High School Athletics Will Be Obsolete In 10 Years

The focus should be to maintain superior grades and athletic ability. The recruiting process is a trap.

Sometimes student-athletes and their parents are led to believe they are better than what they are.

They are tricked into believing they should put all their eggs in one basket when it comes to Division I athletic programs.

My thoughts are this: If you are a top-ranked student-athlete in your sport then yes, by all means, you can probably play at the Division I level.

There’s nothing wrong with dreaming big and wanting the best, but remember the recruiting process is a trap.

Division II sports programs and many lesser-known college programs don’t receive the big–time ESPN coverage.

Their names are not recognized. Their coaches are invisible. The schools have very little or no recognition. They’re unappealing, in some respects, to the naked eye.

Nobody wants to go to a college program that’s not on TV, has never been heard of, and the coaches have no time in the spotlight. Division II, Division III, and NAIA athletic programs are not appealing.

This is why I believe many student-athletes are not interested in the lower-level college programs. When you go to college you’re there to get an education, you’re there to earn a college degree. I can guarantee you one thing: that when you receive your college degree it will not say what division you played at.

Recruiting is a trap because everyone is focused on Division I. Recruiting is a trap because by the time student-athletes realize that they’re not Division I caliber, they have burned up valuable time.

Recruiting is a trap. Student-athletes are going into the recruiting process blind with no plan. They don’t know what they’re doing. They’re just sitting back and waiting for recruiting to come to them. Those student-athletes who are not ranked are already in trouble.

The recruiting process is a huge trap. There are going to be the forgotten ones at the end of the recruiting process. Those student-athletes who were good, who have very good grades, are good citizens, went to all the camps, and they did everything the right way but, yet and still, they ended up not going to college.

The recruiting process is a trap.

• Your video sucks.
• You suck as a student-athlete.
• Your grades suck.
• You waited too late to start.
• No help from your coach.
• Your high school team sucks.
• Your teammates suck.
• Your club team sucks.
• You changed teams.
• You’re not ranked.

Your parents are spending thousands of dollars every year to send you to camp. A camp where college coaches are in attendance. At tournaments, also.

You continue to spend big money every year. What are you getting actually?

Did you get a letter from a college coach?

Did you receive a phone call from a college coach?

Did you get a text message or email from a college coach?

The recruiting process is a trap because you’re going to camps, you’re playing in tournaments, and at the end of all of that money you spent, you got nothing.

The Solution To The Trap.

It’s critical for student-athletes to get their name out to college coaches themselves.  Once you have figured out that you have incredible talent and the ability to play at the college level, develop a strategy to get your name into the hands of as many college programs as possible.

Always have video. Invest in a good video camera. Your parents could record your games, your workouts, your practices, all the tournaments and camps you’re attending.

Video is going to help break the gap of your not being ranked. Rankings suck and, in my opinion, means very little.

Did you know there are student–athletes who are ranked who will probably end up at the Division I level and within a year or two their names will be completely forgotten?

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to recruiting because it’s a trap.

Spread your name around to all college programs. Start with college programs in your home state to target. Expand your list of college programs to all in neighboring states.

Continue to expand your list of Division I, D II, D III, and NAIA college programs.

The reason I say focus on all of these divisions is because you never know where the scholarship is going to come from. You want to go where you’re going to be given a real opportunity to play and to compete for a starting position.

You want to be in a college program where you’re going to get a great education. That great education is going to keep you from working a lifetime of minimum wage jobs, minimum wage misery, and a minimum wage lifestyle.

The trap of the college recruiting process is real. There are huge numbers of student-athletes chasing the dream of college.

Sometimes the high school or club coach is only in it for the glory and not the student-athlete.

They’re promoting student-athletes to college programs to gain access to college coaches.

The recruiting process is a trap and the recruiting process is unfair.

You also have a large segment of high school and club coaches who refuse to be involved with recruiting.  Their lack of involvement is hurting the student-athletes.

The recruiting process is a trap.

• Bad coaches
• Coaches with an agenda
• Coaching is ego-driven
• Some coaches are looking out for themselves

Sometimes the recruiting process is ego-driven. You have these club coaches who are pushing these kids to college coaches and their programs.

