it’s hard to believe that we are heading into May already. I am not quite sure if it is because the weather is still cold or that the calendar tells me that, or both. School will be out in another four to six weeks depending on where you attend. With that comes the summer travel season for a lot of you. I want to share with you the model that I use when talking with parents, coaches, and athletes…The Recruiting Funnel.

“The Recruiting Funnel”

Think of the job of recruiting for coaching staffs as a funnel. At the top of the funnel are all the potential recruits that they find out about through lists, coaches, direct contact, etc. Coaches will have a system of eliminating people through the funnel to get down to a manageable number. The longer you stay in the funnel the more personal the recruiting process becomes.

Stages of the Recruiting Funnel

MEASUREABLES

ROSTER OPENINGS

QUESTIONNAIRE

VIDEO

PHONE CALLS

CAMPUS VISITS

OFFERS

ACTION PLAN

College Coaches Getting your Name and Adding it to their Lists- Get in as many funnels as possible. E-mail coaches, research schools, ask your coach to help spread the word, etc.

MEASUREABLES- Become taller and faster. I’m kidding. The important thing to remember here is that some schools will cross you off for that very reason. Instead of hanging from a tree branch for a few hours each night hoping to grow, just target more schools!

ROSTER OPENINGS- After you’ve exchanged the introductory e-mails and interest declarations to your target schools, ASK THEM THEIR NEEDS! Listen to what they tell you. You should also check out their roster and stats from last year, but be aware that it’s common for college rosters to change substantially from year to year.

QUESTIONNAIRE- Fill out EVERY SINGLE ONE you get.

VIDEO- Get your video edited and on-line ASAP.

PHONE CALLS- Make sure you have a working phone number, try not to switch numbers every month, and pay your phone bill on time.

CAMPUS VISITS- Try to take a few unofficial visits as early as sophomore or junior year.

OFFERS- Collect offers. Try to get at least 5 and preferably 20 financial aid offers from different schools.

Want more in-depth help and assistance with the college recruiting process? Contact us now! Under the Info tab of this group page you can find links to our web site as well as one titled questionnaire. Fill out and submit the questionnaire and I will get you more information for you and your parents to review. You can also have your parents contact me directly at the phone number listed in the closing.

Thank You!

Getting cleared by the NCAA Clearinghouse.

In order for a student athlete to compete at the division 1 or 2 level, the athlete must register and be cleared by the clearinghouse. What is the NCAA Clearinghouse? It is an organization that reviews a high school athlete’s academic record, SAT or ACT Scores and amateur status, to determine if a high school athlete conforms with NCAA regulations.

When should a student athlete register with the NCAA Clearinghouse?

The NCAA recommends that a high school athlete register at the start of their junior year. There is no deadline to register, however a student athlete must be cleared prior to receiving an athletic scholarship or competing at the Division 1 or 2 level.

How does a high school athlete register?

Students can register at the NCAA Clearinghouse Website. At this website, the student athlete will enter personal information, athletic background and pay a registration fee. The student athlete will need to have their high school transcript sent to the clearinghouse. The transcript must be mailed directly from their high school.

Once a high school athlete is cleared by the clearinghouse, they will be eligible to receive athletic scholarships, as well as compete at the Division 1 ans 2 level. The next step for the high school student athlete is introducing themselves to college coaches and finding a place to play…

Plan:

Compile a list of schools that interest you both athletically and academically. Complete this prior to your junior year. These don’t all have to be NCAA Division I-A schools. Several professional players played in lower division schools and still got noticed.  Take for example, the Super Bowl MVP from last night…Aaron Rodgers started his collegiate career at a junior college.  Yes, he ended up at California, but he got that chance because he took an opportunity and made the most of it.  When creating your list, include schools that may not be your top 5 picks, because the best offer may come from a school not in your top 5 or 10.

Good luck with recruiting!

Six years ago, Durrell Chamorro’s football career seemed so full of promise. When he signed a national letter of intent, just as recruits around the country will do Wednesday, he never imagined his story would serve as a cautionary tale.

University of Florida president Bernie Machen believes more effort is needed to encourage schools not to oversign.

In 2005, Chamorro, a standout kicker from Chino, Calif., signed with Colorado State after considering scholarship offers from Arizona State, Oregon State and Washington.

“I was told by the schools that if I kept my grades up, had a 2.0, didn’t break any rules, that I would have my scholarship for four years, five years if I redshirted,” Chamorro says.

