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May 2006 Varsityedge.com newsletter - Newsletter Homepage
Coaching Change Article - Read Article
Graduation Rate Article - Read Article
ODD’S N ENDS
Varsityedge.com is about 5 years old now and it is time to start introducing some news services and features over the next year. This week I introduced a new consulting-based package aimed at providing parents and student-athletes guidance throughout the athletic recruiting process. This will be a phone and email support service with some additional educational tools included throughout the duration of your recruiting process. I have also arranged for a free financial aid consultation with a financial aid professional to be included in the service. MORE INFORMATION
A parent emailed me and asked me why her son’s college coach told her that this is the last year that coaches can watch players at showcases. I was confused myself but it turns out there is legislation on the table at the NCAA that would ban college football coaches from attending showcases and combines to watch players perform starting in 2007. When I find more information I will pass it along.
Here is a quote from a D1 football coach I read in an article - “At *******, we send out 3,000 to 5,000 letters knowing we’re going to sign 20 people, and we’ve known who those 20 are since they were freshmen and sophomores in high school.”
Transferring to Princeton just got a whole lot harder. In 2005 Princeton had this message on their application pages of their web site. - To those inquiring about transfer admission to Princeton: Because of larger than expected first-year enrollments, coupled with a very low attrition rate, Princeton is unable to offer a transfer admission process. Thank you for your interest in Princeton.
Sincerely,
Keith W. Light
Associate Dean of Admission
Here is the message as of April 2006 - Please note: Princeton does not offer a transfer admission option.
Somehow the Valpairaso baseball roster has 55 players listed on it’s web site?
The football rules committee of The National Federation of State High School Associations has banned the fumblerooski, the Los Angeles Times reported.
If I have to read another quote from players who say, “If I didn’t come to this event no college coach would ever have heard of me”, I might throw up. Do you have a telephone in your house?
The Florida High School Athletic Association has decided to instill a one-year transfer penalty for varsity athletes leaving their high school to attend another high school. The move is to combat the perceived rampant recruiting that is going on by many private high schools.
A high school baseball player who signed a NLI with UNLV had a change of heart after his friend was killed. The player (a California Resident) wanted to be closer to his family for college but was denied a release by the UNLV athletic department. And who says college sports isn’t a business?
Three Oklahoma basketball recruits want out of their NLI they signed with the school because head coach Kelvin Sampson left to coach at Indiana. Like the NCAA says, you sign with a school, and not a coach!
From a newsletter reader - Your story about Tufts triggered my memory of a recent occurrence. One of my daughter's friends is a very good basketball player, lower D1 good. She is also super bright, and she decided that to choose academics over athletics. She was actively recruited by an elite D3 school. The coach said that she would get into the school no problem. Months later, she gets a letter from admissions that she was rejected. Her dad went ballistic because this elite institution displayed a lack of integrity. Thank God, he made her apply to a couple of other schools so she was not left holding a very empty bag. Caveat emptor!
Location, Location, Location – I won’t argue that Duke is one of the top institutions in the country and one would be extremely fortunate to gain acceptance and attend, but here is what one person said of the town and surrounding area - "I have nothing against the town, but I wouldn't describe it as a rich treasure-trove of life and culture waiting to be discovered by an eager student," I would more accurately describe it as one of the last spots in America anyone would visit were it not for the presence of Duke University."
I received an email from a parent who said they signed up with a company called All Sports Scholarship Connection. The family sent them some money, sent them some videos and then shortly thereafter the company’s web site, email, and phone number all disappeared. The company was based in Pompano Beach, FL.
Barry Bonds' 713th home run was caught by a US Air Forst serviceman. When he asked Bonds to autograph the ball, Bonds declined. Then later the producers for Bonds' ESPN show asked the gentleman to sign a waver so they could use the footage of the two meeting after the game for his show. Hard to believe people don't like this guy?
NEWS ON INDIVIDUAL COLLEGES
The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions has placed Ohio State University on three years of probation and penalized the former head coach and a former assistant coach for violations in men’s basketball.
Stevens Institute of Technology (D3) will join the Empire 8, beginning with competition in field hockey in fall 2006 and in all other sports in fall 2007. The school, currently a member of the Skyline Conference, will join eight current full members of the Empire 8.
