College Athletics Recruiting: A Snapshot of Recruiting Rules and Terms
By Tom Kovic
Student-athletes bring a unique quality to the table when it comes to college admissions. They offer a special talent that can improve the institution’s visibility and raise the level of popularity among future attendees. College officials understand this and in many cases, offer strong support to student-athletes both in admissions and with financial aid.
The college recruiting process can be a daunting effort if it is not well planned and executed with organization and enthusiasm from start to finish. Below is a simple snapshot of terms and athletic recruiting rules and procedures you will run into as you navigate the college search for athletes.
Contacts
Recruiting contacts are essential for both college coaches and families to become familiar with each other. Whether contacts are made by phone, e-mail or face to face, the aim of the college coach will be to simply make an effort to cultivate a strong relationship with the prospect and family in an effort to determine the likelihood of a good match.
Parents and prospects should understand the importance of initiating contact with the college coach. Coaches are bound by NCAA rules that prohibit them from contacting prospects and families during certain times. Families, on the other hand, can contact coaches at any time, with rare exceptions.
Evaluations
These are opportunities for college coaches to assess the academic and athletic ability of a prospect. Evaluations typically occur off-campus and coaches are permitted no more than 7 “recruiting opportunities” (contacts and/or evaluations), with no more than 3 opportunities resulting in face-to-face contact. (There are individual sport exceptions).
Evaluation timetables are sport-specific. Recruiting calendars for your sport of interest can be found in the NCAA Manual and are available to view at www.ncaa.org. The evaluation offers the coach a chance to get an early read on future prospects. It is also used as a recruiting tactic by college coaches in order to create visibility. This “celebrity effect” can have a powerful impact on a prospect and the family, especially if the evaluation is timed and communicated properly.
NCAA Eligibility
The NCAA Eligibility Center is an organization that collaborates with the NCAA in the area of student-athlete eligibility. Basically, the job of the Eligibility Center is to determine eligibility for all incoming Division I and Division II freshmen student-athletes. This is achieved through the evaluation of high school academic records. Each division has individual standards for entering freshmen.
Student-athletes can register with the Eligibility Center either at their high school, or online at http://web1.ncaa.org/eligibilitycenter/common/. It is suggested to begin this process soon after junior year grades are in. This will provide coaches with preliminary “reads” on eligibility. Final eligibility will be determined after the senior year grades are presented to the Eligibility Center.
Campus Visits
UNOFFICIAL VISIT: The unofficial visit is a great way for prospects and families to begin to become familiar with a number of colleges and universities. It is a visit that is made at the expense of the family and can be taken at any time (with few exceptions), including before July 1 following the junior year in high school. Institutions typically offer information sessions and tours which can be very useful in gathering general information. (Before visiting, contact the Admissions Office to determine times and dates for information sessions and tours).
It is suggested you make unofficial visits to the colleges that are on your radar, beginning as early as the end of the sophomore year in high school. Alert the college coach to your impending visit and attempt to arrange a meeting. This will give families a perfect opportunity to begin cultivating a relationship with the coach and alert the coaching staff to your sincere interest in their institution. These visits impress the college coach, and reinforce the family’s effort to become familiar with the institution and learn more about the coach and his/her program.
OFFICIAL VISIT: The official visit is a wonderful means of narrowing down your college choices by spending quality time with the coaching staff, current student-athletes and college administrators. These visits differ from the unofficial visit in cost, time limitations and the total number permitted by the prospect and to each individual institution.
The official visit is one that is paid in part or in full by the institution, can be taken beginning the first day of classes in the senior year of high school and is typically the “clincher” when a prospect and family are narrowing down their final choices. These visits provide a great opportunity for the family to witness first-hand, how the entire process (social interaction with team, team practice, attending classes, living in the dormitories etc.) operates from a “production” standpoint.
Proactive Tips
• Telephone contact: College coaches are bound by very strict rules to when and how often they are permitted to contact prospects (In most sports beginning July 1 following the junior year in high school). On the other hand, prospects and families have virtually no limitations here. My suggestion is simply this: If you plan to call the Coach, make sure you have a good reason and you are well prepared!
• E-mail: Probably the most effective means of communicating with the college coaches. Coaches can begin initiating e-mail contact beginning September 1st in the prospects junior year in high school. I suggest not waiting until then to determine the volume of e-mail in your inbox…Get on the radar early!
