The number of variables that can go into a recruit’s decision making process are immeasurable. Throw in the multiple perspectives that those elements can be evaluated from and it’s a modern miracle that any prospect ever identifies that elusive perfect fit that they’re desperately hoping to find.

Things can be looked at from the basketball and athletic perspective. They can be scrutinized from the academic and “preparation for real life” point of view. And of course you can assess things on a personal basis judging just what each setting has to offer as a place to call “home” throughout your college career.

Home Sweet Home

Home sweet home; let’s talk about the role of home in the recruiting process. One of the answers coaches look for early in their recruiting efforts is whether a prospect is willing to go away to school rather than stay relatively local or regional. For the athlete home or away may be dictated by what schools are interested and what level they compete on. If it’s the goal of a prospect to play at the highest level possible and the programs fitting the bill are all located a considerable distance from home her decision becomes much simpler. If the only schools showing interest, regardless of level, are close to home the decision to stay or go again becomes much easier. For the sake of discussion and this column, let’s assume that a prospect has options close to home and across the country that fit the level she’s hoping to play on at the collegiate level.

First and foremost it’s a decision an athlete has to make for herself if she’s going to be content with her choice and make the most of her opportunities. The degree to which the importance of home will come into play will vary from individual to individual. For a recruit and her family it can be a challenging and sometimes contentious part of the decision.

Let’s face it; home isn’t really the house or town that a recruit has grown up in. It’s the people that surround her and will continue to be a part of her life. When someone packs up and goes to school things change for those individuals as well no matter what the distance to campus ends up being. The considerations can extend to communication, financial resources, ability to travel, time off from work and you can never underestimate the potential impact on the lives of younger siblings should there some at home.

Going Away

Going away to school today isn’t quite the uphill grind that it was many years ago. Modern communication makes the distance much less a factor than it once was for recruits. Unlimited minutes on the cell phone, texting, Skype, e mail and social media allow for daily contact that was often sacrificed back in the days of after 11 pm long distance calls and hand written snail mail.

However, one reality that has not nor ever will change is the actual mileage. Barring the advent of some Star Trek type transporter, getting from A to B is always going to be quicker, simpler and cheaper than getting from A to Z. During the decision making process thought has to be given to the costs and convenience of getting to and from for both the athlete and those around her and ultimately the importance of that accessibility.

Consideration also has to be given to the time element. If you’re willing to consider a school within a four hour driving radius it doesn’t make sense to rule out another solely due to distance because it might require getting on a plane. Of course if you look at the financial aspect of that rationalization you also have to admit it’s still going to be cheaper to get behind the wheel, particularly on game night when the whole family buckles up for the drive. While nothing beats being there in person, you can flip the thought process back over again and acknowledge that more and more games are being broadcast on television and a large majority of programs are streaming their games via the internet. Those kind of increased viewing opportunities can minimize the distance to some degree in the decision making process.

For the athlete herself the time and cost equation requires some careful thought. Yes, your time is limited and you’re not going to be running home every time you turn around. On the other hand the NCAA does have practice restrictions in and out of season that actually do create some occasional time off. The opportunity to get home for a birthday, a brother or sister’s ball game, Mother’s Day or Father’s Day or just a little extra time at Christmas are nice benefits of not straying too far from home.

At the same time there are athletes who need the distance and it’s limitations to mature and establish their independence while creating something of their own for the first time in their lives. With all due respect to some parents, there are many kids looking for a little separation from those parents who constantly talk as if her career is a group effort. “We’re looking at this or that” and “This is important to us” etc… Sorry folks, but “we” aren’t going to school, she is. I’ve seen many athletes looking to get away in an effort to take ownership of their own future.

Recruiting and Romance

Recruiting and romance. While you would hope it wouldn’t have to be said it’s important to minimize the role of a personal relationship in this aspect of a recruiting decision. Staying home because the love of your life is there or going off to a specific school because that individual attends or lives close by generally leads to disaster. Someone who truly cares for you will support your decision regardless of location. If geography impacts your relationship you’ve got other issues anyway.

Early in the process there’s only one answer which college coaches can put a lot of stock in and that’s the recruit who makes it clear that she’s not going to go far from home. An individual like that is basing her thoughts on things she’s intimately familiar with and has already experienced. That doesn’t mean she won’t change her mind but more often than not this is the kind of prospect who will use home as a starting point and determine her short list by those schools that have shown interest and are located within a specific parameter she feels comfortable with.