George Fox University (D3) will launch a women’s golf program this fall to give the institution its 14th intercollegiate sport and eighth women’s program. The Bruins’ home course will be Chehalem Glen Golf Course in Newberg, Oregon, which opened last summer.
The University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown, and Seton Hill University have accepted invitations to join the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Both schools will become members on July 1, 2006, and will be added to WVIAC schedules for the 2007-08 academic years.
Colorado College will join the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference as its 11th member.
COACHING CHANGES
Neumann College hired Corey Stitzel as men’s basketball coach
Mississippi College named Mike Jones men’s basketball coach
Northern Colorado named Tad Boyle men’s basketball coach
Rutgers named Darren Savino men’s assistant basketball coach
Western New England named Chris Bernard men’s ice hockey coach
A LITTLE AT A TIME
Many people become so overwhelmed with recruiting that they kind of freeze up and are not sure where to start. Perhaps today you simply research a few schools by checking out the web site of the school and looking at the roster of the team or the schedule. Maybe tomorrow you work on a list of schools that interest you some. The next day perhaps you work on your athletic resume or work on some cover letters for coaches. Maybe the next day you fill out some online recruit forms and see if you hear back from any college coaches. Maybe after a few weeks you have a list of 10 schools you have done some research on and you start to place phone calls to those college coaches to introduce yourself. Breaking it down into small steps each day, will in the end be much easier than trying to call 10 coaches in a day out of the blue.
MATCHING THE HATCH
In fishing there is a term called matching the hatch, which basically means when you are fishing you should try to use baits and lures that “match” what the fish are currently eating in the water at the time.
One of the most important things you need to do in your recruiting process is to try and determine what your athletic skill and potential is and try to “match” up your skills with different college programs where you will be possibly able to play. It isn’t as cut and dry as that however.
Evaluating talent as it applies to different levels of college can be a bit tricky.
What can you do.
Have someone with knowledge of your sport observer your play, preferably someone that is unbiased (not Mom or Dad!). Look for not only skill in the sport, but athletic skill, quickness, agility, smarts, etc…
Two, Rate a players skill compared to whom they are competing with. The question you want to answer is, how much better are you than the people you compete against and how good are the people you compete against?
Three, get feedback from high school and summer coaches. Some coaches are great, others don't know a baseball from a toaster, so it can depend on the level of skill the coach possesses and how long they have been involved in their sport. My baseball coach in high school was a hockey player in college, and while he coached baseball, he was awful at teaching the game, awful at communicating with players, awful at evaluating talent as it applied to college, and didn’t do anything recruiting wise for anyone. I went right by him and had my summer coach help me who was a baseball lifer as they say.
Four, finding out where similar players of similar skill went to college and how they are fairing at the level they choose. This is one of the best ways to discern skill. If there is a player on your high school team that might have been a year older and a better player that went onto a particular college and struggled, that can be a good benchmark for where your skills might be able to take you.
Your challenge of not knowing where your son our daughter stacks up is a common one, but that is not actually the most important question you need to ask yourself. What you need to ask yourself, and what your son our daughter needs to ask is what role do they want athletics to play in their college experience?
Playing college athletics can serve a number of purposes depending on what you want and what you need. Since most of us wont be playing professionally, I try to really push people into looking past athletics when researching schools and using athletics as a means to an end, as a means to gain acceptance to a school you might not get into otherwise.
While identifying your son or daughters skills as they apply to different colleges is important for recruiting purposes, the goal of going to college is not simply to play athletics, but to get an education, study something that you are passionate about, and to grow as an individual.
So hence the question, what do you need out of the recruiting process and what does your son or daughter want in and out of school? While their skills could warrant playing for a certain team or certain level, that doesn't mean those schools will offer the right opportunities and that doesn't mean they have to play at that level.
I think the questions you need to ask are at least the following. How much can I pay for school, what does my son or daughter want to study, what type of school might they be happy at (big, small, liberal arts, city, country, diverse, public, private, etc..), what role do they want athletics to play in their college career? Do they need it for scholarship money, do they need it for admissions help, or is it an activity they enjoy and would like to continue in college in some capacity? Or is it something they simply cannot live without?