They’re trying to do a favor for a college coach. The club coach with his ego is expecting something in return if he pushes enough kids to that college program.

There are club coaches who can’t coach. There are club coaches who never played in college. There are club coaches who look like they have never picked up a ball a day in their life, but somehow they are anointing themselves as the all-knowing experts of recruiting.

There are student athletes and parents who are being misled and are told unrealistic stories about recruiting that they may never achieve.

The student-athlete is told he’s a major college talent.

The parent is told if you go to these camps you will get the exposure.

While all of this is going on opportunities at other college programs are disappearing day by day.

The recruiting process is a trap with a battlefield of shattered beliefs and bodies of the recruiting process.

Spread across the shattered landscape of recruiting are the shattered dreams, hopes, and desires of the recruiting process that are being smashed and crushed daily by coaches, tournament organizers, and those knuckleheads who know nothing about recruiting and are destroying the lives of student-athletes.

Recruiting is a trap, it always has been and always will be.

Parents are investing money into the process with no real guarantees.

The falsehood of the Unsigned Senior event is another trap. Four to six years is the lifespan of the recruiting process for many student-athletes. If it’s not going to happen in that time frame, then more than likely it will never happen.

Now, an organizer is putting together the Unsigned Senior event and on this one particular weekend this event is going to replace hundreds of weekends of missed recruiting opportunities.

Now all your college recruiting problems will be solved at this event, which is not free. If you believe in this event, I would like to sell you my ownership rights in the Brooklyn Bridge!

Recruiting is a trap.

I have seen promising high school talent never reach their full potential of going to college. These student-athletes were misled throughout the entire college recruiting process.

Believe it or not some student-athletes are told to not take the standardized test.

Some student-athletes believe they did not have to maintain their grades to be eligible for college.

Misguided student-athletes believed their athletic ability meant more than criminal behavior and it would be overlooked because they could play a sport.

Bamboozled student-athletes believe totally their athletic ability supersedes everything.

• Bad grades.
• Bad attitude.
• Bad work ethic.
• Bad behavior.
• Recruiting is a trap.

Of course there is the positive side of the recruiting process. A student-athlete has the talent, the grades, all the intangibles needed to get exposure.

College coaches watches the player on video or in person at a camp or tournament. The college coach likes what he sees.

The recruiting process begins.

The student-athlete is receiving letters from many different college programs.

The student-athlete is maintaining good grades and superior athletic ability along with being a good citizen in the community. Recruiting is going great. Recruiting is smooth. The process is unbelievable and extremely exciting for the student-athlete and the parents.

A half dozen or more college programs have made offers to the student-athlete for full scholarships. Normally the student-athlete will weigh their options with parents and coaches.

The student-athlete has finally come to a decision and on national letter-of-intent day, they make the decision known to the world.

They have decided on a college program. They have picked the school. Everything in the world is great and everyone is happy. It’s time for the next chapter in life. They’re off the college.  

That is the ideal college recruiting scenario. Obviously, if you are a high-school student–athlete this is exactly how you want recruiting to play out.

If you’re the parent you’re extremely excited for your son or daughter. The high school coach can breathe a sigh of relief because he/she helped maybe, maybe not get one of his/her student-athletes recruited.

Recruiting is a trap.

We spent a great deal talking about how the recruiting process is a trap and a lot of the negative aspects of recruiting. It’s a dirty business. It’s a kill-or-be-killed scenario in recruiting on the major college level.

All of the major college coaches and programs are recruiting the best players. The student-athletes are pawns in a chess match of recruiting.

The college coaches are being paid millions of dollars. The pressure is enormous. They have to recruit the best players to win the games. If they fall short then they’re going to end up broadcasting games on ESPN as opposed to coaching.

You may think you’re a Division I caliber player. You may think you could play at the highest level. As a student-athlete you have to be absolutely sure. The one thing you don’t want to do is spend all your time chasing Division I when they’re not going to chase you back!

Final Thoughts

Make no mistake about it, and there is no doubt about it, recruiting is a trap. Student-athletes who are privileged enough to pick the college program they wish to play for are the exception to the trap.

