Tag Archives: Athletes

What Does “Potential”, As It Relates to Student Athletes, Really Mean?

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How many times have we all heard the phrase, “That player has potential!”?  The word “potential”, in the world of athletics, basically means that the player can be really good or he or she can be the greatest student athlete ever.

There are a huge number of highly skilled high school athletes who all have the potential to be great.  Many of these talented high school athletes are trying every day to figure out how to get better athletically.  All student athletes work very hard to get better and are constantly looking for ways to improve.  ‘Potential” basically means all of that.

Because of high expectations for high school athletes, many will fall short of achieving any level of athletic success.  The reason: competition. There’s always going to be a player out there who is working just a little bit harder than you are.  There’s always some high school athlete who wants that success more than the average player.

Only the high school athletes who are the absolute best will have the skill set to reach the college level.  That’s exactly what college programs are looking for; only the best high school student athletes.

“Potential” is a funny word because you can look at a high school athlete who may have all the skills, the size, and many other incredible intangibles and college programs will take a chance on a player who they can develop just because they have this “potential”.

Then, there are high school student athletes who possess a certain level of skill and a certain level of talent but it may not translate to the college level or it will translate to the division three level where many high school athletes basically are not interested in that level of competition at all.

Sometimes I think the word “potential” can even be a damaging word to high school student athletes because of the pressure placed on them.  When you see a high school athletes who are really doing well, automatically everyone will say he/she has the potential to be great.  When a student athlete falls short and does not reach their full potential, then that high school athlete becomes an embarrassment.

High school student athletes: if you do not want to fall short athletically based on the word “potential” that has been placed on all athletes, I suggest you work as hard as you possibly can on your game.  The pressures of failure should be your desire to work ten times harder, to never see failure.

3 Ways to Recharge the College Recruiting Process

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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.

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My Dinner with Three Living Athletes

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If you could have dinner with three living athletes, who are they and why would you have dinner with them? They can be college or pro athletes and it does not matter what sport, male or female. Maybe there are three athletes that most grew up idolizing and are now given an opportunity for dinner or just one night and I’m wondering what would you all talk about with the athletes you choose. I’ve been pondering this subject for a long time because there are so many great athletes and sports to choose from. Personally, there are little stories behind each of the athletes I’d choose:

Willie Mays: Growing up, the very first baseball game I ever went to see was with Willie Mays. I was about 8 years old at the time. My father, mother, brother and myself all went to the game played in San Francisco which was where we lived at that time. All I can remember about the game was that it was cold, it was in June and it was the first game of a double-header. We stayed for some of the second game but then we left.  We saw Willie Mays play.  At eight years old, this was my first real introduction to professional sports of any kind.  Back in those days, baseball was still America’s past time and free of any illegal drug use and corruption by the players and the owners. At the time we saw Willie Mays play, it was near the end of his great Hall of Fame career.  Six years later, Willie Mays was playing for the New York Mets in the World Series and it wasn’t the same Willie Mays; during that time it was clearly past his prime.

Hank Aaron is next on my list. Back when I was in college, Hank Aaron came to West Virginia State College during my junior year to give a speech so naturally, most of my teammates wanted to hear the speech. I really don’t remember too much about what he said. I do remember that we were all told to not ask him for an autograph. So Hank Aaron did his speech and they showed that homerun he hit and all that; anyone who knows baseball has seen that homerun a thousand times. No big deal right? The speech was no big deal and Hank Aaron seemed a little nervous anyway. He was reading it from a piece of paper.

When the speech was over, Hank Aaron was just standing there and I must have been 12 to 15 feet away from him. I was looking right at one of the greatest baseball players of all time and there was no way in hell I was not going to get an autograph even though they told us to more or less stay away from him. I mean, what were they going to do to me? I was a junior and the basketball season had just ended so they couldn’t kick me off the team or make me run after practice or any of that and I didn’t care if they did any way. I was going to get an autograph from Hank Aaron!