On the other end of the spectrum, coaches often come across athletes who are adamant that they want to go away. Unfortunately many of those individuals have yet to look past the novelty of putting some miles between them and their current address. Quite few stay true to their word and end up racking up frequent flier mile throughout their college careers but others gradually start giving consideration to programs closer to home as they move deeper into the process. Sometimes just taking an official visit and realizing exactly what a three hour flight and a 300 dollar price tag will mean in the long run for them and their family can give them cause to reconsider. Conversely for others the very same experience can serve as a confirmation that changes in latitudes won’t lead to a change in their attitude. (Thank you Jimmy Buffet)

One real negative in recruiting are the prospects who know definitively where they’re going or at least have decided that they’re going to stay close to home yet still take some official visits just for the trips. If a school has no chance of receiving your sincere consideration you shouldn’t be taking their time and resources. The NCAA limits the number of Official Campus Visits a school can provide (12) and no coach wants to be wasting one on a recruit who already knows she’s going elsewhere. It’s not only the school that kind of selfish behavior may be impacting but there can be implications on another athlete that might be seriously considering that particular program.

The tough read for college coaches is the individual who says they’re not sure but are willing to consider going away from home. As a recruiter, you’ve got to try and establish just how seriously they’ll look at packing their bags and also identify how supportive their family and those around them are about their interest in possibly relocating. In the end most programs can’t afford to spend a lot of time and money on a recruit that, when the time comes, is going to realize that there’s no place like home.

Over the years on every staff I was a part of we encountered those parents who were clear that “it’s her decision and we’ll support her wherever she chooses to go” yet at the same time found a way to drop subtle hints about the impact going away would have on them. Usually what they really meant is that we’ll support you looking at any school you want but not so much in choosing any school you want. More than once we heard of folks offering to buy a car or provide some other resources if the ultimate decision didn’t involve a GPS and more than one tank of gas to get to campus. You might define that as conditional support and many times it has trumped the decision of an athlete who ultimately wanted to go away to school.

When you look at staying home or going away the right answer for one recruit may be the exact opposite for another. For some the location is irrelevant if they can find the opportunity that will help them make the most of their college experience in the classroom and on the court. An athlete doesn’ t care any less for home or family because she goes away to school nor does one love hers more because she chooses to stay close to home. Each athlete must prioritize what’s important to them in the areas impacted by distance and then decide if those factors support or outweigh other academic, athletic, and personal concerns in her decision. Make your decision with your heart because in the end…. (Sorry!)… home is where the heart is.

Going to Events

Today I would like to talk to you more about going to events and what does that mean. An event is a team tournament or individual camp that allows you the opportunity to play in front of college coaches or scouts. You will either be evaluated for performance level,  to be ranked or to have your evaluation included in a scouting report. To participate in a team tournament you have to actually be on a team. Individual camps or events are available for you to attend by yourself and they will actually put you on a team with other players.

2 Types of Events

There are two types of events. There are exposure events and there are NCAA-Certified events. NCAA-Certified events are considered an exposure event. Individuals that host NCAA-Certified events have to go through the NCAA to have it sanctioned as a NCAA-Certified event. They are sanctioned so Division 1 college coaches can attend the event.

To break down exposure events a little more. Exposure events can be held any time of the year. They are more than likely hosted by a scouting organization that ranks players or provide scouting reports to college coaches. They may be a high school event and they can be non-high school events held during spring, summer and early fall months. So when I say a high school event it is a event held during the regular high school basketball season, during late fall winter months. Some examples of what an exposure events can be. It can be an exposure league. For example, I will be kicked off an exposure league in Memphis in 2011. I evaluated the players and wrote the evaluation on my web sites, girlsbasketballexposure.com and memphisgirlsbasketball.com. There are other larger organizations that have been hosting events for longer periods of time. You have Blue Starr which is an event I attended when I was in high school. It was the first and actually the only exposure event I attended when I was in high school to put myself in position to be in front of college coaches. And Blue Star is pretty much their individual event arm where they host camps for individuals to attend. And their tournament arm is USJN. They market their tournaments through that website. Then you have Peach State Hoops which is fairly new. They have been around I guess about 8 or 9 years. He is really exploding on the scene. A gentleman name Brandon Clay runs the majority of his Peach State Hoops events in the Georgia area and just starting to branch out and bring his events to Tennessee. He runs events year round. He run high school events and events during the non-high school period during the spring, summer and fall periods. Other organizations run events all over the US including EOT Basketball, Michael T. White, Girl Powher Showcases and more.

NCAA-Certified events can only be held during certain times of the year. They can be held one weekend in April, a couple of weeks in July and 1 weekend in October. They are more than likely will be hosted by a scouting organization that ranks players or provide scouting reports to college coaches. They are hosted so Division 1 college coaches can attend. These are the only events that Division I college coaches can attend during the non high school season. College coaches are very limited on how many days they can come out and watch athletes during the high school season. Division 2, Division 3, NAIA,  and Junior colleges coaches are not as rescricted as Division 1 college coaches on coming out and watching players play basketball.