The millions of other student athletes from all high school sports have to shell out big bucks just for the privilege of being seen by college coaches.

Their parents are spending thousands of dollars every year to attend camps, play in tournaments, joining club teams, video, paying for the standardized tests, and registration fees with the NCAA Clearinghouse. Recruiting can be very expensive and obviously the reward is a full athletic scholarship so I guess it’s worth it.

Everybody wants to go to college to play their sport and get an education. It’s worth it.

Prepare in advance for the recruiting process to avoid the recruiting trap.

Failure is not an option! How many times have we heard that cliché in movies?

Failure is common among college scouts and recruiting services. The reason, in my opinion, is mainly due to lack of information.

You’re only as good as the last parent who paid for your service.

Too many, and I mean far too many recruiting services are not getting enough business. Without a steady stream of cash flow you’re going to be out of business real fast.

There’s a lot to learn about being a successful college scout. I am providing you a critical glimpse of what is needed to achieve long–lasting success.

Playbook: This website will serve as an ongoing playbook. Without a playbook you’ll be running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

• We all need direction.

• We all need information.

• It’s important to have resources.

You can look around across the Internet and you will not find any information whatsoever on how to be a college scout.

Just about every other subject is covered.

Goal Setting: It’s important to have a road map. It’s important to have direction. The best way to do that I believe is to set goals. We will discuss in great detail on this website about strategies needed to set goals. I think those are critical because it gives you something to shoot for.

• You can set short-term goals that are 3 months.
• Mid-term goals which are 6 months.  
• Long-term goals which are 12 months.

The goal should be realistic. Saying something like I want a million dollars in a year is a nice goal, but it’s unrealistic.

We want realistic, achievable goals and that’s what we’re going to work on with this website.

Strategies:  A large segment of college scouts and recruiting services have no strategies. They’re just winging it and making it up as they go along.

• We will cover strategies on this website.
• It’s important to have a blueprint.
• It’s important to have a roadmap.
• It’s important to have strategies.
• Strategies are critical components to succeed as a college scout.

Role-Play:  In this process you’re going to ask parents of student-athletes a lot of questions.

You’re going give a presentation to parents. Why not practice everything you do in a role-play scenario?

Just think what it would be like if a sports team never practiced. They wouldn’t succeed at all. The level of disorganization and utter confusion would be off the charts. It would be a complete disaster on all levels.

One of the great ways to avoid total disaster is role-play.

Role-play is like that scrimmage game where you get to work things out then you go back and critique, analyze, and study before you actually do it for real.

Questions:  Questions control the conversation in the presentation. The more questions you have the more control you will have.

Have better questions will push you a giant step closer to signing up the parent.

The parent, outside of the student-athlete, is the most critical component in your role as a college scout. The parent is going to pay for your service. It’s important that you have questions.

It’s critical that you understand the kinds of questions you need.

Presentation:  It is show time.

It is presentation time.

It is time for you as the college scout to explain to the parents how you’re going to help their son or daughter.

The floor is yours.

You are now on center stage.

The moment of truth is here.

It’s important that you understand how to properly conduct a presentation.

It’s all about the first impressions. If you screw it up you’re going to have a hard time getting those parents to listen to you ever again.

The Closing Question: Your job is to close. This is where we separate the winners from the losers. If you can’t close you’re not going to be successful.

The great closers are confident men and women. You’re going to learn how to close.

You’re going to learn all the strategies on how to deliver a strong closing question and get the parents of high school student-athletes to sign up with you.

Objection: If not handled properly the objection could hit you in the face like a brick.

• Objection means no.
• Objection means not interested.
• Objection means we want to think it over.
• Objection means we’ll call you first don’t call us back.
• Objection can be devastating.
• Objection is part of the business.

Every parent you encounter is not going to say yes, but it also means that every parent will not say no either.

Let me be clear, there is no way to get around the objection. I think it’s important from the very beginning to understand objections and to embrace it and to learn to love it.

On this website you’re going to learn various techniques on objections, comebacks, and various scenarios on how to fight back with parents who offer up the many objections you’re bound to encounter.