Rather than looking for an athletic program where your son or daughter’s skills stack up, you should look for a school that offers what you are looking for "in a school" that they can also play athletics at. Playing at a lower level but going to a great school may in the end be better than going to a school you can play athletics at but might not offer everything else you are looking for. Remember the big picture!
YOU DO OR YOU DON’T
My brother in law’s nephew has played soccer his entire life and had a desire to play in college. Sort of! He is a senior now and is in the process of making his final school choice and has it sort of narrowed down to Uconn or Bentley. Uconn is a D1 school with an extremely strong men’s soccer program and Bentley is a small D2 school with a less-prolific program. As we discussed schools and his options, I basically asked him point blank, “So do you want to play soccer in college?” His response was, “I can’t play at Uconn.” I paused for a minute and then put him on the spot and said, “You didn’t answer my question?” He looked at me and said, “well, I do want to play soccer in college but won’t be able to play at Uconn.” Given he was wearing a Uconn hat and had a Uconn key chain and it seemed like he had pretty much made up his mind as to what school he was attending, I backed off a bit. The point was, if you really want to play, find a place you can plat at. He wanted to go to Uconn because it was a big school and he liked the campus. Liking the campus is important, but you are not majoring in “campus liking” at college, and if soccer is that important, it would behoove you to look for a college that offers all of what you want not some of what you want. Another thing I run into a lot with kids is that they want to go to a big school because they didn’t like the size of their high school and all the clicks it had. High school is much different and many of you have known the people you go to school with for 10 or 15 years. In college everyone starts fresh and while that college with 3,000 students may seem small, you will never have time to meet everybody and while it may sound small, it won’t always feel small.
WHY I LIKE TIGER WOODS
I have a particular fascination with Tiger Woods. If there is a tournament on he is playing in I will watch it or tape it and just watch his shots. If there is a tournament on he is not in, I don’t watch it, plain and simple. But I don’t simply like him because he wins, I like him because he has a singular goal and works each day to achieve his goal. His goal is simple, to be the best golfer on the planet and more specifically, to win more majors than Jack Nicklaus. But in order to obtain that goal, there are lots of pieces to the puzzle he works on and that is what I admire the most. Most people think Tiger Woods wins because he is a good golfer and hits the ball far, but there is so much more to his golf game and mental makeup than that.
Tiger’s dad was a soldier in Vietnam and as Tiger was growing up, Earl tried to instill some military discipline and training into Tigers development not only as a golfer but as a human being. When Tiger got older, Earl brought in people more trained to work with Tiger on a psychological basis and that is one of the reason’s Tiger is so competitive and so focused. Earl also used to try and disrupt Tiger by coughing or dropping his clubs as Tiger was hitting his ball and Tiger Woods is the only pro golfer I have seen that can stop his swing at will at almost any point if he is not ready to actually his the ball. But there is more.
When Tiger left college after his sophomore year me might have weight 150 pounds with golf shoes on. Year by year Tiger slowly worked on his physical development and created what we now see as a 185-pound man who can bench press over 300 pounds and can perform golf shots out of the rough that would snap the wrists of other golfers. You can routinely find golfers week after week complaining that only golfers like Tiger Woods who hit the ball 300+ yards can win on certain courses or only Tiger can reach that hole. Most of the better players on the PGA tour are all millionaires and if they are interested in getting stronger so they too can hit the ball farther, all they have to do is go to the gym more. The choice is there’s. Tiger made the choice that he simply didn’t want to be a golfer, he wanted to be an athlete and he can routinely be found working out at 6AM even on days he is playing in tournaments. Tiger created his body because he knew it would offer him a competitive advantage over his competitors, and he has proven himself right, while everyone else just keeps complaining that they are not strong enough.
But there is more. One of Tiger’s hobbies is scuba diving and even free diving and spear fishing. Free diving is basically diving without the use of scuba tanks and is a sport that takes a lot of training and discipline. When learned correctly, some free divers can hold their breath for 5 minutes by lowering their heart rate so their body uses less oxygen. Tiger’s resting heart rate is much lower than the average person and he can probably make it lower at his discression which helps him maintain his focus on the golf course and he is able to control is breathing and heart rate better and that helps him execute better golf shots under pressure. Yes, free-diving is his hobby, but it is a hobby that serves a very specific purpose for his golf success.