In Part IV, I will share with you how to go to the Internet to get noticed by a coach.

In Part I, I gave you an overview of what recruiting is, what it means to play basketball at the next level, the different levels of college basketball. In part II, I want to talk to you about ways to get recruited. How do you put yourself in front of college coaches to be recruited? And so, what I’m going to do is break it down into three ways that you can get recruited.

3 Ways to Get Recruited

The three ways you can get recruited is to go to them, to go to the Internet, or to go to events. In today’s age, I’m telling you, there are so many opportunities out there for you to get in front of college coaches. Back when I played basketball, we did not have the Internet. There were not as many events going on that I can think of. AAU was extremely big, but now, there are so many other opportunities out there. And so, I want to break it down for you on how you can get in front of college basketball coaches, so you can begin to be recruited.

Go To Them

I’m going to show you how to go to the college coaches. And basically, what I mean when I say go to them, contact them directly. Contact them directly, or get in front of them directly; but basically, contact them directly.

So how do you contact them directly? Basically, you mail them. And that’s what I did back in the day, when I was trying to put myself out there in front of college coaches, or in front of specific schools. And basically, this is what you do when you’re trying to get in front of a specific school. Or you may have your top 10 list of schools, or top five list of schools, this is how you can get in front of those specific schools directly.

And what I did, my Dad videoed all of my basketball games. He pretty much videoed all of my basketball games and created a highlight video for me back in the day. We had VHS tapes; we didn’t have DVDs. But he chopped up some of my basketball games, created a highlight tape on VHS, and we mailed it out to different schools, and that’s how I put myself out in front of them. And I sent the highlight tape to them with a typed-up letter talking about some of my statistics and explaining what was on the video. So that’s what I did back in the day. And so, I want to tell you a few options you have to basically get directly in front of them, or directly in front of the schools that you want to get in front of.

Mail

So I basically went over mail. You can mail them. You can mail them a letter. You can mail them a letter just saying who you are, what school you attend, and your statistics. You can put your schedule on there, and just basically mail them a letter introducing yourself: who you are, your address, your stats, your academic achievements, your GPA, basketball statistics, and a schedule. That’s one way that you can get directly in front of the specific schools that you want to get in front of.

DVD

Another thing that you can do – like I just explained that I did – you can mail them a highlight DVD. Like I said, back in the day when I was trying to get recruited, it was VHS tapes. But now, you have DVDs. That’s what people use now; they use DVDs. So you can create a highlight DVD and mail it to the coaches.

Email

Another thing, because of technology, you can email them. You can instantly email them instead of putting the information in the mail; they call it snail mail now. But instead of putting a letter in the mail, you can instantly email them, and that way, you can email more than a top 10. You can have a top 50, and you can email all of them at the same time; create a list within your email system and email 50. That’s the advancements of the technology that we have now, where you can get access to more college coaches than what I could back in the day. So basically, you can email them, introducing yourself: your name, your statistics, what school you attend, your academic achievements, your GPA, and your schedule.

Questionaire

And another thing, because of the advancements of the Internet, when a college basketball coach goes out and sees the different talent and they find somebody that they’re interested in, the first thing they do is send them a questionnaire. And basically, what a questionnaire is it’s an application where you add the information that I just said. You put down your name, your address, your coach information, your statistics, your academic achievements, or academic statistics. If you’re playing summer basketball, they may ask for your summer schedule, or your summer coach information, and your high school schedule.

And on the flipside of that, you receive that when a college coach sees you play. But because of the advancements of the Internet, you can be proactive. And instead of waiting on the college coach to send you a questionnaire, you can go out to their website and fill out the questionnaire online. So that’s another way that you can get in front of them. In this period of basketball, there’s only so many places the college coaches can go. So you can be proactive and automatically send the questionnaire to them. Let them know that you’re interested in their program and what your statistics and information are.

Camps

And all of those things that I just went over, those are ways that you can send information to them. But if you want them to actually see you play – to guarantee that the specific school that you want to see you play – you attend their summer camps. The majority of major programs have their own summer camps. They’re normally run during the month of June. You go out to the website, and you can go look on the website and see the different kinds of camps they have. They run fundamental camps. The new types of camps that are going on now are called elite camps. They’re called elite camps, but anybody can come to them.

Basically, the college coaches will invite some of the players that they’re recruiting to come attend the camps. It’s an unofficial way to get prospects that they’re recruiting onto their campus, so they can see their campus and get familiar with the coach. But anybody can go to these events. So if you want to show these coaches that you can play against players that they’re already recruiting that’s what you need to do. You need to attend these elite camps.