• Face to Face Contact: There is no better way to present oneself than through a face to face meeting. Remember, for this to happen before July 1 following the junior year, the family and prospect must arrange an on campus, unofficial visit.
• Control the Field: As a former college Coach I remember clearly the edge I had over families and their children during the recruiting process. That said, I suggest making a concerted effort to continually grow an educational awareness of NCAA procedures and develop a clear plan to how your personal college search quest will proceed. Remember…This is a major “life decision” our children will make.
I have learned that when prospects and families are choosing between schools, the well-informed individuals reached their decision with relative ease. The decision was based not only on the information they gathered and the commitment to prepare thoroughly, but on a feeling of self-confidence that developed naturally after putting a well-designed plan into action.
This article is only the “tip of the iceberg” of information you should gather before launching your college search effort. An educational approach where we see the brass ring and understand how to bridge the gap between start and finish will not only give families “their” edge in college recruiting, it will make it an enjoyable and a memorable journey.
Tom Kovic is a former 19 year head coach at Penn and the current director of Victory Collegiate Consulting, where he provides individual advisement for families on college recruiting. Tom is the author of “Reaching for Excellence, an educational guide for college athletics recruiting. For further information visit: www.victoryrecruiting.com.
Copyright © 2011 Victory Collegiate Consulting. All Rights Reserved.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Monday, December 6, 2010
Effective Communication with College Coaches: The Introduction
Effective Communication with College Coaches: The Introduction
By Tom Kovic
If there is one area of the college recruiting process that stands above the rest, I believe it is the way prospects effectively communicate with college coaches. Let’s face it, the majority of boy’s and girls in any given active recruiting pool will not be blue chip prospects and a reluctance to proactively communicate with college coaches will oftentimes result in an undertow that will likely drag a prospect and family backward in the college search. Below are simple tips to consider when making an introductory contact with college coaches.
Define Yourself
Before you take the plunge and either pickup the phone or e-mail college coaches I strongly suggest you take the time to define who you are. This may appear on the outside as a daunting task, but once you wrap your arms around it and understand the importance of self awareness in college recruiting the easier it gets…And it’s fun!
Remember, first impressions are always remembered and you want to prepare best for the initial communication with the coaches. The simplest way to define you is by developing a personal profile or resume. Keep it to 1 page and clearly list your academic, athletic and personal accomplishments during the past 2 years. Include an area at the top that lists your contact information and an action photo. Accomplish this task and you’re half way there!
Know Yourself
Now that you have yourself defined on paper, be proud of what you see. Think about it for a moment…You have poured countless hours of sweat, frustration and glory into your training and sometimes it’s nice to smell the roses and give yourself a proverbial pat on the back!
OK, you have yourself neatly defined; you are happy with what you see, but now you need to know it, engrain it and make it a driving part of developing your college quest momentum. Remember, there are 3 qualities that college coaches are looking for in prospects: Fine students, strong athletes and self-aware individuals who bring a strong character component to the table. When you connect with the college coaches you do not want to “hope” to know yourself, you have to be able to express yourself seamlessly and with confidence.
Initial E-mail
Coaches receive hundreds and hundreds of emails from high school prospects and they develop personal filtering systems to root out prospects to place in their active recruiting file. The college search for athletes is tremendously competitive and you will need to prepare your e-mail communication carefully and with the intent to easily assist the college coach in doing an initial evaluation.
I suggest crafting your initial e-mail by using the following rule of thumb: Keep it simple, short and informative. You don’t have much time to make an impression, so make your effort count. Let the Coach know who you are, where you are from, what high school you attend and the year you will graduate. Let Coach know you are excited with the college search and that you have sincere interest in his program. Depending on the year you are currently in high school, I encourage you to let Coach know you will follow-up the e-mail with a phone call in the very near future. But remember…Do what you say you are going to do!
Phone follow-up
Communicating with college coaches by e-mail has a chance in being effective, but unless you are that blue chip kid that many coaches are evaluating, you will need to roll your sleeves up and get busy. Remember, college coaches are receiving hundreds or recruiting correspondences and they simply do not have the time to respond to all of them. Taking a proactive effort in “keeping the ball alive” will give you the best chance in moving forward.
