Getting a College Football Scholarship - Part 3 This is part three of a four part series on college recruiting and scholarship acquisition. This is a topic that is widely misunderstood and complicated. Every year, I know of several players who could have received money for college though football but could not because they were not educated in the recruiting process. What needs to be done, and when? Freshman Like I said, the process starts when the player is a Freshman. The player needs to focus on making great grades. Grades will be important. The player also needs to focus on taking College preparation classes and ACT preparation classes. Let’s face it, not many players will receive full athletic scholarships, the better the grades, the better chance that a college can can find the player some academic money to go with their partial athletic scholarship. The goal here is a free, or as close to a free as possible, education. Football can help in that endeavor, but grades will help as well. The player needs to take the ACT, at least, once a year. The cumulative score is important, but the great thing about colleges, they can take the ACT apart and put it back together again. In other words, If a player gets a high score in the Math portion of the ACT this time and gets low scores in the other categories, but gets a High score in Science next time but a low score in Math. The College can take the High scores out of each test and use those, not just the whole individual test. You need a videographer, or you need to become a videographer. Start early filming the player’s games. Don’t rely on the school filming the games, if you can get out of it. Sure, they probably do it, but sometimes getting copies can be difficult, and then you have the whole “quality” of the film thing. How good is the person doing the filming. If the player is only playing on the Freshman team, film the Freshman games, if he is playing Junior Varsity, film those games, if he is good enough, and you program allows it, and he is playing on the varsity team, then by all means, film those. Get good at filming games. When I say, “get good”, find out how to film football games. Most school film is pretty wide, they want the deepest back on offense and the safety on defense all in the film at the same time. Sometimes that is not the best film to use for recruiting purposes. Along the same line of thinking, film that is too close is not best either. You can’t use film that zooms in on one player. Recruiting film should have the formation visible in the film. The best answer, it will be closer then what the school wants, but further away then what Mommy wants to see her son. Look at some player highlight videos on the Internet and see which ones look good, and which ones do not. That will give you a good idea of what you want. And, while we are at it, do not add music to the highlight video. College Coaches hate that. This is not a video to pull off the self every once in a while to look at and remember how good a player was. This is an evaluation tool for College Coaches. No music, not even a little. In fact, have no sound what so ever on the video. No crowd, no cheering, no music, just silence. That’s all you need to do at this point, just film the games and put them back for now. After school is out and we are now in the summer between the players Freshman and Sophomore year, it’s camp time. Go to, at least, several college camps. Get some exposure, see what coaches are looking for, see what the competition looks like, and get better at playing football. While the player is there, look around at what the college has to offer, see if that is a college that the player would like to attend. Register with the NCAA and NAIA Clearinghouses. A player doesn’t have to register until they are a Junior, but do it now. It doesn’t take very long and costs around sixty-five dollars. Do it now. One reason why, every time you take the ACT or SAT, you can have the results sent directly to the Clearinghouses and not have to do it later. The Clearinghouses have codes, just like colleges, that you place on your ACT registration and the ACT goes directly to the Clearinghouse. The NCAA Eligibility Center ACT Code is: 9999 The NAIA Eligibility Center ACT Code is: 9876 Make a Freshman Highlight Video. Not long, just about 5 minutes, no more then 10 minutes. Seriously, not longer then 10 minutes. Take all the game films from the players Freshman year and make a short video. You will need some kind of film editing software, use what you like. I am a Mac user and use iMovie. I have found the Mac to be great for various media uses and iMovie is easy to learn on your own. But, use what is comfortable and accessible. No music, dead silence on the Highlight video. Very important: on the title page of the video, put the player’s name, high school name, what number they are wearing, what color uniform they are wearing, what position they are playing, and the players contact information. It does no good to send a video to a College Coach if he doesn’t know who the player is that you want him to watch. Put the Highlight video on Youtube and be sure to title it with the player’s name and “Freshman Highlight Video”. Now, you have a very easy and fast way to send film to any coach you want. Make a Player Profile. A Player Profile is a resume for a football player. The Player Profile should have the player’s name, address, phone numbers and a picture (just a close head shot so the coaches can see what he looks like). It should also have the name of the player’s school, his high school coach’s name with his contact information. The profile should also have a list of all the player’s maxes, 40 times, bench, squat, dead lift, clean. Don’t forget the player’s grade point average and test scores. Also, list all the players accomplishments for his Freshman year. You will need to edit and add to this Player Profile each year all the way though the player’s Senior year. This is a great time to get a three-ring binder. You are going to need it. Fill it with notebook paper and place tab dividers in the binder, preferably tab dividers with pockets in them for placing mailings. Label each tab divider, one for FBS, one for BCS, one for D-II, one for D-III, and one for NAIA. Make a paper in each class for each college you communicate with. This binder will become invaluable. Each time you communicate with a college, write it down on the paper for that college. It may seem simple right now, but as you communicate with ten, twenty, or fifty colleges it gets complicated and it’s hard to remember what was said. Keep notes on the college’s page of what was said to the Coach, and what the Coach said, to remind you of what happened in that communication. Put any mailings that you receive in the pocket of the Tab Divider for that class. Go ahead and put a copy of the Player Profile in there as well for safe keeping and reference. Also, put that Freshman Highlight Video on a CD and put that in there as well for safe keeping. The binder will become “Recruiting Central”. Now, send the Highlight video and Player Profile to some College Coaches with a short email introducing yourself. Notice that I phrased that as instructions for the player. College Coaches do not want an email from mommy or daddy, they want emails from the players. They want to know that the player is interested. Just a short email from the player with the youtube link of the highlight video and a copy of his Player Profile. Don’t expect a response, due to the player being a Freshman. But, this contact with get the player in the Coach’s database and on the radar. Log in the binder that you made this