And then, they also have team camps. During the month of June, a lot of the high school teams, and even junior high school teams, are back together. They have a specific period of time where the high school coaches can work with their team, in June, and some of those coaches go to team camps. So you may want to encourage your high school coach to enter your team into the team camp, and that’s another way for a college coach gets to see you play.

So that’s basically what I wanted to go over. I wanted to share with you how you can get directly in front of the specific schools that you’re interested in attending. And just to go over it again, you can mail them a letter introducing yourself with the information that I went over. You can mail a highlight DVD and also include a letter introducing yourself. You can instantly email them directly with information introducing yourself. You can go to their website and find the questionnaire and fill out the questionnaire and submit it to them.

Or I believe the ultimate – because this is how you actually get to play in front of them – is to attend one of their summer camps, whether it be a fundamental camp, or the elite camp. The elite camp may be the best one to go to, or maybe get your high school coach, or even your AAU coach to enter you into their team camp.

In Part III, I will breakdown how to go to the Internet.

I’m fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to attend the University of Memphis on an athletic scholarship to play basketball. It’s funny because when I was entering high school, I did not know that this was even possible.

I was not focusing on going to college, it was just something that did not really enter my mind until I got to the high school level. And my high school coach told me, you know there’s a possibly you could get an athletic scholarship. During my sophomore year of school, I received my first letter. It was from Southern Illinois University. It just opened my mind to the possibilities that are out there.

I wanted to talk to you about the possibilities of playing college basketball.

What is recruiting?

One of the first things I want to talk about is recruiting. You hear about recruiting and being recruited. But what does that really mean? What does it really mean when a college coach is recruiting you. What is recruiting? Recruiting is the process of college coaches looking and finding qualified players to fill positions on their roster, or on their team.

When you go to college, a college has a certain amount of players that they can have on their team. Just like you’re in whatever level school you’re in – middle school, junior high school, high school – you know you eventually leave this school. And so after a certain period of time, players leave. I mean players leave for whatever reason, it may be graduations, it may be personal reasons.

But every year college coaches have to find someone to fill a spot. So what they do, they go out looking for players. And that’s what it’s called, that’s what recruiting is for college basketball. Where college basketball coaches are actively looking for players to fill spots.

What skills do coaches look for?

A question that I always receive is what skills are most looked at. Some people may say that the most looked at skill is a shooter. Somebody may say colleges are looking for point guards. But in actuality, college coaches are looking for the skills that their program needs at a particular time. Just like I just mentioned that a player may be leaving or has left. Or someone may be graduating.

That player could have been a good ball handler or a good shooter. A good defender. Well that’s a particular skill that that college coach will be looking for in the future. It doesn’t matter. Another thing, a question I always get. Am I too short? What is the height? You know, over the recent years some top programs have had some very extremely short point guards in their system.

When I was playing college basketball, Ole Miss was known for having short guards. About five-three, five-four. They were known for having aggressive guards like that. Don’t limit yourself on the possibilities of your height. Or how tall you are, because if you have a specific skill that a college coach is looking for, you can be recruited.

How do you get started?

Now, how do you get started. How to get started to being recruited. Well, the process of getting recruited requires you to put yourself in position for a college coach to personally witness and recognize your talent or have an associate of a college coach to witness and recognize your talent in order to pass that information to the college coach.

When I say an associate of a college coach, that can be in the form of a person, a service as a scouting report, or the media -like the newspaper or website. Basically, getting started is having somebody see you. Just putting yourself out there to be recognized and that’s how it gets started.

What is the next level?

You hear people say that you can play at the next level. Well what exactly is the next level? When you watch ESPN and you see the national championships and the Division I national champs, what does all that mean? There are different associations out there that govern college athletics.

One we’re most familiar with when you hear you can go to a Division I school. You probably hear the NCAA, well NCAA stands for the National Collegiate Athletic Association. That’s basically a national association that governs different universities. A majority of them are extremely big universities. Thousands of kids attend those universities. Another association that governs college athletics is the NAIA and that stands for National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.

The next level is the National Junior College Athletic Association, or NJCAA. These are normally two-year universities, your community colleges or they call them junior colleges. They have their own governing system.

So, when you hear people talk to you about – you could play college basketball, you could play at the next level – this is what they’re talking about. You can play at an NCAA school, you could play an NAIA school, or if you have to, you could go to the junior college route.

NCAA

There are three different divisions of NCAA. Like I said, the one we hear about the most is always getting all the publicity in the newspapers, on television, on the Internet, are Division I.

