Athletes need to know about financial aid pre-reads since one third of colleges do not offer athletic scholarships. At institutions that do offer scholarships, most sports are equivalency sports meaning that athletes are likely to receive only partial scholarships, if any at all. This means that the availability of non-athletic financial aid is an important consideration for most college athletes.
The NCAA has a public service announcement stating that most of their athletes go pro in something other than sports. They actually provide a table with the probability of competing beyond high school and the percentage who actually make it to the professional level. Given this information, any sensible athlete should pay serious attention to the student part of “student-athletes.”
One thing prospective student-athletes should take a look at is the graduation rate for the schools they’re interested in and compare the graduation rate for their sport. It’s not hard to do.
It doesn’t matter how many scouts or coaches show up to a tournament–if they don’t know you’re there you won’t be recruited to play in college. I remember one summer “showcase” tournament sitting in the bleachers behind home plate, pretty much by myself because it was over 100 degrees and if people couldn’t find shade, they left. Why was I still there? Since I had a towel to sit on, enough sun screen on to create a peelable layer, and my beat-up sun umbrella, I wasn’t much worse off than had I been in one of the few pathetic shade spots near the dugout.
This shouldn’t be a surprising statement to anyone involved in sports and trying to get recruited. After all, every sport starts off with the most basic of numbers, wins and losses, or first, second, and third place. Potential college players and their families have probably spent a significant amount of time and money the last few years trying to improve their personal numbers to increase their odds (more numbers) of getting an athletic scholarship. But you need to pay attention to more than your personal numbers if you’re serious about getting recruited to play in college.
The following are four sets of numbers you need to be aware of if you really want to get recruited for an athletic scholarship.
When my son was small and I would tell him to do something, he would ask why and I would tell him because “it’s in the parent’s manual.” He got really curious about that manual. Where was it? (I wasn’t allowed to tell him.) When did we get it? (At the hospital, of course, you don’t think they would let us leave without it?) Was there a kid’s manual? (You mean you lost yours?)
I know the college recruiting process can seem overwhelming. Maybe your kid made the high school team and is racking up stats that people are telling you are good enough for playing in college. So you start completing recruiting questionnaires on the various college athletic program websites. Or maybe making it to the college level was always the plan for your player and you’ve been focused on filling out as many recruiting forms as possible. But it can all be wasted effort if you haven’t completed five preliminary steps first.
You do not have to pay for a professional skills video for college baseball recruiting. If you have a video camera (or smartphone), a video stand, and a basic editing program, you can create your own baseball recruiting video that will be perfectly fine for college recruiting.
There are plenty of websites offering information on how to create such videos. After reviewing a few of them, you’ll find that there are some common elements that should be included in every video. The websites below provide a good overview of what is available for baseball and softball. If you only want to read one website, GoBigRecruiting is the one to visit. It offers detailed video guidelines for both Softball and Baseball.
If big-time college sports are an important consideration for your college list, you’ll need to take a look at the Southeast Conference (SEC) schools. If I have to tell you why you should consider SEC schools for big-time sports, then we are definitely working with different definitions or you have been living under a rock since sometime in the last century. SEC schools claim 43 national football championships, 21 basketball championships, 13 College World Series, and 20 gymnastics championships among many others. Yet, the 14 universities that make up the SEC Conference, actually have a lot to offer other than sports.
Practice your favorite sport in the comfort of your home. You likely already spend long hours practicing with your team each week, but did you know that lacrosse is one of the few team sport that you can practice alone? If you really want to improve your skills and get picked up by a recruiter at-home practice could easily be what sets you apart from everyone else you are competing with for that spot at your favorite school.
