NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

Show me the money!

Many recruits are wising up to the recruiting game and demanding their scholarship offers in writing. In an age where verbal commitments are becoming the norm, student-athletes must be weary of college coaches who offer false hope.

I just hung up the phone with a senior basketball player who was recently offered a scholarship to a prestigious Division I university for his sophomore year. This athlete graciously accepted the offer over the phone, understanding that he would have to wait a full year for the scholarship to take effect. A few days later the phone rang, and the coach informed him that they actually could not guarantee the scholarship, because they might find a better prospect in the next freshman class. Needless to say, this news delivered a huge blow.

In the age of verbal commitments, nothing is a sure thing and student-athletes are not taking it lightly. A high school football player from Idaho recently sued the University of Hawaii for allegedly revoking his scholarship offer after the coach resigned.

There are no guarantees until you sign on the dotted line, but there are some steps athletes can take to cover their bases when evaluating a verbal scholarship offer.

1. Build a relationship with a coach. If you feel uneasy about someone, trust your gut.

2. Ask questions. Do not be afraid to ask serious questions such as “is there any risk of losing this offer?” or “what happens if you leave the college?”

3. Find out what happens if you get hurt. Make sure you know where you stand just in case something unexpected happens.

4. Do not burn bridges. Respond to all coaches, even if you are saying “thanks, but no thanks.” Let everyone know that you will be in touch if anything chances. You never know when you might need a favor.

5. Stay in shape. Now that you have committed, it is time to kick it into high gear. Don’t let up just because you think your collegiate future is secure.

Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples Inside Recruiting Column recently had a couple of articles highlighting what it actually means when a coach puts a scholarship in writing.

Tate Forcier was training at Marv Marinovich’s Orange County, Calif., facility early this year when his cell phone rang. Forcier’s father was on the line, and he had good news. Stanford had offered the Scripps Ranch (San Diego) quarterback a scholarship. But Forcier, one of the top quarterback prospects in the class of 2009, didn’t celebrate immediately. After watching the recruitment of older brothers Jason (who began at Michigan and transferred to Stanford) and Chris (UCLA), Forcier understood the process better than most.

He wanted to see that offer in writing.Not long after, an envelope arrived at Forcier’s home. Inside was a four-paragraph letter from Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh offering a full scholarship. “It kind of didn’t hit me until I actually received the letter in the mail,” Forcier said. “When you get that first offer, it’s one of the best feelings. You know you have a place. You’re set. You’re not worrying, ‘Am I going to get recruited?’”

The offers kept coming and Forcier actually went to the incredible length of posting the letters on a website.  They offer insight into a key part of the recruiting process that is often hidden.  There have also been two recent lawsuits in the past involving Northwestern University and Davidson College that were ultimately settled out of court.  Former Hawaii recruit Daniel Smith is currently headed to court over a dispute stemming from a verbal scholarship offer.

Both sides in the case of Smith v. The University of Hawaii have dug in, and it appears a judge, jury or court-appointed mediator will have to decide whether Hawaii football coaches offered Daniel Smith, a defensive back from Boise, Idaho, a scholarship and then told him not to speak to other schools, only to rescind that offer a few weeks before National Signing Day. Smith said Wednesday that he and his mother, Wanda, have no intention of dropping the case. “I’m planning to fight them all the way,” Smith said.

To combat similar fates universities have begun to insert language to protect them from possible litigation.

Of the 21 letters posted to Forcier’s site, only the letter from first-year Washington State coach Paul Wulff did not contain any disclaimer.  The letters from South Florida and Michigan specifically mention NCAA bylaw 15.5.5, which limits programs to 85 scholarships total and 25 signees a year. Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez, who has had some recent experience with attorneys, must have had a real legal eagle help him with his letter, which contains the slickest — and one of the most accurate — disclaimers of the 21. “This letter remains viable until such time as NCAA Rule 15.5.5 regarding squad limits (85 total) would appear to be compromised,” Rodriguez wrote. “Therefore, as a necessary consequence, grants may only be awarded on availability.”

The award for brutal honesty goes to Texas A&M coach Mike Sherman, whose longest paragraph addresses the possibility that the program may bail on the offer. “We could fill our scholarships before you make a commitment to accept this offer,” Sherman wrote. “Also, we could fill our designated allotment of scholarships at your position before you make a commitment to accept this offer. I assure you, if you are one of the first prospects to accept this scholarship offer, we will honor your commitment to A&M, and firmly count you as one of our prized signees. We will keep you informed of our situation as other prospects also commit to A&M.”