NCAA rules clearly restrict (most coaches) from initiating phone contact with prospects until July after the completion of the junior year. Although this is true, it does not preclude the prospect from calling the Coach and discuss your sincere initial interest in his program. You need to be well prepared for this conversation and don’t just call to say hello! Develop a short bullet list of topics you want to cover and practice your delivery until you reach a comfort level before calling Coach.
Frequency in Communication
Is there a point where a prospect can force too much communication with the college coaches? Yes! You don’t want to ping them incessantly, but you do want to keep them posted with significant updates (academic and athletic) and with specific intentions (unofficial campus visits etc.) without bugging them.
How frequently you communicate with the coaches also depends on what high school year you are in, the sport you play and the season you participate. So, as an example, if it is September and you are a junior in high school and play lacrosse, it would be a good idea to keep the coaches posted every 2-3 weeks regarding your fall tournaments, updated PSAT scores and interest in making a campus visit in October.
Effective communication between the family and the college coach can be critical to the decision made by the coach to pursue a prospect. It can make or break a coach’s decision to offer an athletic scholarship or to provide that extra “push” in the admission process.
If your mission is clear, communication becomes the vehicle to move with definite purpose in your chosen direction. On the other hand, ill-prepared communication can cause confusion and misdirection. Your ship moves, but with a weak rudder.
Tom Kovic is the current director of Victory Collegiate Consulting, where he provides individual advisement for families on college recruiting. He is the author of “Reaching for Excellence” An educational guide for college athletics recruiting. Kovic delivers college recruiting presentations nationwide and he is a regular contributor to several online magazines and professional organizations. For further information visit: www.victoryrecruiting.com
By Tom Kovic
If there is one area of the college recruiting process that stands above the rest, I believe it is the way prospects effectively communicate with college coaches. Let’s face it, the majority of boy’s and girls in any given active recruiting pool will not be blue chip prospects and a reluctance to proactively communicate with college coaches will oftentimes result in an undertow that will likely drag a prospect and family backward in the college search. Below are simple tips to consider when making an introductory contact with college coaches.
Define Yourself
Before you take the plunge and either pickup the phone or e-mail college coaches I strongly suggest you take the time to define who you are. This may appear on the outside as a daunting task, but once you wrap your arms around it and understand the importance of self awareness in college recruiting the easier it gets…And it’s fun!
Remember, first impressions are always remembered and you want to prepare best for the initial communication with the coaches. The simplest way to define you is by developing a personal profile or resume. Keep it to 1 page and clearly list your academic, athletic and personal accomplishments during the past 2 years. Include an area at the top that lists your contact information and an action photo. Accomplish this task and you’re half way there!
Know Yourself
Now that you have yourself defined on paper, be proud of what you see. Think about it for a moment…You have poured countless hours of sweat, frustration and glory into your training and sometimes it’s nice to smell the roses and give yourself a proverbial pat on the back!
OK, you have yourself neatly defined; you are happy with what you see, but now you need to know it, engrain it and make it a driving part of developing your college quest momentum. Remember, there are 3 qualities that college coaches are looking for in prospects: Fine students, strong athletes and self-aware individuals who bring a strong character component to the table. When you connect with the college coaches you do not want to “hope” to know yourself, you have to be able to express yourself seamlessly and with confidence.
Initial E-mail
Coaches receive hundreds and hundreds of emails from high school prospects and they develop personal filtering systems to root out prospects to place in their active recruiting file. The college search for athletes is tremendously competitive and you will need to prepare your e-mail communication carefully and with the intent to easily assist the college coach in doing an initial evaluation.
I suggest crafting your initial e-mail by using the following rule of thumb: Keep it simple, short and informative. You don’t have much time to make an impression, so make your effort count. Let the Coach know who you are, where you are from, what high school you attend and the year you will graduate. Let Coach know you are excited with the college search and that you have sincere interest in his program. Depending on the year you are currently in high school, I encourage you to let Coach know you will follow-up the e-mail with a phone call in the very near future. But remember…Do what you say you are going to do!
Phone follow-up
Communicating with college coaches by e-mail has a chance in being effective, but unless you are that blue chip kid that many coaches are evaluating, you will need to roll your sleeves up and get busy. Remember, college coaches are receiving hundreds or recruiting correspondences and they simply do not have the time to respond to all of them. Taking a proactive effort in “keeping the ball alive” will give you the best chance in moving forward.