What does that mean? Basically, just to give you a little bit of what that means, what’s the difference between Division I, II, and III. Division I members must offer at least fourteen sports. At least seven for men and seven for women, or six for men, and eight for women. Division I institutions must offer a minimum amount of financial aid, but may not exceed established maximums.

Student athletes at Division I schools pretty much receive full scholarships. Meaning they do not have to not have to pay for anything when they attend a Division I school. There are 335 members of Division I, and in Division I, 66% of the members are public institutions and thirty-four percent are private institutions.

So what is a Division II school? Division II is an intermediate level division of competition which offers an alternative to both the highly competitive level of intercollegiate sports offered in Division I, and a non-scholastic level offered in Division III. There are over 302 members of Division II. Very few of the over a hundred thousand students athletes competing in Division II receive a full athletics grant that covers all of their expenses. But most of them will receive some financial aid to help them through school, but as you see, they do not receive full scholarships as Division I. They call it partial scholarship.

Division II schools tend to be smaller public universities, 52% are small public universities and many private institutions. So it’s made up of 52-48% split, so a majority of them – almost 50/50 – half public half private schools.

Division III programs must offer at least five sports for men and five for women. There are 447 total members, 20% are public institutions and 80% are private institutions. So there’s just some basic information to give you about the differences between Division I, Division II, Division III.

One of the major differences that you see, Division I student athletes receive full scholarships. Division II do not receive full scholarships. They receive partial scholarships. I’m looking on the NCAA website, and I do not see how the scholarship situation is broken down. I’m assuming they probably do not receive full scholarships. It does not mention it on the NCAA website. But I want to give you some kind of overview of what are the differences.

NAIA

Now with the NAIA, there are over 300 members of the NAIA. They’re broken down into 25 conferences. When you enroll in an NAIA school or you’re a student athlete of an NAIA school, you have fewer recruiting restrictions. When it comes to the NCAA schools there are a lot of restrictions of when a coach can talk to you, when they can send letters to you, when they can come watch you play.

There are not as many rules in NAIA. There’s a flexibility to transfer without missing a season of eligibility when you play for an NAIA school. In NCAA schools when you transfer, there’s the likelihood that you will have to – they say sit out a year, meaning you will not be able to play. If you go from one school to the next school, when you get to that second school you will not be able to play at that school for a full year.

Another thing, the scholarship are awarded differently at an NAIA school from NCAA schools. In an NAIA school you may not receive a full scholarship. There may be more of a partial scholarship system at an NAIA school.

NJCAA

Then you have the NJCAA, which are basically like I mentioned earlier, your junior college associations and these are for two-year schools, two-year colleges. There are 525 members.

Most players think going to automatically go to Division I. When you think of Division I, that’s the highest level of competition, the highest level of college basketball. That’s primarily where the most gifted athletes go. And most athletes automatically think they are Division I material. But you have to be honest with yourself and think about what level of a player are you. Are you a Division I level player?

It’s not a bad thing to not be a Division I player, like I’m just mentioning to you. There are different divisions out there. If you’re not a Division I player maybe you are a NAIA type of a player. Or maybe you have to go to the junior college route. The junior college route is basically if you have an academic situation, or your skills are not up to par, maybe you should go the junior college route to get you that extra two years of preparation. And then once you receive your associates degree from a junior college, then you move up to a four year institution. So it’s not necessarily a bad thing to go through.

In this lesson I want to give you an overview of what it meant – what is the next level. What is the collegiate level. What does it mean that you can play college basketball.

I wanted to give you that general overview in this lesson. Over the next parts, I’m going to break down different ways that you can get your name out there so college coaches can recruit you. So the recruiting process can get started for you.

Jerry Kill is no different than most college football coaches when it comes to receiving outside advice in recruiting. He wants to make his own evaluations, see things with his own eyes, formulate his own opinions.

“I’m going to make my own assessment of who I think is good and not good,” the Gophers coach said. “Some people say, ‘Well, that guy is a five-star guy.’ Well, who’s rating that five-star guy? I’d rather look at them myself.”

But many schools, including the Gophers, also rely on recruiting services to do some of the initial legwork, often at a hefty price. College programs devote a portion of their budget to purchase biographical information, videos and scouting reports on high school recruits around the country in an effort to crosscheck their own databases and save time in recruiting turf wars.

As the recruiting season inches toward the Feb. 1 signing day, coaches are focused more on finalizing classes than evaluating talent. But recruiting services operate year-round hoping to aid the process and, yes, make money.

Opinions vary among college coaches on the usefulness of recruiting services and their true benefit. That industry gained national attention this past year after the NCAA launched an investigation into Oregon’s involvement with Houston-based talent scout Willie Lyles.