So, there I was with about 3 or 4 of my teammates standing around talking, “What should we do?”, one of them said to me. I said. “ I don’t know about you but I’m going over there!” And so I did. I began walking towards Hank Aaron and the other guys followed close behind me like we were in some kind of trouble. I was thinking for a minute that some armed guards would come out of nowhere and shoot us down or something!

I mean, that was Hank Aaron I was walking towards! So I get there, my teammates right behind me and then Hank Aaron, the greatest baseball player of all time, says to us, “ Hey fellows! What’s up?!” and we all smiled with joy and relaxed and knew that it was all good! We were not going to get into any type of trouble! Hank Aaron signed my program that I had in my hand, which I still have to this day in a frame in my office. Six or seven years later I was living in Cleveland, Ohio and Hank Aaron’s book had just come out. “If I Had A Hammer” and he was having a book signing in downtown Cleveland, OH. By the time I arrived downtown for the book signing the line was literally around the block so I said forget it. All I can say is I had Hank Aaron’s autograph from years ago and that is good enough for me!

Muhammad Ali: We all know he’s the greatest boxer of all time but why I would want to sit down and have dinner with him is because of his incredible life. I want to know what it was really like in boxing during his career. My story goes back to the 1980’s and I was with my uncle. We were traveling from Chicago to St. Louis on business. My uncle was in the radio business at the time and was an up and coming on-air radio personality.

That evening, we were at the home of another radio friend of my uncle’s.

I was about 19 years old and still a kid so they were off doing whatever .My uncle’s friend had films of all of Muhammad Ali’s fights. Back in those days, there weren’t DVD’s and videotapes and the cassettes were still a few years away from being really out. So, there I was with all of Ali’s fights on film. It was amazing to see this stuff! The films were very clear and most were in color. For hours and hours I watched all of these fights. I must have been up all night watching. It was unbelievable to me because at that time, they never showed his fights T.V. like they do now.

There were some of Muhammad Ali’s fights shown on T.V., but it was more like the live fights and not a re-broadcast or anything. Now there’s Pay Per View and HBO if you want to see boxing on T.V.

Those are the 3 great living legends that I would want to sit down and have dinner with and a good conversation. It would be great to hear their stories of the ups and downs that they had to deal with. There are many other great athletes I could have it listed here but I could only pick 3.

Now, I want to know who are the 3 living legends that you would like to sit down with and have dinner?

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The 2 Things I Dislike Most About High School Student Athletes

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Sometimes we forget that high school student athletes are just teenagers; that they are really not that far removed from eating cereal with a plastic spoon.  Sometimes we forget that they’re just immature adolescents at an age where the majority of them cannot think for themselves or make decisions.

When it comes to the college recruiting process, we want to think of these kids as young men and women who can make strong decisions.  I believe sometimes this is the problem with high school sports; were placing high expectations for these student athletes to make decisions that they’re not capable of making.  These are things about student athletes that I don’t like.

Division one college athletics is the main focus of many high school student athletes. All they think about and dream about is the D-1. The sad part about all of this is that most of the student athletes cannot come close to playing college ball at that level, but somehow, somewhere they believe they can or someone told them they can.

Just about every high school student athlete I’ve ever talked to only mention the major college programs that they want to play ball at.

The reason I believe so many student athletes are stuck on the thought of playing only at major college programs is because those are more recognizable names.  College programs play on TV and have a huge following so it’s easy to understand why they are so fascinated by that.

My problem with the student athletes and parents is that they will put everything they’ve got into a major college program believing it’s for them.

Division one college athletics is a curse because of the amount of time and attention put towards believing that you are a division one player.  Student athletes should focus on going to the best college program that fits their athletic ability.

High school student athletes are not entitled to anything. You have some student athletes who have had a privileged athletic career.  These athletes feel that they are owed something because they can play their sport very well.

When the so-called privileged high school athlete does reach the college level, they quickly realize that the other players on their team are just as good as they are and are now finding it a harder at the college level because it is now a challenge to be the best.

I also believe the high school athletes should work harder, keep their mouths shut, quit complaining and try to improve their game every single day. I’ve seen so many high school athletes who thought they were the best only to crash and burn once they saw how tough it was at the college level.  The college level is no joke; all the players are good, all the players are more than likely the best player from their high school team.

