Put Me In, Coach: A Parent's Guide to Winning the Game of College Recruiting

PREFACE

I recently attended a high school graduation party for a friend's daughter. The hostess knew I was writing a book about college sports recruiting, so the minute I walked through the door she introduced me to a couple whose son was a talented gymnast. He would be a senior in the fall and had taken third place at the state championship his junior year. He wanted to continue competing in college but coaches weren't exactly knocking at the door. The mother, in particular, spoke with a sense of urgency and frustration that I have heard before from many parents of high school athletes. She wasn't sure how to help her son through the recruiting process, and no one was stepping in to lend a helping hand. She knew that time was running out. Her son's excitement and high hopes were giving way to the fear that he might never be part of a college team.

I am a parent—just like those parents—and just like you. Our son, Dylan, was a good student whose dream was to play basketball in college. His junior year rolled around and it was time to start looking at schools. My husband and I wanted him to have the best experience possible—academically, socially, and athletically. How could we put all of these factors into an equation to help him find a college that would be right for him? We learned quickly that the student-athlete's search was much more involved than it was for other kids. Was Dylan a good enough basketball player to play at the college level? Would he fit best in Division I, II, or III? Could he get a scholarship? Could he handle both the academics and play a sport? How could he make sure the right coaches saw him? That he would get playing time? What were his chances of being accepted by his top choices?

Thousands of kids are recruited to play college sports every year. So why did we feel so isolated and unprepared? I am a market researcher by trade, so I did what I was trained to do. I searched the bookstores and online for information that would help Dylan find the right college with athletics as a priority and, just as important, how to survive the process. There was very little. I also spoke with parents whose kids had gone through the recruiting process. There were a handful of happy endings, but there were many more stories filled with frustration, miscommunication, over-inflated expecta-tions, and dashed hopes.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of high school athletes hope to play their sport in college. Most will find the recruiting process complex, frustrating, exhausting, and shrouded in mystery. It doesn't need to be this way for your child. When I compared athletes who had positive outcomes with those less satisfied, the difference was seldom due to the level of talent. More often, success came when kids and parents understood the recruiting pro-cess, took the initiative to get the athlete noticed, and identified the schools that were the best fit in all areas—not just athletics.

I decided to write this book quite simply because it was the book I wished I had found on the shelf when my son started looking at colleges. The recruit-ing vignettes are all true. They are the stories of friends, neighbors, extended family, schoolmates, and teammates. Boys and girls that play a wide range of sports. All who had dreams of being recruited to play in college.

Put Me In, Coach is intended for students and the parents of all students who want to play college sports, in any division, with or without an athletic scholarship. My goal is to give you the information and inspiration you need to guide your student-athlete toward a happy ending. May you enter the world of college recruiting with equal doses of realism and optimism.

INTRODUCTION

Spring break means one thing to many families of high school juniors: it's time to start looking at colleges. We started at the University of Michigan, a Big Ten school with over twenty-five thousand undergraduate students. After a long day of touring the campus, I asked my son what he thought. Without hesitation he replied, It's cool, but I could never play basketball here so let's just go. We knew right then there was no point visiting colleges where our son could not play the sport he loved.

Welcome to the world of the student-athlete. Playing a college sport can be enormously rewarding for your child, but it definitely complicates the search process. All parents want to see their children at a school where they will have every opportunity to learn, mature, and be well prepared for the next stage of life. But prospective college athletes face the challenge of incorporating athletics into this search. While their friends are making their college visits and narrowing their lists, they may be paralyzed by this additional task. It will test their commitment to their sport and their patience—and undoubt-edly their parents, too.

The reality is that very few high school athletes will play their sport in college. Just in case you gloss over this now, I will provide actual num-bers for you later. I'm hoping you won't ignore this reality twice. Why am I starting here? Because the main premise of this book is that your child will have a better college experience—academic and athletic—if you do a good job upfront of realistically assessing their skills and target your search accordingly. Too often egos get in the way, and I'm not just talking about the student-athlete's. You will be well-served to rid yourself of any preconceived notions about which programs are worthy of your child and which aren't. And before you go any further, you should probably decide if this is a book that can help you and your child in this search. You'll know the answer after reading the following two scenarios.

Scenario 1: Your kid is a stud.

There is no one even close. Your child dominates at the high school level and in off-season competition, too. There has been college interest for a while, and from schools you have actually heard of. Put this book down now. Handlers who will eagerly usher you through the recruiting process will surround you.

Scenario 2: Your kid is a good athlete.

Your child is better than most at the high school level and has received form letters and a few generic e-mails from colleges—perhaps even gotten a few coach calls from schools with smaller programs. But college coaches aren't exactly lining up at the door. If this is your situation, this book is for you.

What do you do if you have a kid who is deeply passionate about his sport and can't imagine a college experience without it? The good news is that if that passion is complemented by a reasonable amount of talent, s/he has two of the three essentials s/he needs to compete in college. The third is your help. It's rumored that 90 percent of the attention of college coaches goes to 10 percent of the athletes. But I am convinced there's a roster spot out there for most athletes, so grab this book, roll up your sleeves, and make sure your child hits the recruiting radar.

So how do you make it happen? I begin this book with the first critical step: forging a partnership with your child. You both need to take a good hard look at the question of whether playing college sports is the right decision. If the answer is yes, it's time to identify the characteristics your child is looking for in a college experience. I target six dimensions you can use to create a list of possible choices, highlighting the importance of each to the college search and how they relate to the recruiting process.

