Laurie's View From The Sideline

Tip of the Day #10

2010-10-22T09:19:00.001-07:00

Understand that athletic scholarships are renewable one-year contracts, not four-year contracts. The rules about when a coach can choose not to renew a scholarship are pretty clear, and the good news is that they can't take away your scholarship because they're disappointed in the way you're playing. But they can revoke your scholarship if you're not meeting academic standards or if you get caught violating a school or athletic program rule. And even though they can't revoke your scholarship without just cause, they can strongly encourage you to leave by never playing you and generally making your life miserable. So keep your nose clean and your attitude positive.

Tip of the Day #9

2010-10-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

Athletic scholarships require you to be an active member of a team but merit scholarships do not, so think your decision through carefully if you have separate offers of both.

It's the rare athlete who is in this fortunate position but if you're one of them, consider your options very carefully. Everyone who goes through college recruiting hopes to be able to brag about the athletic scholarship offers they receive but there is a downside. There are a million reasons college athletes decide to give up their sport in college. What if you decide you just don't want to compete anymore, if you get seriously injured, if you're not getting the playing time you thought you would, if you hate the coach, if there are just other things you want to concentrate on more. Quit the team, lose your scholarship. It's that simple. There are lots of unhappy and unmotivated juniors and seniors who don't want to compete anymore but can't quit their teams because they would lose their scholarships.

If you have an offer of a merit scholarship, and you decide to leave the team for some reason, you keep the scholarship and finish your education on your own time. Pretty attractive deal if you can get it.

Tip of the Day #8

2010-09-19T11:13:00.000-07:00

Be realistic about your skills.
Maybe you're as good as you think you are, maybe you're not. It's so important to get an accurate assessment of your skills from objective outside sources in preparation for college recruiting, and I list several ways to do that in Put Me In, Coach. If you're willing to believe what objective sources are telling you and you aim yourself accordingly, you will generate more college recruiting interest and options than if you stubbornly reach for too high a level. The right level is challenging enough to stretch you, but manageable enough that you'll see playing time. If you reach too high, you may end up with nothing, or you may walk on to find yourself in a permanent practice squad situation. If you've gone through a year of college basketball recruiting or college football recruiting only to end up as a practice player, you probably won't be very happy.

Tip of the Day #7

2010-09-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

Here is one good way to use your parents in college recruiting: have them help you develop a good resume and cover letter. You may be sending these out to college coaches and you may be posting them on a college recruiting website. Either way, it's good to have an adult pair of eyes look them over and give them a final thumbs up. Most parents have had to write resumes and cover letters at some point in their lives so they're pretty experienced at it. And it's a pretty straightforward task that you won't fight or disagree over.

Suppose you're pursuing college basketball recruiting or college football recruiting. Once you have some videotape footage that you can post on a recruiting website or YouTube, you're ready to contact college coaches with your resume (keep it to 1 page), and cover letter. Your letter has to be personal and can't look like a form letter that you sent to 100 coaches. Talk about why you like this coach's program, why you're a good fit, and how you would add value. Direct them to wherever you've posted your college basketball recruiting or college football recruiting videotape. And as long as you've aimed yourself at the right level of program, good things should happen.

Tip of the Day #6

2010-09-13T12:15:00.000-07:00

Use the athletic page on college websites to get the backgrounds of players on the roster and compare yourself to see if you'd fit.

Pick a typical D I, D II, and D III program. Go to your specific sport on the school's athletic page. Look at the players' size, weight, and speed. Suppose you're interested in college basketball recruiting. If you're 6'3" and playing a forward in high school, you'll probably find that forwards in college are at least 6'5" at the D III level and closer to 6'8" at the D I level. You may be too small for the level you want to play at, or you may need to consider switching positions to make it happen. Same is true for college football recruiting. 6'1" and 190 isn't going to work when the typical player at your position is 6'3" and 245.

Check times if you're in a timed sport like swimming or track. That's a pretty straight empirical measure that's hard for a coach responsible for college recruiting to argue with.

Read the bios of current college athletes to see what kinds of awards they got in high school. They will all be impressive and it will give you a good comparison point for where you fit in.