NCAA rules clearly restrict (most coaches) from initiating phone contact with prospects until July after the completion of the junior year. Although this is true, it does not preclude the prospect from calling the Coach and discuss your sincere initial interest in his program. You need to be well prepared for this conversation and don’t just call to say hello! Develop a short bullet list of topics you want to cover and practice your delivery until you reach a comfort level before calling Coach.
Frequency in Communication
Is there a point where a prospect can force too much communication with the college coaches? Yes! You don’t want to ping them incessantly, but you do want to keep them posted with significant updates (academic and athletic) and with specific intentions (unofficial campus visits etc.) without bugging them.
How frequently you communicate with the coaches also depends on what high school year you are in, the sport you play and the season you participate. So, as an example, if it is September and you are a junior in high school and play lacrosse, it would be a good idea to keep the coaches posted every 2-3 weeks regarding your fall tournaments, updated PSAT scores and interest in making a campus visit in October.
Effective communication between the family and the college coach can be critical to the decision made by the coach to pursue a prospect. It can make or break a coach’s decision to offer an athletic scholarship or to provide that extra “push” in the admission process.
If your mission is clear, communication becomes the vehicle to move with definite purpose in your chosen direction. On the other hand, ill-prepared communication can cause confusion and misdirection. Your ship moves, but with a weak rudder.
Tom Kovic is the current director of Victory Collegiate Consulting, where he provides individual advisement for families on college recruiting. He is the author of “Reaching for Excellence” An educational guide for college athletics recruiting. Kovic delivers college recruiting presentations nationwide and he is a regular contributor to several online magazines and professional organizations. For further information visit: www.victoryrecruiting.com
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Launching the College Athletics Recruiting Effort
Launching the College Athletics Recruiting Effort
By Tom Kovic
The college experience is, in many cases, the most important four years in our children’s lives, as it will shape their future personal and professional direction. That being said, securing admission to a college or university that best match students’ desires, strengths, and aspirations is essential.
Whether it happens to be that long awaited home improvement project, saving for a summer vacation or preparing for retirement, I think we can agree that any worthy project will go through a “launch phase.” This phase consists of a time of dreaming, planning and targeting specific time-lines to hit as you begin to “execute” your plan. The same holds true in the college search for athletes and below are snapshots of general suggestions that might just help you along the way.
Gather Information
Gathering information is critical to the successful organization of any worthy project. Building a college recruiting information base can begin as early as the ninth grade as a family hobby and increasingly grow into a highly organized, disciplined project by the end of the junior year.
Begin by gathering information on the student-athletes colleges of choice including team and coach profiles, statistics, ranking, and academic offerings. Continue to update and maintain individual e-files on these favorite college programs.
Develop your initial college list
This is where the fun begins! You have built an initial knowledge foundation about the college search and you have a pretty good idea of what you are looking for in a college experience. Now it’s time to develop a grouping of institutions that potentially meet that end.
Peterson’s College Search (www.petersons.com/collegesearch) is a great resource where you can input specific information about what you are looking for in a 4 year college experience and up comes a listing of colleges and universities that initially “match.” Investigate both the general and athletic college websites. From there you can begin to put together a more detailed list of coaches and their contact information.
Build your Team
Parents, prospect, high school/club coach, college advisor, guidance counselor and a personal mentor could all be part of your team in the college recruiting process. Each team player will have a specific role to play in order to ensure the prospect’s best chances in navigating the college search with confidence. Advance goals should be set with clarity and purpose that compliment the organizational structure of the recruiting process.
By selecting the team approach, the responsibilities are equally distributed to the area experts. All assignments should be clearly spelled out and communication between the team members should be frequent and consistent. This will help streamline the college quest and assist in avoiding any confusion that could contribute to unclear thinking, misdirection and potentially poor choices.
