NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

It’s as simple as that. Take a gander at the NCSA men’s tennis and women’s tennis recruiting guidelines — notice anything about requirements for each level? All of them list USTA or ITA qualifications, from Division I all the way down to Division III.

And if you don’t believe me, read the following passage from an article in the Danbury News Times about a father-daughter tennis pair, Ward Jannuzzi and Lauren McCarthy:

She’s also a solid singles player. McCarthy was just 15 when she posted a 20-0 record as a sophomore and claimed the state championship. It was her only season of scholastic tennis.

“I wanted to do it to be in a team environment where it is fun. I knew college tennis was going to be really intense and difficult and competitive and it was just nice to see girls who were out there just to have fun. I really liked that they were supportive of me. It was a great year. I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.”

Thereafter, McCarthy eschewed scholastic tennis to concentrate on the Nationals. College coaches do much of their recruiting at two USTA junior tournaments, and because McCarthy was young for her grade she had only a one-year window in the 18s division.

It’s common sense — coaches know that the most-talented and most-determined players are going to play not just in high school, but in outside tournaments. McCarthy even went so far as to fore-go a year of high school tennis because she knew she would be looked at more seriously playing USTA tennis.

Now, you don’t have to go as far as quitting your high school team to just focus on USTA, but you absolutely need that extra playing experience if you want to ace your college recruiting opportunities.

Think that because you don’t play football, basketball, baseball, softball or women’s volleyball, that means you don’t have to worry as much about recruiting?

Think again!

On the University of Kentucky Athletics Web site, the Wildcats rifle team head coach Harry Mullins details his team’s upcoming season. In addition, he talks about the schools on the schedule — and some of their recruiting classes. Some excerpts from the coach:

“UT Martin had a great recruiting class and like many others have a solid core coming back.”

“WVU finished strong last year right behind us at the NCAAs. Their recruiting class this season was ranked as one of the top in the nation. …”

“Our match with Ole Miss will be another conference match. Ole Miss did a good job recruiting this past season and they are traditionally stronger at the end of the year.”

So, for you smaller sports out there – tennis players, field hockey players, swimmers, male volleyball players and golfers — let this be a lesson to you. If a sport like rifle concerns itself with recruiting, don’t you think your sport might as well?

 Character matters in recruiting.  When I ask a coach in any sport what they look for in a recruit the words high character always come up in their top three.  Taking a chance on a “risky” recruit can often come back to bite a coach in the butt.

In 2007 Texas threw former high profile recruit Robert Joseph off the team for getting caught breaking into cars at a hotel parking lot.  The incident drew a ton of heat for the school, administration and football staff.  To make matters even worse it came to light that Joseph had a felony record when he came to Texas, but it went undetected by the coaching staff since his juvenile record was sealed.  This was simply a case of the details slipping through the cracks. 

Today’s Austin American Statesman discusses with Texas Head Coach Mack Brown the steps he uses to make sure that no other details fall through the cracks.

“First, we look at the kid,” Brown said. “If they’ve got good values in their family and they tell you the truth, they call you when they’re supposed to, they show up when they’re supposed to, they e-mail back when you e-mail them and they’ve done things for the school and leadership with the community - they’re responsible. Those are no-brainers, but that makes sense.”

Then it’s on to the next phase: talking to a recruit’s parents.

“We prefer kids from two-parent families because they tend to be more stable,” Brown said. “More recently, we’ve accepted kids from one-parent families because half the kids come from those homes. Now our rule is that there has to be one strong parent as a role model.

“If we have trouble with the parents, we don’t recruit the kid.”

The Longhorns also look at grade-point averages, preferring players with a 3.0 or better, depending on the school. And they look at test scores to make sure the scores are in line with the recruit’s grades.

“If he’s got a high test score and low grades, it means he hasn’t really been working as hard and isn’t putting as much effort into school,” Brown said. “That’s a red flag.”

