Hello, Community!
The following sports-related career article is by guest writer Bob Taylor, Northern California Scouting Director for Recruit (recruitzone.com). Recruit is a national recruiting (exposure) service headquartered in Owings, MD. Recruit was founded in 1995 in Bakersfield, CA, and is in the business of creating exposure opportunities for high school student-athletes so they can have greater visibility to college coaches across the nation in every sport.
Thank you, Bob, for supporting S.F. Bay Area student-athletes and for working hard to help young athletes Get There.
As a community we cannot be satisfied that we are doing all we can for our high school student-athletes unless we see a path worn deep to our front doors on a regular basis by college coaches and recruiters coming to ask about, and recruiting, our talent.
It starts with the basics, the nuts and bolts: Grades/GPA, ACT/SAT scores, NCAA registration, student-athlete sport stats resumes and video highlights, college website prospect/recruit applications, college research and applications, and the importance of the content of one’s character and community service (giving back) cannot be emphasized enough.
Community, it is a reality that some student-athletes may not have computers at home, may not have resume writing skills and may not have the funds to pay for costs associated with nuts and bolts. We need to reach out to our student-athletes and offer support by providing access to computers, instruction and examples, mentoring and funds to assist. We need to help with the tools and the process.
Some of these basics could be aided by partnerships between student-athletes and high school newspaper, journalism, yearbook, video and photography class students.
Nuts and bolts will allow our student-athletes to have college options to chose from, be the options D1, D2, D3, junior college, public, private, military, religious or anything in between.
“Choices. Options. Alternatives. There is nothing that increases value more in this world than competition and demand for a product or a person.” Excerpt from Winning With Integrity – Getting What You’re Worth Without Selling Your Soul (Chapter 3) – Copyright 1998 by Leigh Steinberg and Michael D’Orso, Villard Books, New York.
Raising the bar for high school student-athletics and creating opportunities for student-athletes takes community.
Sincerely –
Jennifer Oliver
Founder
SportsHopes
Guest Article: Recruiting Basics and the NCAA by Bob Taylor –
I played all the sports growing up as a kid and watched plenty of it at all levels. In high school I played basketball in southern California, but that was the extent of any dream of pursuing sports further. I attended Cal State University, Fullerton, where there were plenty of exciting college sports including a baseball national title, a softball national title, a football team that made the Top 20 (ranking went only to 20 at that time) and a basketball team that included an Olympic participant, Leon Wood. I love sports and have always wanted to do something career-related that involved sports.
Aside from a normal 9-5 job I have been the Regional Scouting Director for Recruit for nearly 11 years. I found an ad in the newspaper for Recruit, went through the training and have been helping local athletes ever since. I have helped more than 250 athletes in the Bay Area and Central Valley regions of California receive some kind of scholarship to help them get a college education and continue playing their particular sport. I try to find athletes that I feel could have an opportunity to play at the next level. It may not necessarily be at the DI level (every kid’s dream). It may be a DII, DIII or NAIA school. There are plenty of opportunities if the athletes and their families are willing to explore whatever is out there.
In meeting with the athlete and their family the one thing that 85-90% of the families don’t know about is the NCAA Clearinghouse/Eligibility Center. Any athlete that is considering playing collegiate sports at the Division I or Division II level must register with the Eligibility Center (formerly called the Clearinghouse). One misconception of the Eligibility Center is that it creates exposure for an athlete, which it does NOT. The primary purpose of the Eligibility Center is to provide a central data center that college coaches can access to determine if an athlete is academically eligible.
Athletes should register with the NCAA Eligibility Center around March of their junior year. They can get an application from their school or go to: https://web1.ncaa.org/eligibilitycenter/common/ and fill out the application on-line. There is a fee of $60 currently and the athlete’s counselor will need to sign off on the application to release the transcripts. What the Eligibility Center does is check if an athlete has taken the correct Core Courses (16 for DI, 14 for DII) and have at least a 2.0 GPA in those courses. The courses are:
Division I
4 years English
3 years Math (Algebra I or higher)
2 years natural/physical science
1 year of additional English, Math or natural/physical science
2 years social science
4 years of additional courses (from above, foreign language or nondoctrinal religion/philosophy)
Division II
3 years English
2 years Math (Algebra I or higher)
2 years natural/physical science
2 years of additional English, Math or natural/physical science
2 years social science
3 years of additional courses (from above, foreign language or nondoctrinal religion/philosophy)
The athlete must also receive a qualifying score on the SAT or ACT. The Eligibility Center uses a sliding scale based on the athlete’s GPA and they are only looking at the scores from the Verbal and Math portion of the SAT. An athlete who has a GPA of 3.55+ needs an SAT score of 400 or ACT score of 37, and an athlete with a GPA of 2.0 needs an SAT score of 1010 or ACT score of 86.
Colleges may offer athletes an athletic scholarship but nothing can be finalized until all requirements of the Eligibility Center are met. Athletes can take the SAT/ACT as many times as needed to get a qualifying score, and the highest score from each section will be used. Athletes should look to take the SAT/ACT early in their junior year in order to give themselves enough time to decide if they are going to re-take the test and what they need to work on.
Division III schools do not require the use of the Eligibility Center because they do not offer athletic scholarships, per se. Dlll schools do provide other types of financial packages that will help the athlete’s educational expenses. Dlll’s recruit athletes to come and play their particular sports, and also provide a great opportunity for athletes that are a little more focused towards their academics but still want the opportunity to play their sport for four more years.
Bottom-line, for a chance to play college athletics make sure you have all of your academics in order and create as much exposure as you can for yourself to college coaches.
Critical Dates:
Winter/Spring of junior year – take first SAT/ACT test
Early March of junior year – register for NCAA Eligibility Center
June of junior year – send transcripts to NCAA Eligibility Center
July 1 after junior year – college coaches can start calling athletes
Fall of senior year – sign up for SAT/ACT if you need to re-take it (some colleges have December test deadlines)
Mid-November of senior year – Early NLI (National Letter of Intent) signing period for sports other than football
Beginning of February-April of senior year – NLI signing period for football
Early April – NLI signing period for all other sports (basketball ends late May, others go to August 1)
June of senior year – send final transcripts to NCAA Eligibility Center
Bob Taylor can be reached at: (925) 899-6113 or bob.taylor@recruitzone.com
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It is the goal of SportsHopes to publish a monthly article that will “highlight” information to high school parents and guardians, student-athletes, superintendents, principals, athletic directors, coaches, teachers, administrators, businesses, city halls and service organizations, that will help high school student-athletes who want to go to college and who want to play sports in college Get There.
SportsHopes is a volunteer org based in HAAL with the goal of applying for 501(c)3 status in 2009 in order to best serve the HAAL community. SportsHopes has purchased a website domain name http://sportshopes.org/ and will work to build the website to serve community as much as possible and as soon as possible.
The Hayward Area Athletic League (HAAL) consists of nine northern California high schools in the greater S.F. Bay Area:
Arroyo, Castro Valley, Hayward, Mt. Eden, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, Tennyson, Bishop O’Dowd Catholic and Moreau Catholic.
If you would like to be removed from future SportsHopes publishings please email: goodbye@sportshopes.org
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