Define Yourself: The Profile
It is important to streamline your portfolio into a comprehensive and efficient format that stands above the rest. Keep your profile simple, neat and professionally formatted. Make the job of initial evaluation easy for the college coach by highlighting pertinent information including:
• Personal and school contact information
• Academic standing, awards, and test results
• Physical characteristics
• Athletic clubs and level, showcase tournaments, and elite camps
• Athletic Statistics, Records, and Awards
• Mission Statement
• Coach’s Comments
Show your Stuff: The Video
A videotape, DVD or web stream are means of developing a first impression and trust me when I say that first impressions are remembered. Typically, a coach will roughly evaluate a recruit within the first 2 minutes of a video. They need to! Along with the hundreds of profiles, they are also being bombarded with hundreds of videos!
Make your video succinct, professional, and yet attention grabbing. Keep in mind that as individual collegiate sports differ, it is important to communicate with the individual college coaches about their requirements for DVD footage.
Develop your Plan
A knowledgeable consumer will have a clear edge in the pursuit of the attainment of any worthy product. I believe that the same holds true in the college search and I encourage families to make every effort and commitment to organize pertinent information regarding this process and to execute well-designed plans.
Develop timelines that will target general events in the beginning of the college search (making unofficial visits, maintaining your data base, and attending competitions) and continue with more specific events (compiling a video and player profile, communicating with coaches, and making official visits, etc.) as time progresses. This will increase the chances of “hitting targets” throughout the recruiting process.
Similar to a NASA Space Shuttle launch, the beginning phase of any college recruiting plan will be time consuming, demanding and require the greatest effort. That said, once you break free of that “gravity” and you remain persistent with your plan, you will give yourself the best chance in building and maintaining momentum toward your ultimate goal.
Tom Kovic is a former Division I college coach and the current director of Victory Collegiate Consulting, where he provides individual advisement for families on college recruiting. For further information visit: www.victoryrecruiting.com.
Copyright © 2010 Victory Collegiate Consulting. All Rights Reserved.
By Tom Kovic
The college experience is, in many cases, the most important four years in our children’s lives, as it will shape their future personal and professional direction. That being said, securing admission to a college or university that best match students’ desires, strengths, and aspirations is essential.
Whether it happens to be that long awaited home improvement project, saving for a summer vacation or preparing for retirement, I think we can agree that any worthy project will go through a “launch phase.” This phase consists of a time of dreaming, planning and targeting specific time-lines to hit as you begin to “execute” your plan. The same holds true in the college search for athletes and below are snapshots of general suggestions that might just help you along the way.
Gather Information
Gathering information is critical to the successful organization of any worthy project. Building a college recruiting information base can begin as early as the ninth grade as a family hobby and increasingly grow into a highly organized, disciplined project by the end of the junior year.
Begin by gathering information on the student-athletes colleges of choice including team and coach profiles, statistics, ranking, and academic offerings. Continue to update and maintain individual e-files on these favorite college programs.
Develop your initial college list
This is where the fun begins! You have built an initial knowledge foundation about the college search and you have a pretty good idea of what you are looking for in a college experience. Now it’s time to develop a grouping of institutions that potentially meet that end.
Peterson’s College Search (www.petersons.com/collegesearch) is a great resource where you can input specific information about what you are looking for in a 4 year college experience and up comes a listing of colleges and universities that initially “match.” Investigate both the general and athletic college websites. From there you can begin to put together a more detailed list of coaches and their contact information.
Build your Team
Parents, prospect, high school/club coach, college advisor, guidance counselor and a personal mentor could all be part of your team in the college recruiting process. Each team player will have a specific role to play in order to ensure the prospect’s best chances in navigating the college search with confidence. Advance goals should be set with clarity and purpose that compliment the organizational structure of the recruiting process.
By selecting the team approach, the responsibilities are equally distributed to the area experts. All assignments should be clearly spelled out and communication between the team members should be frequent and consistent. This will help streamline the college quest and assist in avoiding any confusion that could contribute to unclear thinking, misdirection and potentially poor choices.
Define Yourself: The Profile
It is important to streamline your portfolio into a comprehensive and efficient format that stands above the rest. Keep your profile simple, neat and professionally formatted. Make the job of initial evaluation easy for the college coach by highlighting pertinent information including:
• Personal and school contact information
• Academic standing, awards, and test results
• Physical characteristics
• Athletic clubs and level, showcase tournaments, and elite camps
• Athletic Statistics, Records, and Awards
• Mission Statement
• Coach’s Comments
Show your Stuff: The Video
A videotape, DVD or web stream are means of developing a first impression and trust me when I say that first impressions are remembered. Typically, a coach will roughly evaluate a recruit within the first 2 minutes of a video. They need to! Along with the hundreds of profiles, they are also being bombarded with hundreds of videos!