They look at confidence. “A confident kid is going to have success and isn’t as prone to falling into something because of peer pressure,” Brown said.

They look to see if a player has transferred schools.

Next, it’s on to coaches.

“It’s not just about the head coach,” Texas A&M recruiting coordinator Tim Cassidy said. “You’ve got to talk to the assistant coaches, coaches of their opponents. The coaches of the opponent might not know as much about character, but they’re good to talk to. The more people you talk to, the more you know the kid you’re recruiting.”

If you want to make it to the highest level of your recruiting potential it is of the upmost importance that you make the right choices to ensure that your character is judged to be of the highest quality.

Are you a student-athlete who is on a mission to play college sports? Are you a student-athlete who has played your sport for years? Imagine your first sport season after high school and you’re not playing. What would that feel like?

Most student athletes and their families are unaware of how early college recruiting begins. Or the reasons it begins so early. The problem is that 93% of high school students who go on to college are applying through the academic door. They begin researching colleges late in their junior year or early in their senior year. They listen to the high school guidance counselor who advises them to apply to several schools. They place these schools into 3 categories: 1) Reach schools (if I’m lucky, I’ll get in.) 2) Stretch schools (I’m pretty sure I’d get accepted to half of these I apply to.) and 3) safe schools (I’ll get in no matter what.) Make sure you have all of your applications in before Christmas break.

Unfortunately, student-athletes and their families think that college athletic recruiting operates along the same time-line. It doesn’t!  If you wish to apply through the athletic door, you need to understand the different calendars and timelines.

Different sports have different recruiting calendars and time-lines. However, all sports have the following in common:

1. College coaches would love to find out about you early. In some sports that’s as early as 7^th and 8^th grade, other sports it’s by 10^th grade. Waiting until the beginning of junior year begins to reduce your opportunities.
2. A college student athlete has a certain athletic profile. For example, in baseball, a student athlete needs to have a certain 60-yard dash time, a certain overhand throwing velocity, a certain bat-speed, etc. For very competitive schools, those metrics need to be achieved by the end of junior year. If not, many college coaches will refuse to evaluate a student-athlete. It takes time to develop physically and student-athletes need to train to that level early to ensure they reach that level on time.
3. College coaches only give scholarship money to student-athletes they know, like, and trust. Those trust-based relationships take time to build. Because of the recruiting restrictions placed on college coaches, it’s important that a student-athlete begin to build those relationships as a freshman. Most don’t know how to go about that.

If you’re serious about being a college student-athlete, you need to implement that game plan that will get you there. Knowing what to do is as important as doing it. If you don’t know what to do, you should contact an expert for an evaluation. You can do that at NCSA.

The Pac-10 Conference is called the “Conference of Champions” for a good reason.  In 2007-2008 the conference captured 13 NCAA Team Championships far more then its runner up, Big Ten (5).  These 13 championships is one shy of the record 14 set in 1996-1997.  The Pac-10 has lead the nation in NCAA Championships 41 of the last 47 years.  They also finished second five times in that span.

  -by Lauren Wilmarth 09 Tennis Grad

 This June has been very busy for me. The month started out with my tennis team winning the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council end of season tournament. This was particularly exciting since Phillips Academy Andover has never won a New England Championship for tennis before - for boys or girls. I made it to the finals of my draw, and this was a once in a lifetime experience for me because the entire tournament depended on my match. If I won my match, Phillips Academy would take the championship, and if I did not, then Milton Academy had a very good chance to take the title. Every single one of my teammates was up against the fence behind me, cheering me on in every single way possible. I have never experienced such team unity before. I am very glad to have helped to make history for such a great high school!

After my Junior year of high school came to an end I spent my time preparing for the end of June, when I would head to New Haven, Connecticut to attend a College Showcase and then play in the New England Sectional tennis tournament. On June 18^th my mom and I headed to Connecticut. The College Showcase was scheduled to start on June 19^th, while the tennis tournament was scheduled to start on June 21^st.