You can also get a good feel for whether they recruit locally, regionally, nationally, or internationally. And you can tell if they're recruiting primarily from public, private, or religious high schools, or if they get a fair number of recruits from junior colleges.

Do your research. It's all right there on the web and it's free.

Tip of the Day # 5

2010-09-08T13:50:00.000-07:00

Ask the coach the following question: "How often do you play freshmen, and what are my chances of playing as a freshman?"

Most kids want to know if they're likely to play as freshman. Any astute coach will tell you that playing time depends on performance, attitude, and other "you" things that they won't know until they see you in action, outside of the recruiting environment. This is an easy (and fair) way to deflect the question. But if you ask a college coach how often they have played freshmen in the past five years, they can't hide their record, and history will speak for itself. With this question, you'll get a very good idea of how likely any given freshman is to get playing time.

Tip of the Day #4

2010-09-07T14:43:00.000-07:00

Prepare and practice what you want to say when coaches call.

That first college recruiting phone call is pretty momentous and hopefully, there will be more after that. To make the best impression on a coach who may be recruiting you, you should be prepared for this call. Think through what you want to tell them about yourself, why you're interested in their program, how you can add value to it, and what questions you have. When they actually get you on the phone, you may be nervous and it will be hard to come up with all of this on the fly. This is especially true if it's a coach from a school you're really fired up about. Write it down and keep it close.

Another thing you may want to consider is role playing the conversation with a friend or parent ahead of time. This will give you practice and help build your confidence.

Tip of the Day #3

2010-09-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

If you're a junior who is interested in college football recruiting, college basketball recruiting, or college recruiting for any other sport, start the NCAA Eligibility Center registration early this school year. There is more to it than filling out a form and clicking "send." Here's a quick list of what you need to do:

--Check with your high school counselor to make sure you're taking the right courses in high school

--If you haven't take the SAT's or ACT's, make sure to register and take the test on time, and request that the scores get sent to code 9999 which is the Eligibility center

--If you have taken the SAT's or ACT's but haven't sent your scores on, you need to go to their websites and request that the scores get sent to the Eligibility Center. The SAT link is www.sat.collegeboard.com/scores/send-sat-scores. The ACT link is www.actstudent.org/scores/send/

--Your high school transcripts from junior year (and again, after you graduate) need to be sent from your high school to the Eligibility Center. You can't send an unofficial transcript or a copy, it has to come directly from your school

--You need to sign a form indicating that you have amateur, and not professional status. You can find this on the Eligibility Center website

--And of course, nothing is complete without moolah. It will cost you $60 to register and get this whole process started on their website. Credit cards accepted.

Good luck and get started.

Tip of the Day #2

2010-08-27T04:56:00.000-07:00

Don't let parents contact college coaches--do this yourself.

Coaches want to see some evidence of maturity, communication skills, and passion from the athletes they go through the college recruiting process with. They don't expect you to do all the talking and they are used to leading the conversation. But they do want to know that the athletes they are considering giving a sports scholarship to are willing to take the first step by themselves. And a great by-product is the ongoing relationship you start to develop with them.

Finally, they don't want to deal with a meddling parent. While it's not necessarily the case that a parent who contacts them will become a meddler, they don't even need to consider that possibility if a parent isn't involved in the beginning.

Starting a Tip of the Day Blog

2010-08-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

So now that most schools are in session, high school athletes are starting to think about college football recruiting, college basketball recruiting, college baseball recruiting, and high school athletics in general. I'm going to publish a Tip of the Day every few days to help you get going on your search for sports scholarships. These are abbreviated versions of the tips I published in my ebook: The Recruiting Companion for College Sports: Over 100 Winning Tips. Here's the first one:

TIP #1:
ALWAYS BE CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT YOU SAY AND DO IN ANY COMPETITION, ESPECIALLY THOSE OUTSIDE OF YOUR HIGH SCHOOL

The coaches you care about the most may not be in attendance at a competition you're participating in, but others will be and they talk amongst themselves. Keeping your guard up will ensure that you don't sabotage yourself when you thought no one of importance to you was watching or listening. Someone always is.