I’m going to refer to a lot of what sports teams do. I think being a college scout is directly parallel to NFL football. There’s a lot of mistakes, there’s a lot of rejection, there’s a lot of things that can go on and go wrong in a football game.

The good coaches make adjustments. The great coaches know how to capitalize on adjustments to succeed to greater heights. It’s critical that you understand the objection and learn from it.

The Follow-Up Phone Call: A lot of college scouts struggle with the follow-up phone call.

You’ve already given your presentation to the parents. They know how much it costs and let’s assume they have an understanding to a certain degree of what you’re going to do for them.

Now the moment of truth. The follow-up phone call brings a huge amount of anxiety, nervousness, and stress to a lot of college scouts.

Some scouts don’t know what to do; they’re so frustrated and nervous that they fail. We will cover this topic in great detail.

Rejection: We can’t win them all. No one’s going to be 100%, that goes for college scouts and recruiting services.

• Rejection is a big part of the business.
• Everyone you talk to is not going to sign up with you.
• You’re going to put your best effort out there.
• You’re going to do everything by the book.
• You’re going to do everything by the numbers.
• Great presentation, great questions, great follow-up questions, everything is going smoothly.
• With all that being said the parent still may not sign up with you.
• It happens and it happens to the best of us.
• We’re going to talk about rejection a great deal on this website and how to deal with it.
• Far too many scouts give up and are run out of the business because they can’t handle rejection.

Social Media: Social media is here to stay. Social media is very important and it’s very important that you understand how to use it the right way.

Most people use it to post things about their family, photos of their vacation stuff like that.

That’s good and there’s nothing wrong with it. For the purpose of running a recruiting service and being a college scout you can do a lot more to reach your audience.

You have a voice to get your message out. It’s a powerful tool, social media. I think many college scouts don’t use it enough.

Final Thoughts

I love the business. I love going to games, being around players and coaches.

I have great relationships with college coaches. This is a fun business that can put a lot of money in your pocket.

If done correctly this could be a full-time business with income equal to or more than what you’re earning at your current job.

I want this website to be a hub for all college scouts and recruiting services, to get the information they need to make more money and be extremely successful.

No doubt about it you’re in business and all business professionals are looking to make a profit. There’s nothing wrong with charging a fee. Your services are not free.

You want to be respected and taken seriously. There will be knuckleheads out there.

There’s always going to be haters who are against recruiting services. Pay these morons no mind. Ignore the noise. Who cares what these people think?

You’re a business professional you’re trying to help kids get into college. It is big business.

We’re never going to run out of student-athletes. We’re never going to run out of the opportunity to assist them. This is a big country and I believe there’s enough business out here for every recruiting service to succeed.

I have a ton of knowledge. I want to share that knowledge with all of you.

We’re going to have a lot of blog posts that will provide information to help you do a better job as a college scout.

Also, your voice will be heard. Please leave a comment. Please give your thoughts and opinions, I want to hear what you think.

I’m also going to write stories of my experiences as a college scout

The bottom line is, I want all of you to succeed! The student-athletes will benefit from it and that is what we’re here for.

Recruiting is hard. The process is long and sometimes confusing. The debate has always been, when should a student-athlete begin the recruiting process?

There’s no correct answer when it should begin. The process is based solely on the athletic development of the student-athlete.

Let’s not forget the academic development as well.  All student-athletes develop and mature at different levels and different phases of their lives.

There may be some student-athletes who are in middle school and have developed physically to the point where they probably could begin the recruiting process now. There are others who may not develop until their junior or senior year of high school.

I would base my decision on development, academics, and the desire to play at the college level.

When To Start The Recruiting Process

There are so many components in recruiting.

The process of going from high school athlete to college athlete is a long. When you see student-athletes on the National Letter-of-Intent Day and they’re excited, holding up a hat or jersey indicating what college program they’re going to be playing for, it’s a combination of their years of hard work and dedication to their sport. It’s years of academic development, it’s years of blood, sweat, and tears, it’s years of financial commitment to their sport and their overall growth and development.

