Why do some high school student athletes slip through the cracks? Why is it that good players whom you’ve followed for years end up having a very hard time finding a college or not finding a college at all?

I’ve seen this happen over and over again. Who dropped the ball? Who messed up? Is it the high school coach’s fault or the parent’s fault? Sometimes you’ll see a kid at camp and he or she has the talent but ends up at a division III school or no school at all. Why does this happen?

I know everyone cannot play at division I level but there is a college out there for everyone. It amazes me that players are missed even by division I or division II programs. In college recruiting these days no player should ever be missed. Most college programs, even the ones that have no recruiting budget at all still have other resources available to them.

We all know about recruiting services and what they can do. Some are good but most are not very good and they cannot get the job done.

We know about message boards and how they have became a powerful tool in recruiting. There is so much information out there about players that it would be almost impossible to miss them but it still happens.

The average high school student athletes out there most likely will end up at a division II program and possibly a division III program. The reasons are more if not all D-II programs don’t offer scholarships. They offer what is called “Tuition Waivers” but you still have to pay for something. I have been a college recruiter for a very long time and a huge number of talented high school athletes slip through the cracks of recruiting all the time.

There are a millions of reasons why this happens. One reason is a lack of real understanding of the college recruiting process. Many families really don’t know what they should be doing from one thing to the next, sometimes from one day to the next.

Most parents and high school student athletes do not have anyone working with them in this process which is crazy and most of the time makes no real since. Everyone who is dealing with the college recruiting process will at some point in the process need help.

Many high school athletes who are very good at their sport often make the mistake of just holding on, thinking that college coaches will come calling. The funny thing is many players do get phone calls and letters all the time the problem is knowing which college programs are serious about you and which ones are not. When good high school athletes slip through the recruiting cracks most of the time it’s not their fault. Who is helping that student in the very challenging process of college recruiting?

Sometimes it’s about how to make the process work for you. What I mean is who is getting your information out to the college coach, who is making phones on your behalf, who is doing the follow-up phone calls? Keep in mind that college coaches will often forget who you are at times only because they are getting bombarded with information from many other high school student athletes, parents and high schools coaches.

Think about your DVD. Is that getting mailed out to college coaches? Do you even have a DVD? These days college programs don’t go to many high school games anymore, so without a DVD to send to them, they will never know who you are or what you can really do athletically.

Very important here: what about your grades? Are you in good academic standing? Many high student athletes slip up here.

Many years ago a very good basketball player from North Carolina had a few personal things going on in her life and I was trying to get her to go with my recruiting service. Back in those days, I was charging a fee for the service. She was the top scorer on her team at the point guard position and she was scoring big numbers. She was a very good student and I think at the time, she had a 4.0 GPA.

I had many conversations with this young lady’s mother about going with my recruiting service. The mother said that her daughter was being recruited, getting letters and phone calls from college coaches all the time and that everything was great. Well a month or two later things were not so great. They overlooked something; in spite of the fact that this young lady had a 4.0 GPA, someone did not tell them to take either the SAT or ACT tests. She never took the tests.

The mother thought that because her daughter had a 4.0 GPA that she did not need to take the tests. After doing some digging in this issue with the mother and the young lady, I found out that she had in fact taken the test but scored poorly. The mother came to the conclusion that they didn’t need to take any more tests because of the high GPA.

Let me tell you this people; without a good passing test score on either the SAT or ACT you are not getting into college! You could be the next big superstar athlete who can do no wrong but when it comes to college, without those test scores you can forget about it! You’re not getting in!

The mother felt that she was misled; believing the coaches and school administrators-that everything was ok and the young lady felt the same. They really paid no more attention to this situation and focused on her basketball skills and not the test scores.

Key point here to all student athletes and parents: if you’re playing a sport in high school now no matter what year you’re in or how good you are right now, take the test or take the practice test to see how well you  do. Just like in the sports you play; the more you practice the better you will do.  These tests are just as important as someone scoring average in basketball, rushing yards or passing yards in football, kills in volleyball. You would be surprised at the number of high school student athletes out there right now who are in their senior year and have not even taken the test for the first time.

The young lady who had the game to play at a major college level now must look at junior colleges and had they been better informed and had a better and clearer understanding of what was needed, they would have never been in this mess in the first place. Funny as it may be, this type of thing goes on all the time with students and test scores.

Many high school student athletes are lazy and oftentimes many will not return questionnaires mailed to them by college coaches. The reason is that in some situations, the college program may be on a lower level or not a program they are familiar with. To me this is telling the college coaches ‘I’m not interested in your program at all!’ Big mistake people! What you’re doing is burning down the house of the college recruiting process. You have in fact closed the door. The recruiting process, at this point, is over! They’re not coming back to you!

There was this baseball player I was working with at which time I had started the recruiting process with him and had been looking at all the college baseball programs in his region. This young man lived in Georgia by the way. I was doing all the things that I do when working with a student athlete. The funny thing here were the phone calls I was getting from college programs about this baseball player. Most of the college baseball programs already knew of this young man. That was no surprise to me. He was good and had the game to play at the major college level. Most of these college programs said that they talked to this young man on the phone, mailed questionnaires and letters but the young man did not return anything to any of these coaches.

The reason was like many I’ve heard a million times before: that ‘if it’s not D-1 then I’m not talking to them.’ That was this young man’s point of view! In his mind, he was the best and felt he could play at a major college level. The only problem was there were no major colleges recruiting him. He only wanted Division I programs even though there were many others who would take him now.

Sometimes, slipping through the cracks of the college recruiting process is not the college coach’s fault but oftentimes is the player’s and parent’s fault. Most parents are really misinformed and when it does not work out, many parents want to point the finger at high school coaches, college recruiting services, and anyone else who has a hand in it. Slipping through the cracks of the college recruiting process does happen but now you know why and how it happens.

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