Sometimes you get these kids who turn out to be cry babies and really had no business being at that college program in the first place.  I believe this is one of the big reasons you see so many transfers because these kids could not cut it at the major college level.

My final thoughts are that high school student athletes should just stay focused on being the best high school athlete they can possibly be. There are so many high school athletes who are trying to achieve the same thing: getting a college scholarship. The competition is extremely competitive but that’s what’s important about competition; only the best will succeed.

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Four Things I Dislike About Parents Of High School Student Athletes

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Parents have high expectations when it comes to the college recruiting process especially when they’re spending their own money.

I’ve dealt with a lot parents as a college recruiter and many feel that if they can put some money on it the college recruiting process will work exactly how they want it to work. Because of that mindset, many parents of high school athletes have problems and I thought I would develop a list of 10 things I dislike about parents in the college recruiting process.

Ridiculous expectations when it comes to playing time. I’ve attended many high school sporting events and there have been times where I’m sitting there next to some out of control parent who’s complaining about how their kid is not getting enough playing time.  Parents like that find every excuse in the world to find fault with the high school coach. These knucklehead parents will complain about the style of play, the outcome of the game or anything else that seems, in their opinion, wrong.  This is why many college programs don’t want to have anything to do with parents at all.

Parents tell many lies. The college recruiting process sometimes comes down to stretching the truth. In all the years that I’ve been a college recruiter, I have heard some of the strangest lies coming of the mouths of parents.  Parents will tell me or even college coaches that their son who plays basketball is 6’4 and 212 pounds. When more investigation is done, we find out that the kid is only 6’1 and 190 pounds.  Stretching the truth about the GPA is also a problem but many parents do not have a problem with falsifying information because they think it will give their kid an advantage with college coaches.

Parents not knowing anything about the recruiting process. When it comes to the college recruiting process, a huge percentage of parents know absolutely nothing about how the college recruiting process works and many parents don’t care.  Parents would rather let the high school coach be totally responsible for getting their kid recruited for college programs.  If parents knew more about the college recruiting process they could better assist their student athlete and assist with all the many details that are involved in the college recruiting process.

Parents should not talk to college coaches. Parents should be involved in the college recruiting process but there should be limits.  Some parents believe that they are the ones who are being recruited by college programs so therefore, they want to be the ones to place calls to college coaches, take phone calls from college coaches and dominate the conversation with college coaches.  College coaches are only interested in the student athletes, not having some long, boring conversation with the parents.

Final thoughts: I truly believe parents want the best for their kids when it comes to going from high school athlete to college athlete.  But parents need to take the time to understand the college recruiting process and stop blaming others for their lack of participation.  The college recruiting process is not easy and, for the most part, it makes absolutely no sense which is why all parties who are involved in the process need to begin the college recruiting process very early.  Give yourself enough time to try and make sense of what’s going on.  Understand how to gain the exposure, understand how to build a strong list of college programs and also understand that things may not always go your way.

To All High School Student Athletes

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To all high school student athletes: every basket you score, every touchdown you get, it’s getting you much more closer to your earning that athletic scholarship.

Each and every time you perform very strong academically, it’s getting you closer to that athletic scholarship.

Every rebound you get is pushing you a step closer to an athletic scholarship.

Every day you step on the practice court and work as hard as you possibly can to be the best you can possibly be, is pushing you closer and closer to your ultimate prize of an athletic scholarship.

The bottom line is: work as hard as you can and for as long as you can.

Merry Christmas From a Bunch of Athletes Who Can’t Sing

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Maybe I didn’t notice, or maybe I did and just didn’t care, but this year there seems to be an abundance of holiday-themed videos from various professional sports teams.  Probably the latter—some people use alcohol as a crutch, I use apathy. Be that as it may, it would behoove me not to share them with you, but doing so one post at a time is both time consuming and inefficient, so here’s a bunch of athletes singing butchering Christmas carols [...]
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