Then it's all about the marketing. Your son might be an extremely talented athlete, but have the coaches at his target schools ever seen him compete? Do they know anything about your daughter or her high school program? How should you go about getting in touch with them and what are they looking for? I decided to go straight to the coaches from a variety of sports and schools to ask them how they go about recruiting players—where they look and what gets their attention. You will find their comments and suggestions throughout the book.

And speaking of college coaches, remember this: student-athletes and college coaches are not adversaries. They are allies with a shared objective— to find the best overall college fit for your child. When students end up at the right schools, they will be successful academically and athletically and this will reflect positively on the coach. There are unsavory characters in every walk of life, but oftentimes parents who characterize coaches as unethical or dishonest just didn't understand the recruiting process or the constraints that a coach faces.

My hope is that you will arm yourself with Put Me In, Coach from the time you start your recruiting journey until you and your child make the final decision. Be diligent, realistic, and always keep an open mind. A coach from a school you never heard of just might have the program you were looking for all along. You will have done your homework, so you will recognize the best fit—and it will undoubtedly come back to the reason your child wanted to compete in college in the first place: for the love of the game.

Once the preseason starts, it doesn't matter if you're at an Ivy League school or a neighborhood JUCO (junior college), or if you got your big scholarship or not. The reputation of the school and the money some coach may give you could have almost NOTHING to do with the quality of your experience. The same four things that are making you happy now as an athlete will make you happy in college:

I'm actually playing a lot and in the lineup often.

The level of play is good enough.

The team is successful in its conference or league.

The coaches know me well and I trust their judgment.

Brian Parker, Head Coach, Women's Soccer, Frostburg State University

Where Do

You Begin?

CHAPTER 1

BUILDING THE PARENT/CHILD TEAM

Here is an unexpected benefit of the recruiting process: it provides you and your child with an opportunity to become closer by working together on what may be the last really big decision you make together before s/he heads out into the world beyond your doorstep. But make no mistake, it will present challenges and frustrations before you reach your final, collective decision and it can put a lot of strain on the parent/child relationship. The college search process is stressful enough and adding the sports dimension to it just adds another layer of complication. Let me try to anticipate some of these challenges for you. Parents and a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old are not the ideal pairing in terms of communication. Your goal should be to talk your way through this and still be talking at the end. We all have a tendency to fall back into long-established patterns of behavior without even realizing it, and they can really stymie communication. A couple of suggestions even though they seem deceptively simplistic:

Listen to your child's point of view. You don't have to agree and you don't have to like it, but s/he does have the right to express it, and you should respect where s/he is coming from. Ask your kid for their rationale and be prepared to offer your own. You are long past the years of because I said so or because I'm the parent.

Be honest about constraints. Kids need to enter this process with a full understanding of what the starting point is. If there are deal breakers, you need to let them know. For example, if you won't let them go more than five hundred miles from home, let them know that at the onset. For many families, cost can be a serious constraint as well.

Have a discussion about what each of your roles will be. There is no easy answer and books that tell you who should be doing what are misguided. Kids move to the beat of their own drum. I have two kids, and going through this process with each of them would be very different. Find a way that works; just make sure you discuss it and agree upon it.

Be honest with each other (and yourself) about your agendas and biases, and see if you can find some common ground. Oftentimes, these only become apparent as the process unfolds. Both parties can have blinders on in the heat of battle. Here are some examples of mismatched agendas that I heard when I compared notes with other families:

The parents want their kid focused primarily on academics; the kid wants to focus on the sport but is willing to take a few classes on the side.

The kid wants free reign to choose any school based on the quality of the sports program, but the parents have financial constraints that may prevent pursuing the dream school.

The parents want their child at a big name school, but the kid has found a comfort zone with a coach and team at a lesser-known school.

The kid wants bragging rights of a top sports program, but the parents know that either the school or the sports program will be too much of a stretch.

The parents want their kid at the school that one or both of them went to, but the kid has no interest in walking in his or her parents' footsteps.

These mismatched agendas aren't insurmountable, but airing them will help drive which schools end up on your list and which you avoid.

Keep your sense of humor. Yes, college is extremely competitive as are college sports, but your child will end up somewhere, and even if s/he can't play a varsity sport in college, s/he can always play club or intramural. If you can keep your sense of humor throughout, it will help your child do the same.

And ultimately, try to find the right balance of taking control and letting go—the perennial parental dilemma. The lessons in parenting for you may be just as plentiful as the lessons in maturing and decision-making for your child.

KEEPING SCORE

Discuss the constraints your child must live with.

Agree upon what your child will do and what you will do.

Take the time to really listen and acknowledge their point of view.

CHAPTER 2

IS PURSUING A COLLEGE SPORT THE RIGHT DECISION?

Because you're reading this book, you've most likely decided that college athletics should be in your child's future. I'm going to offer you one last chance to revisit that decision. It's not for every kid and you should be sure that it's the right choice for yours. The high points are obvious. I would bet that if we all sat down and made lists of some things that are appealing about college sports, our lists would look pretty similar:

Continuing to pursue a passion at a competitive level

Enhancing the overall college experience

Preparing for a professional career in sports

Being part of a peer group that shares a common interest

Possibly getting college paid for with an athletic scholarship

Great fitness regimen

And in our weakest moments—glory, fame, and bragging rights

But to really consider your child's best interests, you have to be aware of all the potential landmines buried beneath the path. The best case is that a sport will positively enhance your child's college experience and facilitate maturity in ways that might not have happened otherwise. But the worst case is that your