The letters show the thin wire that coaches walk when they make an offer to a recruit.  On the flip side it serves as a cautionary tale to recruits who overplay their hand.  So unless you are Terrelle Pryor it may make sense for a recruit to consider committing as soon as they are ready as opposed to playing the National Signing Day drama game.

by Chris Krause, NCSA Founder and President

In the last year or so, more and more college coaches that I have the chance to speak with are bringing up a common complaint:

Parents are ruining their son or daughter’s chances of getting recruited.

How?

Coaches are seeing parents become more assertive and acting more like their child’s “secretary” than in past years.  Parents are calling coaches.  Parents are dominating the conversations with coaches when they take a campus visit with their son or daughter.  And parents are making it clear to college coaches that they look forward to being “closely associated” with their program once their son or daughter signs with a school.  Coaches describe these types of adults as “helicopter parents.”

All of those things can raise the red flag in the mind of a coach.  Yes, they will overlook a parent’s actions if the athlete’s athletic ability is just too good to pass up.  But parent’s actions will stop and make a coach think, “Do I really want to deal with that parent for the next four years?”

If you are an athlete or parent that has been pre-qualified through NCSA and is one of our clients, you know that one of the challenges that you now face is dealing with an increasing number of college coach contacts.  While that’s exciting, it’s also a challenge to not do or say anything that might raise questions in the minds of the coaches that we have matched you with through our process.

Here are three ways I see parents potentially sabotaging the opportunities that coaches are bringing to their sons and daughters.  Take a look at this list and ask yourself, “Am I guilty of any one of these?”

1. Some parents filter through recruiting letters and materials that are sent to the athlete, and decide what gets looked at and what doesn’t.  This is really frustrating for college coaches when they realize this is happening, and can be an indicator of future parent meddling.  Instead of being a filter, be the one to make sure that your son or daughter sits down and read through everything that is being sent to them.  That’s the only way they will be able to get an accurate idea of which coach, program and school are going to be the best fit for them.  Instead of being the “filter”, be the “enforcer” and make sure your son or daughter is taking the time to look at everything they are getting.
2. Some parents answer questions for their son or daughter.  I was talking to a coach the other day that was really alarmed when they called a prospect’s house, and the parent stayed on the line and asked all the questions.  The athlete barely got a word in!  Make sure you let your student-athlete do the talking, and giving them the privacy in which to have that conversation.  Once a college coach senses that they are being “managed” or “coached” by you on what to say or ask, it’s going to cause them concern and damage the chances of being seriously pursued by that coach.
3. Waiting for ”the better deal”.  Parents are often the reason their prospects never get around to saying yes to a college that is interested in them.  They are tempted to wait for “the better deal.”  They’ll bypass an opportunity to play at a D3 school in favor of hanging on to the dream of playing D1 athletics.  Or, if they are getting recruited by D1 colleges, they’ll assume that an offer in October will stay on the table until March or April.  Waiting around and hoping that the grass will be greener at the next school you hear from is a dangerous strategy, and it often results in college coaches moving on to another athlete who takes the opportunity that they are being offered.

Making any one of these mistakes can seriously damage the opportunity for your son or daughter to play college athletics.  A combination of them can kill those opportunities.  Make sure that you are doing the right thing to support your son or daughter through this exciting but challenging time.  If you have questions, and you are a NCSA student-athlete, call your Recruiting Coachright away so they can help guide you to being an effective supporter of your son or daughter.

If you aren’t yet a NCSA student-athlete, I encourage you to consider becoming one.  Our athletes get more contacts from coaches because we make sure every coach in the country that would be the right match knows about them, giving them the maximum number of opportunities to be noticed and get recruited.  We can also make sure you eliminate the mistakes many families make that can sabotage the college recruiting process.

The Chicago Examiner wrote a fantastic piece on the realities of the recruiting process for the vast majority of student athletes. It outlined several extremely important factors that every student athlete needs to consider before making the most important decision of their young lives. 

This time of year a lot of high school seniors choose their college and juniors start exploring their options. For the potential Division I athletes, the process is over for seniors and already well under way for younger athletes.  But for the majority of high school senior athletes — those likely to play for Division II or Division III schools — this is decision time.

Plenty of Division I athletes become disenchanted, but the greatest problems are among the next tier. The athletes are plenty good — some even stars — in high school. And they want so badly to play in college that they see the college as an extension of the team, instead of the other way around.