Recruiting Rules are Forever Changing

2009-05-20T18:07:00.000-07:00

If you're a student athlete in the market for college recruiting now, it's tough to stay on top of the rules as the NCAA is constantly tweaking them in an effort to keep some pretense of control. Here are three that have happened fairly recently:

Two years ago, the NCAA put the kabosh on coaches texting recruits because it was so intrusive and was costing kids all kinds of money. Very recently, they ruled that the use of Twitter is acceptable (as is e-mail). So now, coaches are quickly getting facile with Twitter as a way to develop communities around their programs. Creates images of the Pied Piper. If there are programs you're very interested in, you may want to follow the coach on Twitter.

Coaches are no longer allowed to attend and view basketball players at spring (April and May) AAU tournaments, they are only allowed to view in July. Will this put more influence into the hands of scouts? And will elite teams stop attending these tournaments?

The age at which male basketball players can officially be considered "prospective athletes" has dropped two years to seventh and eighth graders. Previously, a prospective athlete was a kid who had begun taking classes in the ninth grade. But younger high potential players were attending elite summer camps giving the coaches sponsoring those camps a leg up on developing relationships with these kids. By dropping the age, the NCAA can now legislate the limits of these camp relationships. So despite this looking like the NCAA is encouraging coaches to recruit kids even younger, the opposite is true--they're trying to exert a little more control over what has been out of their control until now.

These may not impact you personally but recognize that the contact you may or may not be having with a specific coach may be as much a reflection of the constraints the rules impose as a statement about what a coach thinks of you. And try to stay on top of the rules by asking your high school coach or athletic director, your AAU or club coach, or the college coaches you contact.

2009-03-17T06:47:00.000-07:00

Ranking Elementary Schoolers for College Recruiting

2009-03-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

The New York Times just published an interesting article about what happens when kids are ranked for college recruiters as early as 5th and 6th grade. The gist of the article is that it sets expectations that often aren't met as the kids age, and it creates jealousies and other social problems for these kids. Here's a link to the article:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/sports/10recruiting.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

I have watched many kids in several sports from 1st grade through high school. The pecking order doesn't stay static, it changes every year. The kids who were standouts when they were younger don't always keep that status. They might not grow, they might burn out because they're playing year round, and the elephant in the room that no one likes to talk about is that they may hit a wall on skill development and just stop getting better while everyone around them is continuously improving. Conversely, a kid who was gangly and awkward as a 9th grader suddenly grows and comes into their own as a junior and just dominates.

Imagine the pressure on the kid who is labeled as a superstar at 12 and has to hang his head between his legs at 16 because he flamed out. Imagine being the parent of that kid and having to prop up his destroyed self-esteem. Stop the insanity of ranking kids in the 6th grade, even if it is making someone a few bucks. At least wait until they are closer to having adult bodies.

College Recruiting Question: Does a Letter Mean I'm Getting Recruited?

2009-02-18T05:47:00.000-08:00

Parents often ask me whether letters mean their child is a "top recruit" and I have had several parents tell me a laundry list of schools that they thought were recruiting their kid based only on a letter campaign. If you want to know if letters mean that your child is being recruited by a school, the quick answer is no, not yet. Let me share a quick story that will make this all too clear.

There was one (unnamed) school that sent my son more letters than any other school. They never called, never contacted him in any other way, and never came to see him play that we knew of. They requested that he fill out their questionnaire (which he did), but they never followed up with him.

In preparation for a recruiting presentation I was doing where I knew this subject would come up, I decided to see how many letters they had sent. I was guessing 25. When I counted up the letters in his room from this one school, there were 87. That's not a typo--87. After the presentation, I called him at college and told him about it. When I told him how many letters had come from this one school, he laughed and told me that he had thrown away more than half of them.

Clearly, he was on the "if none of our chosen recruits decide to come here" list. There's nothing wrong with a school sending letters to a broad range of kids. You just need to recognize that many of these letters are coming to you from schools and coaches that need to build a database of kids who they can tap if they need to, not because they have an overwhelming interest in your specific kid. So keep it in perspective and know they're only really interested if the letters start to be personal and hand-written, and if they're accompanied by calls and requests for video and game schedules.