The NCAA is investigating whether Oregon paid Lyles $25,000 for legitimate recruiting material or to steer high-profile recruits to the program, including running back Lache Seastrunk. Lyles had a mentoring relationship with several current and former Ducks players. The recruiting information Lyles provided Oregon reportedly was outdated.

“Here’s the problem with recruiting services: There are a lot of different entities in the industry that are lumped under this classification,” said Randy Rodgers, who owns a scouting service focused solely on Texas prep football.

Rodgers puts 30,000 miles a year on his pickup truck scouting talent across the state. He estimates that he visits 12 to 15 high schools each week to talk with coaches, watch practices and games and study videotape. He writes a one-page scouting report on prospects he evaluates — 743 total last year.

Rodgers offers just one of many scouting services that focus on a particular area of the country. The NCAA does not require recruiting services to be sanctioned or registered with the governing body, so it’s difficult to know exactly how many exist. The NCAA is considering a proposal that would require football and basketball recruiting/scouting services to be approved on an annual basis.

“It’s like anything else, common sense should prevail,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said before the 2011 season. “If something should cost $5 and a guy is charging $100, you might want to ask a couple of questions.”

Big money at stake

College football is big business, and recruiting services represent a piece of that. Schools routinely spend tens of thousands on recruiting information each year. Some services charge only a few hundred dollars for their material. Others can cost anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000 per year.

The Gophers spent $140,000 total on recruiting services over a three-year span beginning in 2008, according to data provided by the school. The Gophers spent significantly less in that area once Kill took over last season. They allotted $27,500 for the 2010-11 school year.

Purdue spent roughly $274,000 on recruiting services, Wisconsin $145,000 and Iowa $62,500 during the same three-year span, according to those schools. Even Michigan ($105,000) and Ohio State ($77,400) — two schools with a tradition of success and a national brand name — utilize scouting services.

That’s not unusual even for powerhouse programs. Newly crowned national champion Alabama spent nearly $220,000 total on recruiting services the past three years, according to the Birmingham News.

“Everyone purchases recruiting services,” Purdue coach Danny Hope said. “It’s a good practice, a good procedure in the recruiting process. There’s been some instances where it’s been abused some. But a recruiting service is no different than buying a catalog from Cabela’s when you get your fishing equipment. Or Sears when you want to buy your appliances.”

As long as the rules don’t become blurred, coaches say, the relationship can be mutually beneficial.

“When I first started recruiting South Florida there used to be a packet this guy would sell and everybody was getting it,” Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema said. “I got it because it had great information. It had [recruits'] addresses, their birthdates, all this pre-packaged information. The guy was trying to build a relationship with me. I said, ‘Hey, I already bought your package, I don’t need to [be friends].’”

Saving time costs money

Rodgers started his scouting service after coaching football for nearly 30 years, including a stint at Inver Hills Community College and later as recruiting coordinator at Illinois and Texas. He retired from coaching after Texas fired John Mackovic in 1997.

Rodgers saw a need for college coaches and a way to make money using his recruiting expertise.

“The hardest thing for college coaches to do is to evaluate players during the season,” Rodgers said. “It dawned on me that there is a business model here that the NFL has. The NFL has coaches and they have scouts. In college, coaches and scouts are the same guys. What they really suffer from is time availability.”

Rodgers charges schools $3,000 to $6,000 annually for his material. He said he has 45 to 50 clients in Division I, including the Gophers, Michigan and Ohio State in recent years.

“I’m going to save you time,” he said. “Time is precious because the NCAA legislates time for coaches on the road. If you’re Minnesota and you’re coming to Texas, you don’t want to waste time going to view players who aren’t good enough to help you win in the Big Ten.

“By the same token, you don’t want to waste a lot of time chasing after guys you’re never going to have a chance to recruit because Texas and Oklahoma are after him. No offense to the Gophers, but they’re not going to beat Texas head-to-head on any kid in Texas.”

Coaches say advances in technology — specifically video — enable them to make better use of their time. Recruiting services enable them to streamline their game plan once they hit the road.

“That’s why everybody can go into anybody’s area and make some hay recruiting-wise, because they can do their homework sitting right there at their desk,” Hope said. “In the old days, you had to get a road map, brown bag with some lunch meat and stuff to eat and had to travel around to all the high schools and hit it door-to-door. It’s not that way anymore.”

Even with that benefit, Kill still describes himself as a “people guy,” meaning he relies more on relationships formed with high school coaches over the years than recruiting material provided by outsiders.

“If I was younger, maybe I’d have to do more of that,” he said. “But I’m old enough now that I know enough people that we’re going to do it off people that we know.”