With a 3.5 GPA, Chamorro kept up his end of the deal. But following his redshirt freshman season and another season as a backup, former head coach Sonny Lubick told Chamorro in the spring of 2007 that his scholarship had been revoked.

Lubick told the Associated Press that Chamorro was put on notice after his first year, being told, “You’ve got to be better. We’ll give you one more year.”

Many players assume scholarships are guaranteed for as long as five years. In fact, athletic scholarships are one-year, “merit-based” awards.

“He wanted to have my scholarship for another player. I had no idea that they could do that,” Chamorro says.

Last year the Southeastern Conference began limiting its schools to 28 national letter of intent football signees between signing day and May 1. The NCAA then adopted the rule for this year.

However, the rule has failed to curb the practice of “oversigning” in major college football — signing more players than spots available. Schools can still oversign, then figure out the math later. To meet NCAA limits (85 scholarship players, no more than 25 enrolled each fall), schools can delay an athlete’s enrollment until the following January, called grayshirting. Or schools with oversigned classes can send recruits to junior college. Or they can make room on the roster by revoking the scholarships of current players or by encouraging them to become medical redshirts.

Last August, wide receiver Collins Moore from Bob Jones High in Madison, Ala., said he would sign with Mississippi after considering LSU and Kentucky. According to Bob Jones coach Kevin Rose, Moore was asked last week to “grayshirt. Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt told Moore that he no longer had space in the class to offer him a scholarship for the fall. Moore remains committed to Ole Miss heading into Wednesday’s signing day, Rose said.

Ole Miss spokesman Kyle Campbell confirmed the school is recruiting Moore but under NCAA rules cannot comment further.

“I don’t think the rule we passed is going to solve the problem,” Florida President Bernie Machen says. “There are still universities that will oversign and it’s going to end up with a student athlete being left out. I think we either have to get the universities to be more serious about it, or the league and the NCAA are going to have to pass more stringent punishments for those who do oversign.”
SEC associate commissioner Greg Sankey says a working group of conference athletics directors formed last August will study the issue further and present possible solutions at the SEC’s annual meeting in early June. Machen blames SEC presidents for allowing oversigning to continue at some league schools.

“Every (SEC) president sat at the table when we had that discussion,” says Machen, referring to the 28-player rule. “For some reason, some of them are not stepping up and stopping it. Imagine what would happen if in the general student body admission process, the same thing happened. If you admit a student in early February then you tell them in early July that we’re not going to have a spot for you. The public wouldn’t stand for it, and I don’t believe, if we put enough sunshine on this, the public will allow this to happen, in intercollegiate athletics.” Though oversigning isn’t a new problem, increased attention — including the website oversigning.com, which tracks the worst offenders — has brought greater scrutiny.

“I think if schools are held accountable they are going to have a harder time treating players badly,” says National College Players Association President Ramogi Huma, a former UCLA football player.

Last year the U.S. Justice Department began an antitrust investigation into the NCAA rule that make scholarships renewable by schools on a yearly basis. Also last year, California passed legislation backed by the National College Players Association that would require recruiters to provide a written summary of their schools’ policies on renewing one-year athletic scholarships and the amount of expenses not covered by those scholarships.

Last October, former Rice defensive back Joseph Agnew filed a class-action lawsuit against the NCAA after he lost his scholarship for his senior year.

“Part of the problem is rooted in the one-year cap on scholarships,” Huma says. If we’re able to get that cap eliminated, then schools won’t have the flexibility to oversign and run players off. Now, players can basically get fired for any reason.”

Like Chamorro. Disillusioned by the big business of college football, and unable to afford the $17,000 out-of-state tuition, Chamorro eventually transferred to Cal Poly-Pomona, which doesn’t have football. (First though, he had to a take a quick detour through junior college since Cal Poly wouldn’t accept all of his transfer credits.) Last spring, Chamorro graduated magna cum laude with a degree in philosophy and plenty of debt.