The College Showcase was held at the Yale tennis courts. Upon arriving I was very nervous to see more than one hundred coaches standing by the courts, waiting to watch and see how each of the sixty high school tennis players played. However, I quickly convinced myself to focus only on my tennis and not the fact that there were college coaches watching me, and in the end I was exceptionally happy with the way that I played. It was great fun and good tennis.

After the Showcase came to an end, I received a multitude of emails from various coaches that watched me play. These coaches let me know that they are very interested in having me attend their school and play for their tennis team, and that they would like for me to add their school to my list of schools that I am interested in. I am still in contact with each and every one of these coaches, and I have been updating them as to my tennis life. Some of the coaches that I have really gotten to know have even called me, and I have gotten a chance to speak for hours to these coaches about their school and how I would fit into their program. I think that speaking to a coach over the phone is a really good idea because it gives you a realistic example of how your personality would fit with the coach’s if you were to attend their school.

Directly after the College Showcase finished, I played in a tennis tournament that is called Sectionals. Sectionals is the biggest tournament held in New England throughout the year, and the best tennis players from New England attend this event. I won a couple of rounds, and was mostly pleased with the way that I played. This event took place on the Yale tennis courts, just as the Showcase did, and many of the college coaches stayed to watch the first few days of Sectionals. This was the perfect opportunity for the college coaches to get a chance to see some of the recruits play in a realistic situation. Some of the schools that had coaches watching me included Quinnipiac, Villanova, Skidmore, Tufts, Middlebury and Wesleyan.

Upon arriving home after my trip to Connecticut, I immediately set up a very busy schedule for myself, which included playing tennis, teaching tennis, taking courses online, and babysitting. I spent a week and half doing this, and on July 4^th I headed to North Carolina for a National level tournament. I am currently in North Carolina with my mom and my brother, and we are getting ready to leave tomorrow - July 9^th. This tournament went well for a number of reasons. The first reason that it went well is because I won three important singles matches. The second reason that it went well was because there were college coaches at this event as well. These coaches were not able to speak much with the players, however, a few of the coaches came up to me and gave me their cards, asking me to keep in contact with them throughout the next few months, for example, Washington and Lee, and the University of Mary Washington. While these two schools are rival schools, the coaches urged me to take a look at both schools, showing the good camaraderie. In the end, while I did not win all of the matches that I would have liked to in North Carolina, I will leave tomorrow feeling confident for the rest of the summer.

I was also able to visit both the Duke and UNC campuses during the tournament in NC. They are both great schools and the Blue Devil/Tar Heel rivalry seems really fun. However, my mom went to graduate school at Duke so she is a bit biased towards Duke.

I am at the point where I am trying to really narrow down my college choices. At first I had thought that I wanted a smaller school, but now I feel like almost any size would be fine. My goal is to play good college tennis and improve while I get a good education so that I can apply to veterinary school. I feel that I will really be able to take my tennis game to the next level in college because I will have more of a focus on tennis. I have always done other sports as well and I am looking forward to training, college tennis, and especially the team environment. I love team tennis!

As for right now, I will work on keeping all of the college coaches that are interested in me up to date on how my tennis is going. I am actually attending the National Youth Leadership Forum for Medicine starting on Sunday, so it will be a challenge to keep up with my tennis during those 9 days. I am planning to do some college visits after that and I will look forward to getting a chance to speak with each coach on their on turf.

The college recruiting experience has many twists and turns.  There are many factors that play into recruiting for a student-athlete but one they have control over is doing the research.  Every student-athlete’s process is completely unique and different.  Doing research on the colleges and the process should be one of the top priorities!

Not only is the Stanford University one of the top academics schools in the country but it is also one of the best athletic programs (Stanford has won 14 consecutive Directors’ Cup).  The Stanford baseball program is a regulaly in the College World Series and is a two time National Champion. 