Make your video succinct, professional, and yet attention grabbing. Keep in mind that as individual collegiate sports differ, it is important to communicate with the individual college coaches about their requirements for DVD footage.
Develop your Plan
A knowledgeable consumer will have a clear edge in the pursuit of the attainment of any worthy product. I believe that the same holds true in the college search and I encourage families to make every effort and commitment to organize pertinent information regarding this process and to execute well-designed plans.
Develop timelines that will target general events in the beginning of the college search (making unofficial visits, maintaining your data base, and attending competitions) and continue with more specific events (compiling a video and player profile, communicating with coaches, and making official visits, etc.) as time progresses. This will increase the chances of “hitting targets” throughout the recruiting process.
Similar to a NASA Space Shuttle launch, the beginning phase of any college recruiting plan will be time consuming, demanding and require the greatest effort. That said, once you break free of that “gravity” and you remain persistent with your plan, you will give yourself the best chance in building and maintaining momentum toward your ultimate goal.
Tom Kovic is a former Division I college coach and the current director of Victory Collegiate Consulting, where he provides individual advisement for families on college recruiting. For further information visit: www.victoryrecruiting.com.
Copyright © 2010 Victory Collegiate Consulting. All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Rising above temporary setbacks in the college search for athletes
Rising above temporary setbacks in the college search for athletes
By Tom Kovic
The college recruiting process can be a daunting effort if it is not well planned and executed with organization and enthusiasm from start to finish. In addition, one’s mental approach to the college search, especially when checkered with roadblocks, can make the difference between a fair and a great experience. What follows is a “snapshot” on how prospects and families can proactively prepare for and effectively deal with personal setbacks that will undoubtedly surface along the way.
College recruiting roadblocks come in different shapes and sizes. Whether it is a direct communication from Coach to inform you his athletic scholarships have been exhausted, or a difficult phone call to inform you that you just don’t have what it takes to impact his team, a good college coach will be honest and forthcoming with prospects and families.
If you happen to be that blue chip athlete that most coaches have their sites on, your recruiting effort will likely have fewer barriers. Conversely, if you are the prospect who sits in the “mid-pack” of athletes where recruiting is brutally competitive’ you will need to prepare better and more effectively to rise above the rest.
As a college advisor for athletes I use a number of exercises to help my families organize for the best and prepare for the worst. Presenting yourself as a worthy candidate needs to be at the top of the list and this can be done in many ways. Whether it is by developing an easy to read personal profile, streaming an eye catching highlight clip, or by cultivating a solid relationship with a college coach through regular communication, the manner in which you present yourself will determine the level of “grip” your recruiting effort will have.
Develop Thick Skin
OK. You have brilliantly crafted your recruiting plan and you are regularly providing the coaches with academic, athletic and personal updates and you have made an unofficial visit to campus. You are feeling confident about the effort you have made and you’re confident it will have some impact. Unfortunately, this is 50% of the battle and the next question is simply…How does Coach see me?
There are going to be some tough questions you will eventually present college coaches, especially when it comes to roster availability, admissions support and financial aid. Before you jump in, I suggest you firstly develop some “tough skin.” Compare the recruiting process to a job interview and I think you’ll see my point. If you have lined up 10 job interviews and they all go brilliantly, do you think you will receive 10 offers? Probably not. Just as the company’s you will eventually interview with, the college coaches are looking for specific candidates to fit specific roles.
If a college coach has to communicate bad news to a prospect, it is not because you have a character flaw and you should never take bad news personally. Considering the volume of recruits that coaches are cultivating, they need to develop a filtering system that will help them trim down their list to a more manageable grouping. A good college coach will be upfront with families and offer truthful and honest communication from start to finish.
Letting go and moving forward
If and when (and you most likely will) receive that phone call from Coach explaining politely that you will no longer be part of the active list of recruits, you have to be able to accept it, let go and move forward. There is no doubt that this can be a hurtful moment, but the prospect that has the ability to “take it,” saddle up and get back “in the moment,” will have a greater chance in grabbing that brass ring.