contact with the program. Sophomore The player needs to keep focusing on his grades, the better the grades, the better chance he has of getting a free college education. Take the ACT, at least, once in the Sophomore year and send the results to the NCAA and NAIA Clearinghouses. Video all the games again, Junior Varsity and/or Varsity. Be sure do a good job and make quality video. No music, ever. At the conclusion of the season, make a Sophomore Highlight Video about ten minutes long, no music. Be sure to put the proper information on the Title Page so the College Coaches will know who to look at. Put the video on youtube. Update the Player Profile with any changes in contact information, increases in maxes and academic improvements. Add the Sophomore accomplishments. In the Spring of the Sophomore year, the player may start getting camp invitations and questionnaires. If they don’t, that’s OK. He can still register for the College Camps and attend. Attend as many College Camps as possible, preferable College Camps that have the most college coaches as possible. Some big Colleges will have a lot of D-II, D-III and NAIA coaches there helping run the camp. The smaller college coaches are there to evaluate players, nothing else, they don’t come to the camps to help the big college coaches out, they are there to find players. Email some more coaches, send them the Player Profile and Highlight Video link. Add a short introduction. Again, don’t expect a response, but they got it and added the player to their database. Log all camps and college contacts in the binder. It’s very important to keep track of who you have contacted and what happened in that contact. It will get complicated. Junior Things get kicked up a notch during the Junior year. The player will take the ACT at school this year, but it is a good idea to take it, at least once more toward the end of the year. The player will have gained a great deal of knowledge this year to increase their score. Most schools provide ACT prep during the Junior year because they know all Juniors will be taking the ACT at school and they want to advertise the school average ACT as high as possible. Be sure to sent the ACT results to the NCAA and NAIA Clearinghouses. The player needs to focus on grades still. The better the grade point average, the better the chance of a free college education. Film all the games, hopefully the player is playing Varsity and the film will be of Varsity competition, but if playing Junior Varsity, film that. Make a Highlight Video and post it on youtube after the season is complete. Update the Player Profile with all the player improvements and accomplishments during the Junior year. Send as many College Coaches as possible the Player Profile and a link to the Junior Highlight Video. As many as possible. Don’t just focus on D-I coaches, send it to D-I, D-II, D-III, and NAIA coaches. As many as possible. Also, visit each college’s website, they all have a “Recruit” or “Prospective Player” tab. When you click on that, it will have a questionnaire, fill that out for each college. Even if you send a Player Profile with more information then the questionnaire, the Coach will still need you to fill out the questionnaire. Stay ahead of the game and have it filled out before they ask you to, it shows initiative and a good work ethic. Log all those contacts and emails in the binder for every college you have had contact with. The player will probably start getting responses at this point. Answer all emails from Coaches. Answer all emails from coaches, always. You never know when that may be the college you want to end up at. They may start inviting the player to college games or just college visits. Go to as many as possible. After the first Wednesday in February, a Junior is now a Senior as far as the College Coaches are concerned. They have finished working on the true Seniors and are now focused on next year. Contacts may explode, be prepared. This may be a good time to send some more emails because now all the coaches are focused on are the Juniors. They are not sharing time between the Seniors and Juniors. It’s all Juniors, all the time now. Go to as many College Camps this summer as possible. The Player is now a Senior as far as the College Coaches are concerned. This is their last summer to attend camps and be on campus performing for coaches. Go to as many College Camps as possible. And go to camps with as many coaches as possible. Each camp is a try-out, the player should look at it as such. Everything they do is being evaluated. Not just their playing ability, but their attitude, they work ethic, their personality, and how they carry themselves. The summer camps are very important this year. This may be the last time a coach sees that player perform. Senior The player still needs to focus on grades, they don’t want to have a drop in GPA their senior year. Keep working on those grades. If they can take the ACT again prior to December 31st, they should take it. But, this semester is going to be very busy and it would be better if they had already achieved a high score and don’t have to take it again. Colleges will invite players to their home games for Game Visits. Going to these get a little tricky. There are only so many Saturdays in the fall and only so many home games for any given college. The player will have to choose which college game they want to attend. They will be attending College Games on Saturdays after playing a high school game on Friday. This will be a very busy time for the player. Video the games. College Coaches will want a Highlight Video of the first four games of a player’s Senior season. Video the first four games and post that Highlight Video on youtube as soon as possible after the fourth game. As soon as the Early Senior Highlight Video is posted, send emails with links to the video to as many coaches as possible. Also, send the updated Player Profile and fill out each college’s questionnaire on their website, even if you filled it out before. Colleges purge those from time to time and your may have been purged after the National Signing Day for the previous class. Be sure to fill a new one out in the early part of your senior year. Coaches will probably respond to emails freely at this point. Respond back to them promptly. They want to talk to the player and get to know them. Make sure any coach that communicates with you has seen the Senior Highlight Video, if not, send it to them. Start applying for admission to all colleges. This needs to be done prior to December. Most colleges do not charge an admissions fee, some do. But, apply to any college that you think the player may possible be attending. Apply early. After the first semester of the Senior year, have the high school guidance counselor send a seven-semester transcript to the NCAA and NAIA Clearinghouse. In the Spring of the Senior year, colleges that are interested will want the player to come on campus and stay overnight with a host player. They may go to a basketball game or baseball game, hang out with the other players and look around campus. A good opportunity to see what college life is like and to determine if the player wants to attend that school. Woooo, Part Three was a big one. That is a lot of information, let it sink in for a while and we will wrap up with Part Four next week, when we will discuss some optional things that you may have heard of and some more tips you need to know. Keep an eye out for it. bluegrasspreps/ky-football-high/getting-college-football-262327.html
Posted on: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 20:39:53 +0000
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