The Baseball Assistant Coach Dean Stotz at Stanford talks about the importance of research and choosing a college; “I have been doing this a long time, and if I may be so bold, I would like to help you simplify the process of selecting what college you will attend. First of all, please have respect for the magnitude of this college decision. You will live with this decision THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! This is not a “four year” decision, but a “FORTY YEAR DECISION”. There are no “mulligans”, no “do-overs”. Consider the task as if you are doing the most important research paper of your young life. The title of your research paper is: Where will I attend college? Now, how do you do well on a research paper?–RESEARCH!!!

There are three broad areas of risk in your college decision. You must decide what type of “academic challenge”, what type of “baseball challenge”, and what type of what I call “social challenge” you wish to take on.  In Coach Marquess’s and my 31 years we have not graduated 9 people who attended Stanford for four years.” What do you think?  Please post a comment on this topic!!

If you didn’t watch yesterday’s Wimbledon Gentlemen’s singles final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, you missed a five-hour, five-set masterpiece that featured Nadal taking a 2-0 set lead, a multiple-hour rain delay, Federer winning the third and fourth set tiebreakers to even the score, and a simply legendary 16-game final set, where Nadal finally was able to break Federer’s serve for the 9-7 set win and ended Federer’s five-year unbeaten streak at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

It a nutshell, you missed what’s probably going to go down as the greatest match of all-time. But if you have ESPN Classic, they’re probably airing it the entire day, so you should be fine.

Why do I start off a Monday with tennis, you might ask? One, because the match was so epic that even non-tennis aficionados took notice. And two, because an interesting tennis-related column came my way post-match yesterday.

If you follow tennis at all, you probably know that either Federer or Nadal appears in every grand-slam final. And if you look at last year’s tournament finals, you’ll probably notice something else — not an American male in sight.

In fact, it’s been two years since an American man appeared in a grand-slam final (Andy Roddick in the 2006 U.S. Open) and five since one has won the championship (Roddick in 2003 U.S. Open).

It appears that for whatever reason, U.S. tennis is in a bit of a drought, and as Star-Telegram columnist Gil LeBreton points out, that extends past the professional ranks. 

In the final singles rankings of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, nine of the top 12 U.S. collegians were from other countries. In all, 29 of the top 50 ranked players were foreigners.

The landscape wasn’t any different at the lower levels, either. In the Division II rankings, the top 11 and 16 of the top 17 were all foreigners.

Basically, the point that LeBreton is making throughout his work is that more and more college tennis coaches are focused too much on winning rather than coaching. Thus, they are going out of the country to find talent for their program. He ends his rant by concluding with the following:

No, it isn’t the job of a college coach to groom the next American Wimbledon champion.

But if the coach works for a U.S. college, he owes it to the future of American tennis to at least give its young players a fair opportunity.

LeBreton also cites an instance where a women’s golf coach was told that she was hired to coach, not to try to win a national championship, which is all well and good. But call me old-fashioned, but isn’t the goal of a competitive college athletic program to perform to the highest possible standard and finish as high as it can?

I’m all for more Americans competing in college tennis, and if they’re out there, fantastic. But should universities hand athletic scholarships to them over someone from another country who wants to play college tennis and go to school just as much as the next guy and is more talented, has a stronger work ethic and has more potential than the American? My answer is no.

It’s a fact — recruiting has expanded into the international ranks. To get that college scholarship, you have to be prepared to compete with not only people within this country, but those reside in other regions of this world. That means you have to work that much harder to prove to a school that you’re worth its investment.

 I just read an article about a student athlete who signed a Letter of Intent to attend Marquette University solely because he wanted to play basketball for the coach there. Unfortunately, the coach took a better job at Indiana. When this happened, the student athlete wanted to get out of his contract, which was completely up to the University if he could or not. It took longer than it should have, but finally the student was released from his contract.

The article went on about how the rule should be changed and the Letter of Intent should not be so binding. If the coach is allowed to leave, the student athlete should be free to leave as well. I agree entirely.