Everything in this world happens for a reason and where one family may see a negative experience as devastating; another family will see it as an opportunity. One prospect might break down from bad news, while another athlete will rise up, a little tougher, with a little more drive and determination to move on.
For most prospects and families, the college search will not be a straight line, nor will it be a downhill run in finding that right college match. In most cases, it will be a struggle and in that struggle will be intangible life lessons to be learned, hurdles to cross and heartaches to suffer, but in the end and with a proper and realistic approach, the right match is out there and waiting for you to snatch.
Tom Kovic is a former Division I college coach and the current director of Victory Collegiate Consulting (www.victoryrecruiting.com), where he provides advisement and counseling for prospective student-athletes and families in preparing for the college search.
Copyright © 2010 Victory Collegiate Consulting. All Rights Reserved.
By Tom Kovic
The college recruiting process can be a daunting effort if it is not well planned and executed with organization and enthusiasm from start to finish. In addition, one’s mental approach to the college search, especially when checkered with roadblocks, can make the difference between a fair and a great experience. What follows is a “snapshot” on how prospects and families can proactively prepare for and effectively deal with personal setbacks that will undoubtedly surface along the way.
College recruiting roadblocks come in different shapes and sizes. Whether it is a direct communication from Coach to inform you his athletic scholarships have been exhausted, or a difficult phone call to inform you that you just don’t have what it takes to impact his team, a good college coach will be honest and forthcoming with prospects and families.
If you happen to be that blue chip athlete that most coaches have their sites on, your recruiting effort will likely have fewer barriers. Conversely, if you are the prospect who sits in the “mid-pack” of athletes where recruiting is brutally competitive’ you will need to prepare better and more effectively to rise above the rest.
As a college advisor for athletes I use a number of exercises to help my families organize for the best and prepare for the worst. Presenting yourself as a worthy candidate needs to be at the top of the list and this can be done in many ways. Whether it is by developing an easy to read personal profile, streaming an eye catching highlight clip, or by cultivating a solid relationship with a college coach through regular communication, the manner in which you present yourself will determine the level of “grip” your recruiting effort will have.
Develop Thick Skin
OK. You have brilliantly crafted your recruiting plan and you are regularly providing the coaches with academic, athletic and personal updates and you have made an unofficial visit to campus. You are feeling confident about the effort you have made and you’re confident it will have some impact. Unfortunately, this is 50% of the battle and the next question is simply…How does Coach see me?
There are going to be some tough questions you will eventually present college coaches, especially when it comes to roster availability, admissions support and financial aid. Before you jump in, I suggest you firstly develop some “tough skin.” Compare the recruiting process to a job interview and I think you’ll see my point. If you have lined up 10 job interviews and they all go brilliantly, do you think you will receive 10 offers? Probably not. Just as the company’s you will eventually interview with, the college coaches are looking for specific candidates to fit specific roles.
If a college coach has to communicate bad news to a prospect, it is not because you have a character flaw and you should never take bad news personally. Considering the volume of recruits that coaches are cultivating, they need to develop a filtering system that will help them trim down their list to a more manageable grouping. A good college coach will be upfront with families and offer truthful and honest communication from start to finish.
Letting go and moving forward
If and when (and you most likely will) receive that phone call from Coach explaining politely that you will no longer be part of the active list of recruits, you have to be able to accept it, let go and move forward. There is no doubt that this can be a hurtful moment, but the prospect that has the ability to “take it,” saddle up and get back “in the moment,” will have a greater chance in grabbing that brass ring.
Everything in this world happens for a reason and where one family may see a negative experience as devastating; another family will see it as an opportunity. One prospect might break down from bad news, while another athlete will rise up, a little tougher, with a little more drive and determination to move on.
For most prospects and families, the college search will not be a straight line, nor will it be a downhill run in finding that right college match. In most cases, it will be a struggle and in that struggle will be intangible life lessons to be learned, hurdles to cross and heartaches to suffer, but in the end and with a proper and realistic approach, the right match is out there and waiting for you to snatch.
Tom Kovic is a former Division I college coach and the current director of Victory Collegiate Consulting (www.victoryrecruiting.com), where he provides advisement and counseling for prospective student-athletes and families in preparing for the college search.
Copyright © 2010 Victory Collegiate Consulting. All Rights Reserved.
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