“There needs to be awareness,” Chamorro says. “This is a business. They are going to treat you like an employee. Keep that in mind, when they’re telling you all these beautiful stories about the way it’s going to be. Because at the end of the day if they want to take the scholarship away, there’s basically nothing you can do about it. Have that kind of information in mind, so you can make a more informed decision.”
]]> http://nfinia.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/rules-fail-to-curb-schools-from-oversigning-football-players/feed/ 0 nfinia http://nfinia.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/big-time-d1-recruiting/ http://nfinia.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/big-time-d1-recruiting/#comments Tue, 01 Feb 2011 05:34:58 +0000 nfinia http://nfinia.wordpress.com/?p=141 Continue reading →]]> Up tonight reading up on college recruiting.  Read an interesting bit in ESPN the Magazine.  Here are some excerpts from the magazine:

Below is what “Outside the Lines” and host Bob Ley of ESPN reported from their poll of elite high school football prospects on recruiting at the high level of D1 in College Football:

In the high-powered and pressurized numbers game that is college football recruiting, schools elbow each other verbally if not literally to ingratiate themselves with the blue chip high school players.

“ESPN the Magazine” polled 50 elite high school football players, young men hearing the pitches and promises from all the major schools reveals much about the process.
When asked what percentage of what they’re told by college recruiter is a lie, the average was an astounding 61.5%.

In the wake of Cecil Newton’s pay or play pitch for his son, Heisman winner and national champion Cam Newton, we posed the question, if you knew no one would ever find out, would you accept $50,000 from a recruiter?

Even with the cloak of anonymity more than 20% of these young men said yes, they would take a recruiter’s cash.

So who does make the call for a young, elite football player?

Among those we polled, more than 2/3 of those said they’re on the same page with their parents over their college selection.

When we asked for the single person most influential in that decision 52% said their fathers, 38% said mom and only 10% cited their high school coach.

As for that high school experience to the question, did anyone there in high school take performance enhancers?

More than a 1/4 of those elite athletes said yes.

When it came time to travel to universities for an official visit, 57% of these high school stars (Division 1 football prospects) said drugs and alcohol were available to them on that visit.

The NCAA is investigating the University of Tennessee’s football recruiting practices with a big part of the probe sitting on so-called recruiting hostesses.

There’s recruiting by coaches and then recruiting hostesses.

63% Of the players said they believe schools used hostess es to influence their decision and of those, 70% of the players said the tactics simply did not work.

One example, yet this story could be repeated hundereds of times across the country…A Indiana athlete finished 2010 with over 2,700 total yards and 34 touchdowns.  He is 6′ 200lbs and runs 4.5 40 yd dash.  Yet, with 2 days left until signing day, he remains without a solid offer.  How does this happen?

The fact is with budget cuts across the country and not enough time in the day, it is impossible for college coaches to be aware of every athlete in the country.  It has become the high school athlete’s responsibility to make college coaches aware of their success, both on the field and in the classroom.  If a high school athlete does not actively promote themselves, less talented athletes who are either local to a college or had a promotional plan in place, end up with an offer.

Only the top 5% of high school athletes are actively recruited, the remaining 7 million athletes must treat the recruiting process like an advertising campaign.  The fact is most high school athlete and parents don’t know where to start.  Our program was designed to teach the athlete and parent, to develop a plan, design promotional material and help execute the plan, if needed.  Do not be the talented high school athlete, who has to settle for whatever offer they might receive or receive no offer at all.

Don’t be, THAT GUY!!!

Get started today, do not wait until it’s to late and you miss out on the opportunity to play at the next level or have to settle for a school you may not be interested in attending!

You shouldn’t send your profile to a school unless you know you would like to go there, and you should probably only send your profile to a couple of schools

In order to give yourself as many options as possible when it comes time to pick a college, you need to send your profile to ANY school in which you may have an interest in attending. This way you can slowly narrow your list of potential choices after you gauge which schools have an interest in you. Remember, if you do not send your profile to a school, there is very little chance that they will offer you the opportunity to play for their university.

Most of these ‘scouting services’ that I have heard about are scams

In any business there are people that will take advantage of you. Most of the businesses I’ve come across offer a great product. Some charge way too much. With us it’s pretty simple. We are going to provide the services of mailing, e-mailing, and faxing your profile, making you a professional highlight film, providing a college scouting report on you, and providing unlimited guidance throughout the process. These are valuable services. Let us show you what we will do and our 25 year record of success. This program is not for everyone, but for those that match our ideal profile, we can really SAVE you a lot of money.

Division I programs have big recruiting budgets

Some of the larger schools with top notch football and basketball programs do have large recruiting budgets but most do not. There are very few college coaches that have the ability to fly around the country to recruit players and have an endless coaching staff that they can send out to scout, especially when their team doesn’t generate any money for their school, which is just about every D1 team that doesn’t play football or basketball.

