RECRUITING IT’S UP TO YOU
College bound athlete! One of the most exciting times of your life will be when you are playing high school sports while simultaneously trying to secure a college athletic scholarship.
Your hopes and dreams of playing your sport in college are now within view. All those practice sessions, training camps and high school games are about to pay off.
The experience is truly exciting and exhilarating for you, your friends, and your parents. You may even begin to feel that you definitely will be recruited and will be awarded the athletic scholarship of your dreams. The reality is that you do not have the scholarship until you sign the Letter of Intent.
So, no matter how much ballyhoo is going on, keep that in mind. This is not the time to leave this very important process to chance. Keep your wits about you until you actually sign with a school. Remember the college coaches are selling their programs to athletes at this time.
Several of them may be calling you everyday and it would be easy to begin to feel that you could let up some on your own recruiting activities.
There are countless stories of good athletes who went through this whirlwind of recruiting activity only to fall through the cracks. Don’t let this happen to you.
Enjoy this exciting time, but be aware that it can also be one of the most frustrating, confusing, and overwhelming times of your life. This manual is intended to inform you, the student-athlete, and your family about the recruiting process or the “game” of pursuing an athletic scholarship.
To be successful, you must take control of this process and you must learn how to maximize your chances of obtaining the athletic scholarship you are seeking.
This up-to-date guide can give you the confidence, information, and the tools you will need to place yourself in contention for your much-desired athletic scholarship. Experts agree that the most prized commodity in the recruiting game is “information”. College coaches and prospective college athletes both succeed or fail by information or the lack of information.
Athletes need to know where they can receive a scholarship and how to go about getting one; college coaches need to know about athletes who will best benefit their programs.
Years ago, most college programs spent a minimum amount of time and effort on recruiting. The recruiting process mostly consisted of scouting the local high schools and relying on high school coaches to send along information about promising athletes.
Today, the recruiting process is highly sophisticated; and, in most cases, demands that student/athletes know how to market themselves. Many well-intentioned coaches, parents, and high school guidance counselors, who are advising student-athletes today, do not understand the steps in the recruiting process.
Additionally, the vast majority of them were never college-recruited athletes themselves; so, they may be giving kids, hoping for a college athletic scholarship, incomplete, erroneous, and potentially damaging information.
Teaching you how to systematically develop and put your various marketing pieces into a winning package is just a part of the overall strategy taught in this guide.
We’ll also show you how to put your marketing package, your unique information, in the hands of the college coaches. We’ll show you how to gain their attention and how to keep their attention focused on you.
Obtaining your athletic scholarship is a process consisting of a series of steps. The more steps you complete, and the better you complete them, the more you increase your chances of obtaining an athletic scholarship.
As a student-athlete, you can help your chances of qualifying for an athletic scholarship by demonstrating superior athletic skills and by passing the required academic courses with a satisfactory GPA. Good timing and good luck may also come into play; but, undoubtedly, the most important thing that you can do is to learn how to promote yourself to college coaches.
There are some key reasons why a student-athlete is not recruited. Lack of talent, lack of the required GPA, and lack of coach exposure are all among them.
Talent doesn’t necessarily mean that you must have been an all-state athlete. It does mean that you have probably obtained one or more of the following: all-conference, all-county, all-state, all-tournament, or one of the various Most Valuable Player honors; or, at the very least, you have been a starter for your team.
If you have goals, a plan, some talent, the required academics and GPA, heart, dedication, a good work ethic, and you’re also willing to learn how to market yourself; your chances of receiving an athletic scholarship will be greatly increased.
The sooner a college coach knows about you, the better your chances are of getting a scholarship.
It will be your job to see that you are noticed early before all the scholarships are awarded. If you are a student-athlete who learns and uses the marketing techniques found in this guide, you will be dramatically ahead of your competition in getting your information to the college coaches.
If you are one of the rare “blue chip” athletes who comprise a very small percentage of the potential scholarship recipients, you will more than likely be recruited without having to contact the coaches yourself.
However, you will still need to know how to conduct yourself and what will be expected of you during the recruiting process.
You will also need to know how to keep yourself eligible. Academic problems are by far the most common way that student-athletes become ineligible.
There are, however, many less common circumstances, which could also cause you to become ineligible.
For example, you could accept money or other things from a prospective college coach or booster club. This would cause you to become ineligible under the current NCAA guidelines.
Remember, college athletics is big, big business involving billions of dollars. It is important to know that the activities of other people such as your high school coach could even cause you to become ineligible.
Recently, it was alleged that a high school coach was paid $200,000 to steer a “blue chip” student-athlete to a particular Division I school.
This type of scandal could cause the student-athlete to become ineligible to play for a college program and could also easily affect his or her entire potential professional career.
With this much at stake, isn’t it worth knowing the rules and regulations governing the “game” of recruiting?
If you are not a “blue chip'” athlete, you will need all the information in this guide to effectively promote yourself to college recruiters and to maintain your eligibility status.
Accurate, up-to-the-minute information is the key to achieving your dream of playing college athletics. As I’ve said previously, it can be the most exciting time of your life, a wonderful time that you will never forget; but it can also be as puzzling as a rat maze. Crucial attributes you should have or be willing to acquire in order to accomplish your goal of obtaining an athletic scholarship:
1)It is imperative that you have some natural given talent. As I’ve already said, you don’t have to be an absolute superstar, but you must have talent. Don’t focus on just one sport unless, of course, you enjoy competing in only one sport.
An all-around athlete will usually be recruited over a player who happens to be good at just one sport. Whatever your sport, you must develop and continually practice those drills which will improve your overall conditioning, coordination, strength, and speed.
2)You must be fundamentally sound, no matter what your sport is. “Fundamentally sound”, means you should be able to execute the basics of your sport flawlessly. For example: if you are a basketball player, there is no excuse for having a poor free throw percentage.
3)Heart, desire, the “never-quit-attitude” are all attributes that can’t be taught, you either have these very valuable qualities or you don’t. If you are offered and decide to accept an athletic scholarship, it should be your commitment to yourself and your team that you will always compete at your very highest-level right down to the very last split second. It shouldn’t matter whether it is a practice session or a competition for a national championship.
4)Believe it or not, a good academic record can greatly increase or decrease the number of schools that might offer you an athletic scholarship. More on how this works later.
5)Character is living your life in a way that makes you proud of yourself. No matter who you are, your character could probably be improved.
College coaches will be hesitant to give an athletic scholarship to someone who has had problems in the past. They reason, if you have had problems before, you probably will again. All things being equal, coaches will usually shy away from the possible problem athlete who might bring negative attention and disgrace to their programs.
You should always give them good reasons to recruit you, and avoid anything that would give them a reason not to recruit you.
6)You must develop or already have an overall-winning plan. Your plan must include those steps, which will eventually get you noticed by college coaches. No matter how good you are, you won’t get a scholarship if college coaches don’t know about you. Again, you must have some talent to receive an athletic scholarship.
However, by following the advice given throughout this guide, you will better understand the recruiting process, which will enable you to better manage your efforts towards obtaining your scholarship.
Use this information to put your best foot forward during every step of the recruiting process. You may not be the top recruit; but, at least, you will have a good chance to be a recruit. The tools you will need are provided, but it will be up to you to pick up these tools and use them.
When it is all said and done, it will be important for you to know that you have exhausted every opportunity to maximize your chance for a scholarship.
Chapter 1|Chapter 2|Chapter 3
Chapter 10|College Sports Recruiting
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