Recruiting InsiderBy Dear mom and dad, You cannot get your athletic offspring a college scholarship. But you
can help them get exposed to college coaches, then hope that their
academic and athletic abilities will entice a few coaches and colleges to
offer financial assistance. Sincerely, A father of two athletic sons
This may not be what parents want to read. But it’s the bottom line for a dad who spent four years helping his two oldest sons sort through college options to find their best academic and athletic opportunities. And it happens to be true. In the final analysis, parents have no control over whether their kid gets a scholarship offer. All they can do is help “market” their kid.
I did that. I listed my son’s accomplishments on a Web site. I helped him fill out forms. I had him do tests that I sent to a recruiting magazine. I even escorted him to three baseball showcases and two football combines.
Ultimately, what worked were the over 100 personal information packets that I sent to colleges that my son and I had identified as “good fits” for him academically, personally, and athletically.
We live in northwest California, near the Oregon border. College coaches don’t recruit here. It was a challenge to get my son, Tyren, any attention, either as a football quarterback or a baseball pitcher/infielder—despite the fact that he helped lead his Eureka HS team to the section semifinals and made All-State as a baseball player in the same season.
The process we went through with Tyren eventually garnered him a $27,000 financial offer from NCAA Div. III Pomona-Pitzer College, where he was the starting quarterback as a freshman and went on to play baseball. He had also received a large financial aid offer from Div. I University of San Francisco, plus several other offers that would have kept our family out of the poorhouse. Here are a few of the lessons we learned in the process.
It isn’t rocket science!
The Web sites that showcased Tyren’s personal information and statistics got minuscule traffic. Only schools that fish for athletes in the ocean are going to surf the Web looking for quarterback prospects.
So, first, take the list of Web sites and recruiting agencies and toss them out the window. We were deluged with sales pitches from a recruiting agency that promised it could get Tyren a better deal at a bigger school than Pomona-Pitzer. They didn’t seem to care that strong academics and a location in southern California were important to him.
Set your sights realistically
It takes work. It starts with the parents sitting with their student-athlete and highlighting colleges that suit the student. If your kid’s a blue-chip NCAA Div. I prospect, you aren’t even reading this. If your kid’s highly recruited, skip the story! We’re talking about kids who need to attract attention—so make sure you do the work to get attention from suitable schools—ones that are located in livable areas and that have appropriate academic and athletic programs.
Be honest about ability levels
Just to test our approach, we sent letters with Tyren’s personal resume (plus newspaper clippings highlighting his exploits) to big-time schools like Notre Dame, Stanford, and Texas. We got responses! In fact, Tyren received recruiting literature from Stanford for quite some time. But in evaluating these high-profile responses, we had honestly to answer these questions: a) does the athlete expect to compete in one or more sports in college? and b) where does the athlete rate—Div. I, II, or III?
It wasn’t easy to admit that our 5-10 quarterback wasn’t going to make the starting team at Notre Dame, and that no big-time school would want him to play two sports. He decided to shoot for a college where he might be able to pitch and play third base in baseball—and leave open the option of playing football, too.
Don’t waste your time pitching Div. III talent to Div. I schools. If your kid refuses to give up the Div. I dream, consider a community college. Two more years of athletic and academic growth at the junior college level will do more to get Div. I attention than any attempt to get the youngster noticed as a senior in high school.
Get the information together
We used the North American College Coaches Directory.* It has every college’s address, and it lists all coaches in all sports. There’s no use writing about your star middle hitter to a school that doesn’t have a volleyball program. When in doubt, call to make sure you have the right coach’s name. We personalized every letter, every phone call—everything.
A Div. I baseball coach told us, “Make every coach feel like he’s the only one you’re contacting.” We took his advice. To test the theory, we sent a second letter to then-Texas head football coach John Mackovic, asking him what he would do to get a 5-10, 175-pound QB from California recruited by the Longhorns. Mackovic wrote back personally to answer our questions.
We wrote a form letter briefly outlining Tyren’s athletic and other accomplishments. DO NOT downplay your kid’s academic, extracurricular, and community service activities. Coaches and others who grant financial aid love good students who are involved in their schools and communities.
Then we put together Tyren’s sports resume—just like one you would send to a prospective employer seeking a job—including his personal information, strength and conditioning information (bench press, squats, 40-yard dash time, etc.), baseball and football information (stats, awards, etc.), and references from coaches and scouts who had seen him play.
Although every letter said the same thing, more or less, each letter was personalized, and each coach knew that his school was the one that Tyren was dying to attend. We were assured that all these letters and resumes would prompt coaches to send questionnaires to my son. They did—from Notre Dame to Kansas, from Duke to Occidental College. |
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