The article was a good article and the issues talked about are definitely prevalent, but the student athlete should have never put himself in that situation in the first place.

What I mean is why choose a school based on the coach. That’s like choosing a car because of its color. You really like it one day but the next day it breaks down and surprise! you are stuck with a useless hunk of pretty metal.

There is so much more that goes into attending a college and playing a sport that going to a school because of one person simply doesn’t make sense. When it comes to the point where you are seriously being recruited, of course the coach is going to seem perfect for you… he/she is telling you everything you want to hear because they want you to go to their school. He/she may run the perfect offense or their past winning record is something you want to continue and be a part of, but the coach didn’t do that all on his own.

He/she had to have the athletic department’s support or even enough pressure on them to make it happen, assistant coaches on board, the right players who are academically eligible, and the list goes on. That is a lot of people that contribute to success that the student athlete is not taking into consideration.

And even if the student athlete takes all of this into consideration and not too much about the school itself, what if they have an injury? Or what if the coach you are so fond of brings in a stud recruit that takes your spot? What if your team has a losing season?

There are so many things that could happen, you want to make sure you like where you are at. Just like a car. You are stuck with that set of wheels for years, if it does not with stand you and your driving habits you can’t return it. So you make sure before you make the investment that it suits you.

Your college decision is one of the most important decisions you will ever make. There is more than the coach you should consider!

The real kicker of the whole story was the student athlete who only wanted to play for this particular coach signed with another team. The coach moved to Indiana and the student athlete signed with Kansas.       

Every year on the center stage of collegiate sports, we hear the story, often told by television announcers, of the touching tale of the courageous walk on.  Visions of Rudy instantly come to the forefront as the journey of the underdog warrior starts to unfold.  “He was never recruited out of high school by any of the major programs . . .” says the announcer during his crescendo to the game breaking play.  “He has waited his whole life for this moment, battling disappointment after rejection.”  It is heartwarming.  Life is fair again. That could have been me.

There are few stories that compare in nature.  There are fewer that compare in occurrence.  The closest relative to Rudy would be the 71 year old retired truck driver who on his last few dollars cashed in on millions playing the random pick’m game at the local gas station.  The only difference is, that story happens more frequently!

For the serious competitor, walking on to a collegiate athletic team can be compared to earning a medical degree and then working as a custodian.  You both work in a hospital but unlike all of your classmates, you’re not actually doing what you trained so hard to do for so long.  Most collegiate athletes have played their sport since before they could remember, years and years, always starting, usually better and often in the spotlight.  To cash in a lifetime of hard work and natural talent for a dream that was forged from within a child’s perspective seems foolish.

Take football for example.  There are over 800 colleges that offer football as a varsity sport.  Most sports fans in this country can name up to fifty.  In baseball there are over 1000 colleges that offer the sport.  How many can you name?  There are numerous opportunities to explore if the desire to actually play exceeds common ignorance and childhood fantasies.

Walk-ons, just like custodians in hospitals, have vastly different experiences than the scholarship players.  First, the ceremonial National Letter of Intent signing day - that does not happen.  Next, the preferential class scheduling - no.  The second, third, or fourth pair of coaches’ eyes watching you to make sure that you’re taken care of - not so much.  You are a necessary tool to help the real players practice, rarely taken serious, rarely awarded a scholarship and sparingly shown respect.  Rudy was a great film but I hope it is not your story.  Below is a short video of how USC treats its potential walk ons.  There are a few questionable language choices in this clip so do not watch if you will be offended.  USC Walk On Clip

In summary, if you work your entire life to achieve the goal of becoming a college athlete, find a place where you are wanted.  Find a school where you will play and make an impact.  Go somewhere that will set you up to have a great experience while you earn your degree, an environment that will help provide you with teammates for life.  Step outside of your comfort zone and learn all you can of what is out there.  You just might find something that is priceless.