College Recruiting Cruises into Spring for Juniors

2009-02-09T13:41:00.000-08:00

So it's mid February already and football signing day has come and gone. That means we're getting closer and closer to spring break and if you're a high school junior with hopes of playing in college, time to get it in gear.

You should try to use your spring break to make a college visit or two, just to get an idea of what kind of school you would be comfortable at. You can also use this time to start putting together your profile and video to either send out or post online at one of the recruiting websites.

There's a lot to do in the months ahead. I've tried to lay everything out in Put Me In, Coach: A Parent's Guide to Winning the Game of College Recruiting (www.rightfitpress.com). Use the suggestions in the book to layout what you will do month by month. It's a much more manageable task if you take on a little at a time.

Make it a goal to contact at least 10 college coaches in the next month. Pick some schools that look interesting to you, let them know you're interested in learning more about their program, and let them know how to find information about you.

Pat Summit Reaches a Summit of Her Own

2009-02-05T19:43:00.000-08:00

Today, Pat Summit reached 1000 wins. She is the winningest NCAA D-I basketball coach in history. No one else is even close. Bobby Knight retired with 902 wins and Jody Conradt retired with 900 wins. Can you imagine winning 1000 of anything? It strikes me as very fitting that her last name is Summit--she has just reached one.

It is also ironic that it falls on the annual football signing day. Student athletes all over the country salivating at the chance to put on their new uniforms and pack away that first college win. And when that happens, this coach will be 999 wins ahead of them (okay, so there's a few more games in a basketball season than a football season). It takes commitment, persistence, and a lot of motivation. She is a great role model and I hope she gets a few hundred more before she calls it quits.

Recruiting 7th and 8th graders for college sports

2009-02-04T09:22:00.000-08:00

Lots of buzz lately about how the NCAA is now allowing 7th and 8th graders to be recruited. This is an attempt to gain some control over coach contact with middle schoolers since it was already happening in camps with no "rules" governing it. I have lots of thoughts about this but I'm curious about the viewpoints of other parents who have athletes who are now out of high school--what did you see as your kids were growing up. Here are my observations, I'm wondering if you saw the same things I did:

The kids who were standouts in early middle school were sometimes flameouts by late high school. There were a few reasons for this. Sometimes they grew very quickly and stopped just as quickly, so everyone caught up and passed them by. Sometimes their skills just didn't develop or they weren't motivated enough to work on them. Sometimes they burned out on the sport or just lost interest and moved to another sport. Sometimes they just didn't have the temperament to work well within a coaches system. And sometimes, the tougher academic workload and increased competition at the high school level just did them in and their effort slid to mediocre.

I've seen cases of the opposite too. Kids who were average athletes and average in size suddenly put the pieces together and grow and excel somewhere around junior year. In fact, this happens to lots of kids. Does this mean they would get passed on because spots were committed to years before?

A parent on the sidelines sees the ebb and flow of all the kids their child is coming up with and there's a lot of churning before it all settles out. It's very sad to see a sport pass a kid by who still wants to be playing. And it's very exciting to see a kid who has persisted through thick and thin to suddenly come into their own.

It's hard to believe that recruiting 12 and 13 year olds won't result in some very unfulfilled expectations. Let them become who they are meant to become. I'd love to hear from some other parents on this topic. What have you seen from the sidelines?

Belt Tightening in College Recruiting

2009-01-29T06:32:00.000-08:00

From everything I've been reading lately, this is the topic du jour. When the NYT tackles it, you know it's for real. The gist of it is that with the economy in the slumps, college programs are allocating less resources for recruiting, so coaching staffs, and recruits both have to be more resourceful in finding each other.

As a recruit, you can't control what the coaching staff does but you can control what you do. You should assume that it will now be harder to be found and/or seen because there is less money for programs to get out there. But you should also assume that their needs haven't decreased--just their budgets. Your job is to work even harder to get your information into the hands of anyone you might be interested in. Get good quality video and post it on one or more of the websites that maintain recruiting info for student-athletes. Send a separate copy to a handful of the coaches on your A-list. Send a well written and personal letter to these coaches, directing them to where they can find your video and stats posted. By personal, I mean tell them enough about you to get them interested, and mention enough about what you know about their program (and how you would fit well into it) so they know you've done your homework and are really interested in them. Everyone wants to be wanted--coaches are no exception.