Athletes need to explore beyond the fields at colleges. A few suggestions:

Location:, location, location: Real estate agents know what matters and so should the college recruit. And if a small-town college in the north wants the big-city kid, that’s fine. But before sending in the deposit, remember what how you felt during the last February ice storm. Did that wind and sleet bother you or was it just a minor inconvenience. And can you handle a single movie theater and diner for entertainment? Just know what to expect and be ready to embrace the variety, not resent it.

» Size: Division II and III generally mean smaller schools. And that’s perfect for many. But some players from bigger schools come home complaining they didn’t like the limited housing, nightlife, clubs or diversity. Some players come home griping their high school team could have beaten their tiny college team. Know what you are getting.

» Coach: A simple rule here, you have to like the coach. But never go to school because of the coach. They’re on career paths, too, and might not be around for the next four years.

» Academics: Keep the right priorities. College sports are great fun, but they are not the sole pursuit of the next four years. No matter the athletic prospects, the rest of the package needs to fit. Sit in on a few classes. Talk to some non-athletes.

» Visit, visit, visit: Do not ever, ever, select a school without visiting several times. Spend the night in a dorm. Walk around the town. Listen. Watch.  Spend some time with the players before you go to school. They are going to be your friends, roommates and confidants in college. You better like them — and like their style of play. Ask questions. In short, pursue the college the way you would if you never planned to set foot on an athletic field. In the end, the sport may not work out and that is a sad reason to have to find another school.

All these factors should tell the student athlete one thing:  Get going early!  You need to start researching potential schools as early as possible.  It would be infeasible to accurately weigh all of these factors if you waited to the last minute.  Remember just finding a place to play isn’t good enough.  You need to find the RIGHT place to play.

For the first time DI college baseball has a universal start date of February 22.  Of course the programs in warm weather are unhappy because of weekday series and having to slam 52 games into 13 weeks.  Also the northern school are upset and want an even later start date so they can play more home games.  Some baseball experts are estimating as many as 20 DI schools might fold their program because of the pushed back start date.  Most of these school are mid major northern programs because they no longer can open in the south with huge paydays.  Schools will pay huge money as well as travel expenses to come down for a weekend series.  These school bank on this money to off set the baseball budget.  Baseball is a non-revenue sport and are often not fully funded.

Read more about this issue.

Take some time to look at the softball rosters at the schools you are interested in. You will see a majority of the players are from in-state. But you should also pay attention to where else players are being recruited from.Check out the High School Sponsorship and see where your state measures up with participation. And then consider the colleges that you are researching.   Do they have a large pool of high school players to choose from? Or are they looking elsewhere to fill their rosters?

Last week the NCAA and NBA announced a seismic shift in the landscape of youth basketball.  The sneaker companies’ domination of the sport combined with the USA’s sudden collapse on the international stage has caused a lot of powerful men to take a long hard look in the mirror. 

The basic premise is pretty simple:  Together the two will form a joint initiative and form a limited liability company designed to be the center of the summer game. It would offer skill evaluation and coaching clinics and conduct a summer camp for elite young players. Skill development and team play would be trumpeted over the current cycle of endless games.  A social networking website would serve as the link for players, parents, teams and league and event organizers.

“It’s a transformational approach to basketball,” says NCAA President Myles Brand.

What will happen to the current AAU circuit is a question racing through the minds of many players, coaches and organizations.  AAU President Bobby Dodd seems to believe that this could be a step in the right direction.

“You’ve got two of the most powerful organizations in basketball coming in. Their intent of raising the level of instruction, raising the level of officiating, is probably good. But you have to have all the parties at the table to discuss what is good at their level.”

The new company hopes to launch before next summer and could set standards ranging from lane size to the number of game allowed per day.  Brand insists however, that it will not be regulatory body.

“You’re 14 or 15 years old and you’re potentially an elite basketball player,” Brand says. “Here you have the NBA and the NCAA working jointly with the shoe companies and USA Basketball, and they’re sanctioning a certain type of event and certain coaches. Why would you not listen to them if you wanted a future in basketball?

Cautious optimism seems to surround the entire deal and with out more details it would be impossible to pass judgment in any way.  Still it raises a lot important questions:  Is the current model broken?  Should the NCAA (non-profit) and NBA (HUGE-profit) be working to regulate high school summers?  How will this affect recruiting?

What do you think?

I want to congratulate Tony Cachey and his Chicago Mission U19 team for winning the 2008 National Championship. Youth hockey in Illinois has come a long way since my childhood, when I would sit on pins and needles all summer hoping that a few dedicated parents could rally enough girls to form a team. One team! Today, girls in Illinois have a wide variety of options to choose from ranging from competitive Tier 1 (commonly referred to as AAA) down to recreational house league teams.

