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Many parents today believe that if a high school athlete is good enough to excel on a competitive team, most college coaches will likely recruit that athlete. Unfortunately, this view is not reality. In today's ever-growing arena of athletics, fame and fortune have spawned fierce competition. While recruiting budgets continue to be sparse, an athlete with less skill than another on the same team may receive more interest from colleges simply because he/she has been promoted better to coaches.

The key to success is finding colleges that are a good fit academically, athletically, financially, and socially. If any of those four factors are out of balance a student-athlete will, in most instances, have a very difficult time with college. The aim is to help put student-athletes in the best possible position to be recruited, identify the proper programs to target, communicate with college coaches, and be a successful student-athlete in the program you ultimately choose.

To do this you must learn how to promote yourself. You need to learn how to evaluate and select the proper program and school for you. Plus, receiving letters and calls from coaches does not guarantee that those coaches will recruit you. It’s important you take a proactive role in your recruiting process and select schools that will be the best fit for you. If you don’t know how to do that, then how will you make the proper choice?

If you are receiving multiple scholarship offers, you need to evaluate some other criteria to make a decision on what school to attend such as: coaching staff, team, social atmosphere of the school, playing opportunity, academic programs, and travel.

Scholarship Conditioning

Athletic scholarships aren't available to just anybody. You will have to meet three important conditions in order to be successful in achieving a scholarship:

You must be an excellent athlete. You don't have to be the best on your team, but there can't be any doubt that you'll be able to play at the college level.

You must be a good enough student to be admitted. A coach won't base all of his/her scholarship decisions on your grades, but if bad grades keep you out of the school, you can't be on the team.

You must be willing to know the system. That means being proactive and taking the lead in contacting coaches, not procrastinating and hoping they'll just discover you first.

One of The Most Important Question of Your Life

What role will college athletics play in my life and what do I want my role in college athletics to be? Am I going to college to play athletics, or am I going to play athletics to get (and help pay for) an education? There can be many answers to this question and your first answer may change as you discover what college athletics is about and settle into a program.

If you reasonably expect that you will not become a professional athlete (less than 1% of college athletes go professional), then college athletics needs to serve some other purpose and that can range from a fun activity, to how I help pay for my education and anywhere in between. If you know you are not going to be happy sitting on the bench, you need to find a team and program that will give you a realistic chance to play in some capacity.

If you know your education is linked to your ability to pay for college (i.e., a scholarship), you need to understand that regardless of your role on the team, without athletics you might not be able to attend the college of your dreams.

Finding a balance is difficult, but a goal well worth obtaining. It’s important to have an idea of what you want, what you expect, and what you can tolerate. Not everyone will win a national championship and not everyone will start every game and be an All-American. For some sports like basketball, football, or hockey, being a part-time or role player is good enough because you can play sporadically during the game and have a role in your team’s success. For other sports, like baseball or softball, sitting on the bench hoping to get an inning or an at-bat at the end of a 9 inning game is less enjoyable, especially when you are spending time traveling.

Mistakes That Student-Athletes Make

The graduation rate for NCAA college athletes (athletes receiving scholarship money) is roughly 60%. This means that 40% of NCAA athletes that enroll in a 4 year school do not graduate from that school within 6 years. Some transfer and graduate at other programs. The 40% that “move on” usually move on because some aspect of the school was out of balance with their expectations. In many cases, it is the athletic opportunity that did not present itself, i.e., playing time. Since many of the scholarship players going on to college are talented and set their expectations higher than they should, some are disappointed at the playing time they receive. Many fail to understand that despite what the coach tells you before you come, you will be playing against athletes that are bigger, stronger, faster and more experienced than you are and very few freshman start for their varsity team in college.

Here are some of ways that student-athletes can fail the recruiting game:

Student-athletes choose the wrong school socially for them. Maybe the school was too big or too small, maybe it was too close to home or too far away, or maybe the school’s social activities are solely based on fraternity/sorority organizations.

Student-athletes choose the wrong school academically. Perhaps the school was too difficult with many required courses that were simply too hard or demanded too much time. While athletics can compound this problem, there are many majors that simply are not for “everybody” whether you are an athlete or a regular student.

Student-athletes choose the wrong coach. Many players get stuck with a coach that they just don’t mesh with personally and small conflicts of interest turn into major problems.

Student-athletes choose the wrong playing style. Many athletes complain that the team and the coach do not run the type of offense they used in high school, or the type of offense they can excel in and use their athletic talents better.

Student-athletes lose interest. Playing college athletics sounds great, but waking up at 6AM and running every day, going to class for 4 hours, going back to practice, and then lifting weights later at night isn’t always fun.

Student-athletes get injured. Many careers have been cut short by serious injuries. When athletes get injured and cannot play, many become depressed. Instead of focusing on their studies, they do very little of anything.

Student-athletes don’t take their academic studies seriously. Many student-athletes are not student-athletes, but rather athletes who are inconvenienced by going to classes. If you are not committed academically to a school, you will not succeed.

Student-athletes don’t realize the time and effort commitment that they are getting involved in and the sacrifices they are going to make. After classes and practices, you are left with very little free time to do both work and be social.

Student-athletes don’t handle college coaching well. There have been many talented high school players who didn’t receive any coaching in high school. When they get to college, they often receive more coaching and more discipline than they are used to, thus leading to conflicts with the coaching staff.

Student-athletes sign with the wrong program. Many student-athletes select programs because they think it is the “best” program and they spend little time researching how many current players are on the team, or how many other players the coach has signed or is recruiting.

If you're like most college-bound athletes, you have only vague ideas about how you go about getting an athletic scholarship. You know you're good enough, but where do you start?

To help you and your student-athlete successfully navigate the college recruiting process, we have developed a six-step, self-marketing program called Student-Athlete Rx. This program is NOT a mass mailing recruiting service. It is a Do-It-Yourself program that teaches the student-athlete how to market themselves directly to the colleges of their choice. Using this system, student-athletes learn how to create their own recruiting package.

The Student Athlete Rx Program includes:

1. The Inside Track To College Athletic Recruiting & Scholarship Manual

2. Instructional CD (Disk #1) that explains the six step self marketing procedures

3. A template CD that includes:

Samples of a one-page cover letters

Sample of a one-page resume (profile)

Sample tracking system (on MS Excel)

Sample progress report update form

This is all the information you need to self-market the student athlete to the college coaches for only $199.00.

To purchase the Student Athlete Rx Program, contact us at 707-580-7847

We also provide clinics that walk the student-athletes and families through the athletic scholarship process. It also provides them with ideas and strategies to pay for the remaining cost of college should their child only receive a partial athletic scholarship. For more information about having Mr. Altaffer speak to your boosters club or athletic organization, please email us at info@northbaycollegefunding.com or call us at 707-580-7847.