Finding Contact Info

Research is the name of the game when it comes to setting up contact with a coach. Go to the school’s athletic website, find the names and contact info of the coaches for your sport. Figure out which coach is the recruiting coordinator. If there is a specific coach that recruits your region, get their information. Learning as much as you can about the school and program is key even before reaching out.

Email Communications

A solid introductory email is the perfect way to initiate communication with a coach. Send a link to your recruiting profile and give the coach a brief idea of who you are and why you are interested in that coach’s school.

Phone Calls

A phone call is really the first way to develop a true relationship between coaches and recruits. Every recruit should prepare extremely well for any call with a coach and have a specific script prepared for the talk. There are also many tips and strategies, such as standing up and moving around while on the phone… that will help recruits when talking on the phone.

Visits

Once a recruit has made contact with a coach and hopefully developed a good relationship, the next form of contact is to visit the school and meet in person. Meeting the coach is huge for the recruit as it gives the coach a true chance to see the recruit’s personality for real. Just as phone conversations, every recruit should have a specific list of questions and topics prepared to talk about with a coach. Coaches are impressed when recruits prepare well for conversations, because it shows the level of interest.

Communication with coaches is a chance to build relationships, to impress coaches, and to show them how invested you truly are in playing in college and playing for their program. Every recruit should gather as much knowledge as possible when it comes to communicating with college coaches because they only get one chance in the recruiting process.

Click here to connect with a NCSA Recruiting Team member and they can help you figure out where you are in the recruiting process and what kind of schools you should be targeting.

Just because it’s cold outside doesn’t mean you can’t be improving your recruiting prospects! Part of being an athlete, especially if you want to play in college, is always working towards your goals. Take time to be with your family and friends, but don’t neglect your passion for sports. The athlete working towards their goals during the holidays is going to get recruited over the one who slacks off!

1. Highlight Video
If you want coaches to recruit you, they have to know you can play. A lot of recruiting takes place online now and you can’t count on coaches coming to your games to meets to see you play. Make sure your video is not too long, features only your best plays (coaches are very limited on time!), includes any skills drills for your sport, and is formatted correctly. Click here to learn more about creating highlight videos and how NCSA can help.

2. Academics
Plenty of athletes are more focused on what’s happening on the field than in the classroom. That makes sense – your sport is your dream, and not every class you take is going to be a ton of fun. But, if you want to play in college, you need to be a student-athlete and that means being academically prepared. Prepare for your standardized tests by taking ACT Prep or SAT prep – the registration deadlines for next year’s test dates are coming up fast! And keep on top of any homework you’re assigned over break – your coach and your future will thank you.

3. Contact Coaches
Contacting coaches is a year-round affair if you want to build the kind of relationships you need to have a successful recruiting experience. But winter break is a great time to get a head start, or play catch-up if you’ve fallen behind. It’s cold out, you’ve got a lot of free time, and you’ve probably got a little extra energy from a lighter practice load. Take some of that time and energy and write personalized letters to the coaches that you’re interested in playing for – but think about whether you’re a good fit for the program before you get caught up in a big name! If you don’t know what programs are a good fit for you, you’ve got some catching up to do! Click here to connect with a NCSA Recruiting Team member and they can help you figure out where you are in the recruiting process and what kind of schools you should be targeting.

4. Stay in Shape
Odds are that you’re going to be eating a lot of big dinners, get offered a lot of desserts, and be faced with a lot of snack trays this holiday season. You don’t have to live on lettuce and carrots, but don’t go crazy! Remember that every calorie you eat now is one you’re going to have to burn off to get back into top shape for your competition. Better to use your conditioning to take your game to the next level than burning off some holiday snacking. Since most of us don’t keep our weight benches outside, the cold weather can be a good chance for some strength training. Get in your cardio however is comfortable – jumping jacks, treadmill, or make like Rocky Balboa and go for a run in the snow.

And to all you athletes in warm places who don’t have to deal with the snow this winter – the same goes for all of you. If anything, you’ve got to be even more disciplined because the winter’s not keeping you inside.

Whether you live in Arizona or Maine, though, set aside some time to pursue your dream this holiday season. You won’t regret it!

If you feel like you need assistance with the recruiting process, click here to connect with a NCSA Recruiting Team member

Recruiting and the road have a lot in common. You have to hit the road to get on the stage during the NCAA’s summer evaluation period and it’s in your best interest to get back on the trail for the spring and fall viewing weekends. The road again comes into play as you narrow down your choices of schools because it is in your best interest to see firsthand the opportunities that each interested program has to offer.