The competition to make a Tier 1 team has grown fierce in recent years, and players and parents tend to migrate to what they believe will be the strongest program. With several options to choose from it is a testament to Tony Cachey’s ability to lead and develop talent that standouts like Megan Bozek Kendall Coyne chose to join his squad.

Two of Cachey’s players, Casie Fields and Kathy Shei, are also NCSA student-athletes. For most athlete’s, winning a national championship is a once in a life-time event, but this is Fields’ fourth trip to the tournament and second national title.

“It’s always a dream and the ultimate goal for any hockey player to get to Nationals, and I can’t believe this will be my fourth trip,” said Fields, who won the Nationals U-14 Girls title with the Chicago Young Americans. “I’ve been really lucky to be on some great teams over the years. This year we have a team with lots of depth and experience in big tournaments. It’s going to be fun.”

Congratulations to Tony Cachey for putting the best team on the ice, while also developing fine young woman who are well rounded college bound student-athletes.

The New York Times recently wrote an extremely interesting 3-part piece on the realities of college athletics and recruiting.  From my perspective they take an overly pessimistic view of the amount of money available to student athletes by focusing only on the athletic scholarship component to a financial package.

Scholarships are typically split and distributed to a handful, or even, say, 20, athletes because most institutions do not fully finance the so-called nonrevenue sports like soccer, baseball, golf, lacrosse, volleyball, softball, swimming, and track and field. Colleges offering these sports often pay for only five or six full scholarships, which are often sliced up to cover an entire team. Some sports have one or two full scholarships, or none at all.

“There have been days when you feel like a used-car salesman,” said Joe Godri, the baseball coach at Villanova University. “I’ve always been completely honest, but you can’t get away from the fact that the process can be crazy. You pump up a kid so much to come to your place, and when he agrees, you say, ‘O.K., and what I’ve got for you is 25 percent of your cost to attend here.’

“It’s like we have a salary cap from the professional sports model,” said Godri, whose baseball program can dole out the equivalent of six full scholarships across four years. “Except we’re dealing in thousands, not millions, and we have to stretch it across 25 or 30 kids.”

However, hidden beneath the headlines are more telling quotes like the following:

Among the principal things families do not know, the coaches said, is that there is a lot more money available outside athletics in the form of grants, loans and other institutional aid. In many cases, the athletic aid will be a piece of the financial package.

“The real opportunity is taking advantage of how eager institutions are to reward good students,” he said. “In America’s colleges, there is a system of discounting for academic achievement. Most people with good academic records aren’t paying full sticker price. We don’t want people to stop playing sports; it’s good for them. But the best opportunity available is to try to improve one’s academic qualifications.” The math of athletic scholarships is complicated and widely misunderstood.”

“But the hardest part is that nobody educates the parents on what’s really going on or what’s going to happen.”

That really reinforces what we have been saying all along at NCSA.  The most prepared and educated families will be able to take advantage of all of their options and find the right college fit.

Letters. Phone calls. Offers. Kid had ‘em all.

A highly touted high school running back didn’t need much coaxing to perform on the field. Natural ability led to super-human performances, staggering opponents and leaving critics awestruck along the way. Major Division I coaches took notice. They also took notice of his 180-degree turnaround off the field, disappointed by his sub-par performance in the classroom.

Prep school became his only option after high school in order to seek the necessary scholastic guidance in hopes of eventually earning a college scholarship. No problem — some high school students need guidance in order to perform well in the classroom. It’s simply a fact of society.

I recently spoke with this young man, who proclaimed his dedication in the classroom and extreme desire to prove he had what it took to be a superstar on the field and in school. He was scheduled to retake his ACT the following day, and I stressed to him the importance of that test. He agreed, and we ended the conversation hoping to prove something to each other.

In a sad turn of events, this young man the next day skipped his scheduled ACT — less than 24 hours after telling me how dedicated he was to performing well on the exam in order to boost his chances for a scholarship. Now, the dream is nearly over. NCSA wants nothing to do with athletes — it wants STUDENT-athletes. There’s a reason “student” is listed first.

Remember, academics are much more important than athletics. And if you want to be a college athlete, prove that you understand that notion. If it comes down to you and another prospect with equal talent, where do you think that college coach is going to look next? Give yourself a chance to put yourself a notch above others by hitting the books. If you’re dedicated on the field, you should have no problem being dedicated off of the field. The NCAA tells you the same thing every day.