This is something that didn’t happen overnight. A lot of student-athletes have been at it since the 7th grade through senior year. That’s six years of dedication towards recruiting.

Key Components.

• Academic Development.
• Athletic Development.
• Club Or Travel Ball.
• Personal Trainer.
• Great Video.

When To Start The Recruiting Process

The day after the NLI Signing Day, there will be many student-athletes who are unsigned. Then you’ll begin to see popping up everywhere Unsigned Senior events. Those are traps, so be careful.

You mean to tell me that after four to six years of being involved in the recruiting process, that one weekend is going to erase all of those years of recruiting failure?

In a single weekend, when hundreds of weekends have disappeared without anything positive happening in recruiting, all of that will change because of an unsigned senior event?

Magically, college coaches will finally appear and take notice of the student-athletes at this event. If you are stupid enough to believe that, I would like to sell you my ownership rights in the Brooklyn Bridge.

When To Start The Recruiting Process

Start the recruiting process today without delay. Unfortunately, you have student-athletes and parents who sit back and do nothing when it comes to recruiting.

Recruiting is like a toothache; the longer you avoid going to the dentist, the worse it will get. If you sit back and do nothing the problem and the pain won’t go away, it will still be there.

When To Start The Recruiting Process

The recruiting process starts on so many levels. If you play on a club team in tournaments or you’re at camps where college coaches are in attendance, that’s a great way to get exposure.

It’s the summer months where recruiting begins and ends for many student-athletes. There’s also going to be student-athletes who still get overlooked at those summer exposure events.

There’s just too many student-athletes out there and not enough college coaches to see them all play.

It’s critical to begin the process early. This gives you years to build relationships with college coaches. It’s totally worth it because the Ultimate Prize is a full athletic scholarship.

Final Thoughts

Recruiting absolutely is not the same for every student athlete. It’s important to understand that if you are ready to start the recruiting process start now. Map out a strategy of what college programs you wish to target. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, meaning don’t focus all your attention on division 1. Look at division 2 programs as well.

I would want to know how many schools I could get interested in me and how many scholarship offers I could get. I’d also like to know who’s not interested in me and get them out the way immediately.

If you’re one of the top 1% of high school student-athletes in the country the information in this blog post doesn’t apply to you.

To the other 99% of the high school student-athletes, all of this information is for you.

Begin the recruiting process now. Be consistent in your approach to the college programs. Don’t give up! Be relentless and good things will happen.

There are a lot of student athletes who are in their senior year of high school and are finding it challenging to get college programs interested in them.

Some of the student athletes may have received a letter or phone call or two from a college program but not much else.

This could mean that your college recruiting strategy may be a little off and could use some recharging.  I thought I would come up with a list of some things you could do to improve the college recruiting process for you:

 

1.  Start calling college coaches now.  If you’re in your senior year of high school and the recruiting process has slowed down, now’s the time to take a more aggressive approach.

There may be schools that contacted you by phone or letter and maybe email. I would take a hard core approach and call each and every one of those coaches.  Your goal is to see if they have an interest in you and if they don’t then move on.

 

2.  If you’ve established yourself with college coaches and they know who you are then I would start emailing these coaches every day until you get a response from them to find out exactly what their intentions are.

If these college programs are interested in you, you can ask them how to move forward. If they’re not interested in you, you must move on.

 

3.  The handwritten letter approach is a powerful and personal approach for student athletes.  Student athletes who are in their senior year should be writing a personal letter to college coaches. This could help recharge the college recruiting process.

A one page handwritten letter may not get lost in all of the other junk mail that college coaches receive each day.  If there’s a particular coach that you are writing to, of course address that letter directly to that coach.

In your letter get right to the point and ask that coach what their intentions are with you.  If they write you back with their answer then go forward from there. If there’s no interest then move on.

Final thoughts: Sometimes the college recruiting process can change for seniors.  College programs can be very interested in you but for some unknown reason, they change their minds.

I believe it’s important to have a long list of college programs to start the college recruiting process because anything can change.

If the college recruiting process has slowed down for high school seniors, you must move into attack mode and aggressively start contacting as many college programs in the remaining months and weeks as you can before you graduate from high school.