruiting and should take EFL (English as a foreign language because I obviously can’t read). The company owner later IM’d me and says the only reason he sends info out to 500 schools is because parents ask for it. He said it takes two seconds so it doesn’t cost him a thing. Even though he markets that as more exposure and charges more for this. Did he happen to think about the coaches who receive ridiculous emails all day from him and who grow more weary of services like this by the day?
FINANCIAL INFO
Someone asked me recently if money in a Roth IRA counts towards income when calculating federal financial aid. The answer is Yes and NO.
Money that has been set aside in a retirement account such as a Roth IRA or 401k plan does not get calculated as income or savings when the Federal Government is looking at your financial aid form. HOWEVER - Since federal financial aid gets calculated on your previous years income (if you apply for 2004, they look at your 2003 tax returns) any money you earned in the previous year (from when you are applying) will be counted as income regardless of what you did with it. So, putting money in an IRA doesn't make it disapear when the financial aid people are looking at your numbers. It is not possible to earn $10,000 in a given year and put $9,000 in an IRA and say that you only earned $1,000 on your financial aid form.
Using College Athletics for a greater good.
In the Making of a Student-Athlete, we talk about the long-term benefits of being a college athlete and learning to balance your time and overcome adversity and how doing these things can make you more attractive to employers when you graduate. Here is a good example of using your athletic passion for a greater good.
A friend of mine played lacrosse in high school. He was fortunate to get a pretty decent scholarship to a small D1 college in New England. He played 4 years and then moved to Australia for a year to play in a men’s professional lacrosse league down there. When he returned to the States, Brine Lacrosse, which is the biggest lacrosse company around as far as I know asked him if he would be interested in working for them. They asked him if he was interested in being a sales rep in Australia. Had he not played lacrosse and had he not played in college, it’s a good bet this job would have gone to someone else.
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