A lot of athletes take the chance to make unofficial visits during the summer or combine them with club team travel. Of course any visit during the evaluation period wouldn’t include the coaches but a lot of folks still like to take a look if they happen to be playing in the neighborhood. Any opportunity to see campus is a good thing, but it’s important to keep in perspective that the summer and the traditional school year aren’t exactly the same thing. Sure the actual campus, the facilities and the coaches (when permissible) will be the same. Without the whole student population or even the entire team on hand, you’re missing the biggest components of “who” a program really is and what everyday life is really like.

The fall offers a great opportunity to see a university in full swing and a program in action. The start of a new school year provides a glimpse of campus life and the atmosphere that surrounds a university. Conditioning and individual workouts provide an insight into a coach’s style and the dynamics of her or his relationship with players.

Importance of Campus Visits

Campus visits, both official and unofficial, are a critical component to the decision-making process and often can be the deciding factor for an athlete as she tries to find that “right” fit for her future. An in-person confirmation of what a prospect has been hearing and reading about helps the player picture herself in that setting. Unfortunately, the picture that some recruiters paint of the campus, resources and people who make up their program sometimes bears little resemblance to reality.

One of the obstacles that can often get in the way of a productive visit is the choreography that coaches put into the itinerary of all activities. From the selection of dates and hosts (for an official), to the choice of whom you meet with and even what time of day to take you on a tour of campus — every aspect of the schedule is analyzed. Yes, scheduling and planning are a necessity but every moment also has to serve the whole recruiting effort and nobody is leaving anything to chance.

In some way, recruiting is a distorted form of dating. Up front, everyone is paying attention to the every detail and putting on their best. Not that I’m any expert but it seems for any relationship to evolve the two parties have to truly get to know each other and get beyond the presentations and marketing efforts. Doing that might take a little proactive work on your part.

One way to do that is to visit on your own. If you’ve doing an unofficial visit, find some time to check things out yourself. Come a day early or stay a while after you leave the coaches without them knowing. Take your own tour of campus and the town. Develop your own feel for the setting and see how it matches up with what the staff has shared with you. Be sure to try and see things on a weekday. College campuses are drastically different Monday through Thursday than they are Friday through Sunday.

Getting Unfiltered Information

Many of my former coaching peers won’t be fond of this idea, but see if you can sneak into a workout or drop in unannounced. Most coaches will share their workout schedule with you and if you can see them in action without their knowing you’ll get a true sense of what being on the floor with them might be like. Some workout facilities don’t offer the chance to slip in without being noticed but dropping in unannounced can still offer some good insight. I can’t imagine any coach telling a recruit that she is not welcome. On visits coaches are careful which individual workout you see and sometimes even plan some of their floor activities with the idea that a recruit will be present.

As impersonal as it sounds, recruiting is sales. Coaches have to sell the opportunity that they’re offering and all of the components that would make it the right choice for you. In doing so they’re not going to just offer up all the negative things that might impact your decision without putting some spin on them. So here’s your chance to put them on the spot a bit. It’s simple; for example, “Coach, you know me well enough to want me in your program, tell me five things I’m not going to like about your program or school.” They should jump at the opportunity since it’s their chance to address those concerns as well. The coach who can’t or won’t provide you with some answers is someone to be suspicious of.

Your areas of interest could be things as simple as parking on campus, the food in the cafeteria or whether the school is a ghost town on the weekend. It may be that the nice dorm they showed you actually isn’t the one you would live in your freshman year or they can’t guarantee that you’ll actually get into the major you want. It might be the percentage of minorities in the entire student population. Coaches love to quote that number from the athletic department rather than the student body as a whole because the percentage is usually higher. Be specific, too. One school I worked at had a 21-percent minority enrollment but only seven percent were African American. Guess which number we offered up when asked?

Talk with the quiet players. On unofficial visits as well as official ones you need to meet and talk with as many members of the team as possible. On an official visit you’ll have a host who’s been carefully selected by the coaching staff. On unofficials there will be players who’ll step up and be more social and forward. These folks are a great resource and will provide you with a lot of information. However, keep in mind that they’ve been completely briefed on you before you arrived on campus and the staff has most likely let them know your interests and concerns. Find the players who aren’t quite as forward and make an effort to ask them the tough questions. It may be that they’re just quiet, but they also may just be the ones who will provide you with more than just the company line.

On any campus visit there are going to be things that aren’t as nice as they were portrayed or how you might have imagined them. At the same time there will be things that exceed your expectations and even some things that had not come up in recruiting conversations that will catch your eye. In the end finding the reality of a campus and a program is evidence of a successful visit. It doesn’t make any school the right or wrong choice but it helps you consider that offer without any makeup or spin.