The opportunities are still out there, you just may have to work a little harder to make sure they find you.

The Role of JV in College Sports

2009-01-12T18:52:00.000-08:00

Just read a personal story in The Chronicle about a girl who was recruited for D III sports and was relegated to the JV squad after expecting varsity play. The writer (her parent) was very upset and felt that she was recruited to bolster admissions numbers for this school--not because they really wanted her athletic ability. Apparently this is not an unheard of practice.

Makes me wonder just what is the role of JV in a D III school? Unlike D I programs where athletes move out because of the draft, or move in from Juco's with two years of college experience already, D III programs have kids that are likely to be playing for four years unless they quit the team on their own (which often happens if they're not playing later in their career). So it makes sense that if you're going to be playing against kids that are 3-4 years bigger, faster, and more experienced, a year of JV could help prepare you for what's to come. And it allows a broader group of kids to continue competing in college.

How would you feel if you were recruited, expecting varsity play, and ended up playing JV?

What happens to college recruiting when programs go under?

2009-01-09T05:40:00.000-08:00

I hope this isn't the beginning of a trend. Just read an article about a D II school eliminating it's football program because of budget cuts and a $500,000 deficit that the program was running under every year. I guess they were able to swallow it when the economy was better but it became untenable in the current environment.

Is this just the beginning? Will we be seeing lots of cuts in collegiate athletics, particularly in the smaller, less funded sports? Will it affect the number or dollar amount of scholarships?

If you're on the recruiting trail, try to find out as much as you can about a program's financial health and future. You don't want to be the kid who starts out in a program and has the rug pulled out from under you.

Why Does a Kid Lie About College Recruitment

2009-01-07T20:27:00.000-08:00

I saw some ESPN footage today from a story about a high school football player who lied to his family, coaches, and community about getting recruited to play D I football--to the point where the school had an assembly for him to announce his college pick. He had fabricated the whole story because he wanted it so bad, didn't want to disappoint anyone (himself probably at the top of the list), and once he had started the lie, it escalated wildly before he could think of a way to stop it.

This is a sad commentary. It's not so much that sports plays such a dominant and important role in our culture. I get that. There's great value for both the participants and the spectators. It's that nothing was acceptable to him accept a major D I roster spot. No one from his community had ever played D I football and he had to have the bragging rights. And it basically shamed him and derailed his life.

His high school coach left his job over it, the kid ended up in therapy, and the community was pretty shocked by the whole thing. How can this happen?

Golden Opportunities for Girls in College Recruiting

2009-01-04T17:24:00.000-08:00

There are tremendous opportunities for athletic scholarships for girls and I'm not sure how many people know about them.

The vast majority of men's athletic scholarships are awarded for football--between 63 (D-I AA) and 85 (D-I A) per NCAA school. The next highest number is only 18/school for D I men's ice hockey. Because there is no women's football, and because of the impact of Title IX, there are loads of athletic scholarships available to women to make up for this inequity.

There are 24 sports in which the NCAA allots scholarships for women compared to 17 for men. In the sports where scholarships are awarded for both genders, the number awarded to women is equal to or greater than the number awarded to men in all but one sport.

Here is a list of sports where scholarships are available to women and not to men: archery, badminton, bowling, equestrian, field hockey, rowing, rugby, softball, squash, synchronized swim, and team handball. The sports where scholarships are awarded to both genders: basketball, cross country/track and field, fencing, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, skiing, soccer, swimming/diving, tennis, volleyball, and water polo.

Obviously, not every school is going to offer all of these sports and some of these may not have been sports you've considered previously. But if you're in early high school and you're looking for something new to pick up, try one. It may pay off handsomely later.

When the passion goes, what happens to college recruiting

2009-01-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

Just saw a really interesting story here: http://blog.ncsasports.org/2009/01/02/bigger-is-not-always-better/

Here's a girl who was a stud basketball player with a full ride to U. Conn--but she lost her passion for basketball long ago and covered it up for 5 years so she wouldn't disappoint anyone or look weak. It finally caught up with her and she had the courage to come clean about it and move on to play volleyball at a smaller school because it made her happy.