Division III Schools are weaker athletically

In some cases yes, but in many cases no. Many Division III programs have very talented athletic programs that are better than many DII’s and even DI schools. They are still talented and dedicated athletes who wanted to continue their athletic career in college. If you think you can just stroll onto a DIII program you are in for a surprise. If you haven’t watch a top 25 DIII game and you think this way you are severely limiting your choices.

I can’t go to a Division III School because I need an athletic scholarship

Many DIII schools offer attractive financial aid programs and you should not overlook any school, even if they do not offer athletic scholarships. Many student-athletes go to DIII schools for free because they are good students with family need and used leverage to get the best deal. If you get a $5,000 athletic scholarship at a $30,000 DI or DII school you still have $25,000 a year to pay! The amount of scholarship is not important. The bottom line price you have to pay is.

All colleges offer athletic scholarships

Only Division I & II colleges can offer athletic scholarships (plus Junior Colleges and some NAIA schools). Division III Programs can only offer financial aid and academic grant money for top students. While DI and DII colleges can offer athletic scholarships, after football and basketball there are many programs that may only have 1 or 2 scholarships for their entire team and they will divide that money up to several players.

Most athletes get a full athletic scholarship or no scholarship

Full scholarships are very rare and most coaches divide scholarship money up between several players. The only guaranteed full scholarships are for DI basketball and football. Every other sport and team divides money up to many players and no other team or program is guaranteed to be fully funded.

All Division I & II programs have scholarships available

While the NCAA mandates how many scholarships a school can offer for a particular sport, it is up to the school whether or not they want to and can offer the number of scholarships allotted to them. Example: Division I baseball programs are allowed to offer 11.7 scholarships to their entire team, but many division I baseball schools may offer only 3 or 4 scholarships and that will be true for other sports as well.

Bad grades won’t matter if your talent is good enough

Part of this statement is true. The best skilled athletes always attract the most attention from college coaches. The problem is that a coach must look at the athlete’s transcript, GPA and SAT/ACT scores. The coach will have to see how these match up with the school’s minimal requirements. If the athlete does not meet the requirements, the coach will be forced to drop the athlete from their recruiting list, even if the athlete would be a tremendous asset to the team. Recruiting athletes can be expensive for coaches and schools. Most coaches won’t invest their time and money recruiting an athlete who is not going to be admitted into their school, or is going to fail out or become academically ineligible. If you don’t have a 3.0 GPA or higher, over 50% of NCAA DI programs won’t be able to get you past the admissions office. Grades are becoming the single most important factor in recruiting. Admissions and administration offices are putting more pressure on athletic departments to recruit athletes that succeed once they get into school. Sure you may be ‘eligible’ to be recruited as a D1 athlete with a 2.3 Core GPA, 820 M/V SAT, or 17 ACT, but unless you are a top blue chip athlete, not many schools are going to recruit you.

Showcases and Recruiting Camps and Clinics will get me noticed

The main problem with showcases is that if 100 players will attend and Division I coaches will be watching the same five or ten players. That’s how showcases work. The coaches have already identified the potential DI student-athletes that will be there, and they use the showcases as a means of evaluating those specific players. With few exceptions, college coaches go to showcases with a game plan and go to evaluate current prospects, not find new ones. If a Division II/III level player is intent on going to a showcase, it is critical for that athlete to pinpoint around ten schools they are interested in and find out which showcases those schools will be attending. Just showing up to any random showcase and hoping to get discovered is not a good idea as they will undoubtedly be overshadowed by the better players and not gain much from the experience. Also, realize many of these events main purpose is to generate revenue.

There Are Very Few Sports Scholarships For Women

Legislation which mandates equal sports opportunities for college women is partly responsible for the increase in scholarships for women. Some coaches say they are having trouble giving away the scholarship money available for these and other women’s sports because currently there just are not enough women applicants. A major reason may be that many do not know these sports exist for women at the collegiate level.

Hey, this is just more information for you to use as you move forward.  Looking for help?  Let Us help.