But there is more. In 9 years of watching Tiger play golf, I have never once seen him pack it in. Several years ago John Daly hit 6 straight balls into the water on one hole and kept dropping ball after ball and simply didn’t care. No matter what hole or stroke Tiger is on, or no matter where he is in the tournament, he has the uncanny ability to forget the last shot and focus on the next shot. Does he yell, sure! Does he slam his club into the ground, sure! But, once he is done huffing and puffing over a bad shot, he turns his focus to executing the next shot as best he can and he forgets the last shot that got him into trouble.
But there is more. Tiger isn’t a good golfer because he is a good golfer, he is a good golfer because he works at his golf game, and he works at his golf game and he works at his golf game. Some days he practices 14 hours a day, and he has even been quoted as saying that he will fly to Texas to practice if it is raining in Florida where he lives. While not every golfer can do that, Tiger works extremely hard at every aspect of his game and that is why he is such a good putter, and such a good wedge player from around the green. When he won the US Open at Pebble Beach several years ago he was even putting into a cup into his hotel room the night before his round.
But there’s more. After Tiger won several majors in the late 90’s, he decided he needed a swing change. People thought he was crazy, but he decided he wasn’t playing his best golf yet and wasn’t afraid to make a change. He had a small drought of winning then started winning again. Soon thereafter he made another swing change and people thought he was crazy again. After a 2-year drought of winning, he started winning again and by his estimation was hitting the ball better than ever. What’s the point? He didn’t get complacent with success, and he decided he needed to change something to get better and he didn’t let outside people influence his decision. He also decided that despite the fact that he was winning, he could still play better. He wasn’t afraid to fail because he knew what he was doing was right for him!
But there is more. Perhaps the greatest quality of Tiger is the fact that he shows up at every tournament with the goal of winning and ultimately destroying his opponents and their will to even play golf with him. He believes he is going to win not simply because he believes it, but because he has prepared himself to win week after week and year after year. There are very few professional athletes (Michael Jordan had it) that know and believe they are going to win every time out when they step on the court or field. Does Tiger win every time, of course not! But believing he is going to win is half the battle and there are many pro golfers who show up at a tournament and simply hope to do well or simply hope to make the cut. Tiger can be 9 shots back on Sunday and he still believes he can win and sometimes he does and I have never in 9 years seen him give up on a single shot no matter how far back he was or no matter how many holes he had left to play. That is why Tiger Woods made a 142 cuts in a row, a record that probably won’t be broken, except by him!
And last but certainly not least. Tiger Woods embraced what his parents tried to teach him day in and day out and that was being a good person is more important than being a good golfer.
THE SWAN SONG
Why I am not getting recruited…..
My stats aren’t that good
I play on a team that stinks
I missed part of the season
The coach hasn’t done anything for me
These are common excuses that I hear all the time from parents and recruits as to why they are not getting recruited. In reality, recruiting has little to do with your stats because college coaches don’t recruit stats. It has little to do with how bad your team is, because college coaches don’t recruit teams. It has little to do with the fact that you missed some games earlier in the year, because coaches don’t recruit missed games. And it has little to do with your coach because, well, the recruiting process is your responsibility. In reality, many players are not recruited because they are not proactive. If you want to go to the prom with a date, you usually have to ask a date. If you want your parents to give you money for the movies, you usually have to ask for money. If you want coaches to know who you are, where you are, what you do and how well you do it, you have to contact them and ask them to take a look at you. Don’t worry about you stats, your team, or your coach. Focus on what you want and what you think you have to offer and start communicating with college coaches. If you provide them a place to see you and a reason to see you, they will try to recruit you.
WALKING ON
Perusing a message board last month I saw a high school athlete who was told by a college coach from a D3 school that he was welcome to come to tryouts in the fall and go out for the team. The player thought it was amusing that recruiting at the D3 level had come down to asking players to “Try out!” – Well, believe it or not most college teams hold some form of tryout in the fall if possible even at D1 schools. There are two reasons for this. The coach knows there are players he or she has not gotten a chance to see play yet but that expressed interest in the athletic program in some capacity. Two, the coach knows there may be players he or she never heard from that are pretty good athletes and the tryout is a way to see recruits that were recruited and recruits that weren’t recruited.
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