If you are good enough, college coaches will find you.   This is an age-old adage that is often heard throughout the recruiting process and is both out-dated and incorrect. These words are often spoken by an older coach who wishes to dismiss any thoughts by the student-athlete or parent that they should market themselves to institutions by sending out their information. The fact is that this statement is true if you are one of the top 100 players in the country, have already received a great deal of accolades by your sophomore year, and most likely already have several scholarship offers in hand. This is simply not true for most student-athletes outside of the top 100. The only way they will know about you for sure is if you send them your profile and express your interest in them. Recruiting is now a global process and despite your skills or success in high school, it is extremely easy to be overlooked by college coaches who have thousands of athletes to scout and hundreds of potential venue’s to scout them at. College coaches don’t read your local town paper and they probably don’t attend your games and only the top 1% of high school athletes are truly discovered. Your performance on the field or court will go a long way toward determining whether or not you get a scholarship offer. You need to be getting results that place you near the top of your competition if you want to get noticed. However, there are other factors which will determine whether or not you get an offer including; grades, character, work ethic, coach-ability, etc.

If you receive a letter from a coach, you are being recruited.

Coaches send out thousands of letters to high school athletes they may or may not have heard of and there are probably 500 kids tearing open the same exact letter you received. Receiving a letter means a coach knows your name and knows you play the sport they coach. Respond to the letter and follow-up with the coach. Until the coach calls you, invites you to the school and makes you a formal offer to join their program, the letters don’t mean too much.

“I made All-State so coaches will be calling me.”

Coaches also have limited resources and if you don’t let them know that you want to play in college and get a scholarship, they can’t recruit you. The athlete who contacts coaches first and takes control of their recruiting is the one who will get the phone calls.

Only the schools that send you letters are interested in you.

The schools that send you letters initially got your name from somewhere (colleagues, scouting services, camp list, all-conference lists, your coaches, or your personal contact).  Just because you have never received a letter from a school doesn’t mean they are necessarily not interested, it may just mean they don’t have your information. The only way you will truly know if they have any interest or not is if you submit your profile to them so they can evaluate you as a prospect.

Recruiting starts Senior year.

While some of the more aggressive parts of the process do happen when you are a Senior, those who wait to START the process as Seniors are often disappointed.  It’s a common occurrence to have verbal offers out and accepted for a graduating class as early as 18 months before your high school graduation. In high profile sports, verbal offers are accepted as early as middle school! Regardless of the level of play, recruiting starts behind the scenes far earlier than you think or your high school or club coaches know about.

College coaches only recruit top players
Top level NCAA DI schools only do. But in some sports there are as many as 1,800 colleges to choose from. College coaches recruit anyone they think can play at their program and recruit anyone who shows an interest in their program. Just because you are not the star of your team does not mean you cannot play in college. There are many players that do not start because there are other talented players at their positions, but many of those players have the skills to play in college as well.

I can walk on at the school of my choice and eventually get the chance to play.
Most walk-ons end up good Intramural players. The media glorifies the walk-ons that make it, for good reason, because few do. Coaches over-recruit because college coaching is competitive. Thousands of kids each year find themselves cut after “try-outs” that are little more than admissions tricks to raise school enrollment.

College Coaches just throw mass mailings in the trash
It really depends on the school and sport. Many college programs make sure somebody takes a look at ALL incoming profiles and they at least send an e-mail or form letter to that prospect. Still other college coaches have admitted that they do throw them in the trash or only look at a few. It’s best to follow up our mailings with a personal note. Many schools will respond. Some will not recruit you. That’s why you need to target 100 schools, not 10.

Coaches do not like being contacted by prospective athletes
Quite the opposite, coaches hope to hear from good athletes who are interested in their program. Some blue-chip athletes come to their attention naturally, but often there aren’t enough for a coach to fill his or her roster. Many high school athletes don’t want to make contact with college coaches because they are afraid the coach doesn’t want to hear from them. For smaller schools, even some minor Division I schools, they need and want to hear from potential players. These schools don’t have the budgets to fly around the country looking for qualified players. These schools rely on word of mouth recruiting and they also rely on some potential athletes making contact with them.

My coach handles all of the recruiting stuff for me, I don’t need to worry about it
Some coaches are very good at helping their players get the opportunity to play sports in college and have a great feel for the recruiting process and how it works. However, there are a lot of coaches who don’t feel like this is a large part of their job description and don’t do as much as others in terms of contacting college coaches and sending out game films. Whether or not your high school coach excels in this area or not, you must realize that this is YOUR life and that you and your parents have to do everything in your power to make your dreams a reality. You must send your profile to every school that you are interested in.

High school coaches are qualified to determine if I am college athletic material
While many coaches are, some are not and many never played their sport in college. The bottom line, there are many factors that determine if you can play in college and your high school coach may have no idea what your potential may be.

Just some basic facts for you to ponder.  Need help???  Let us help you.