You can imagine the disappointment of her coach, her teammates, her parents, and even herself as she came to this decision. But ultimately, they supported her and her parents, in particular, helped her move forward.

For everyone who wants to get recruited for college sports, it takes as much passion as skill and talent to play in college. Otherwise, it's just another job and one that will take far too much time to be worthwhile. And if you've got the passion, it can make up for shortcomings in other areas.

High school juniors, start thinking college recruiting

2009-01-02T07:30:00.000-08:00

If you're a high school junior with hopes of playing in college, I hope you've begun doing your research and assembling a list of which colleges are right for you. If you haven't, please pick up Put Me In, Coach (www.rightfitpress.com) and work through the section on finding the right fit. It's now January and time to start putting together the information you want to get into the hands of college coaches for recruiting. You should get all of this out by spring time at the latest. Please don't wait until senior year. And you can also start contacting (e-mail) just to let them know you're out there, interested in their program, and planning to send them your information.

One more thing. You can "legally" contact coaches before they can contact you--so do it. A motivated kid who shows interest in a school is a good lead for a coach to start with. If you're not right for that program, don't expect much. But if you are, it will get you on the radar screen.

Are Parents Too Pushy in College Recruiting

2009-01-01T09:59:00.000-08:00

Do you wonder how to strike the right balance between providing support and being too pushy?

I spend a lot of time in my book talking about the ways parents can help and the importance of their involvement, but I recently heard an anecdote from a very experienced D I coach who said that the best team is a team of orphans. I guess his point is for parents to keep their nose out of the coach/athlete business.

He's probably right. There's a lot of ways to be involved behind the scenes but parental intervention with a coach probably isn't going to get the outcomes you want. Any thoughts or experiences with this?

Getting Through the Stages of Grief in College Recruiting

2008-12-11T16:13:00.000-08:00

Most decent athletes start the college recruiting process expecting a lot. Everyone is a top D I prospect before reality sets in. Given that there's about 330 D I schools, and about 1500 more between D II, D III, NAIA, and NJCAA, it's not hard to figure out where more are going to end up.

Student-athletes go through this process over the course of a year or so, and when they figure out that it's not going to play out like they hoped, it's like watching people go through the five stages of grief:

Denial: "I'm really good, this can't be happening to me"

Anger: (directed at others) "Those coaches are jerks--they don't realize how good I am," or (directed at yourself) "Why was I so bad when they were watching"

Bargaining: "Just let me get a small scholarship, just give me something I can tell everyone about--I'll do anything if I can just keep playing for a few more years"

Depression: "I stink--why bother anymore, what's the point"

and thankfully, Acceptance: "It's okay, I found a place where I can play and I fit in pretty well. I'll just enjoy it, maybe I'll even get a decent education while I'm there"

Save yourself a lot of time and self pity--get to the acceptance part quickly. Not making the D I cut doesn't mean you're a lousy athlete, it's just a numbers game and there's a lot of competition for a few spots. The sooner you can aim yourself at the right level, the more you'll enjoy recruiting and the more you'll look forward to what's next.

One Last Election Connection

2008-11-06T15:56:00.000-08:00

I was lucky enough to get two tickets to the Obama rally in Grant Park on election night. I debated whether or not I should go. My concerns? Crowd control issues, difficulty of getting in and out of the city, standing on my feet for an unknown number of hours, not being with my closest friends who have shared this whole election season with me, just the whole hassle factor of attending something like that. But my fifteen year old wouldn’t hear of it. He understood the historical significance of it and wasn’t taking no for an answer. So we bit the bullet and went.

Most of those concerns were realized but I would do it again in a second. It was such a thrill to just be part of it and neither of us will ever forget it. So what’s the recruiting connection? When I think back to the beginning of the process for us, it felt like there were so many obstacles and so many things we didn't know how to do. It would have been easy to let all those things aggravate us to the point of paralysis. But we took the bull by the horns, worked through the obstacles, and I would do it again in a second. The outcome was well worth it—just like our trip to the rally.

Don’t fall prey to getting intimidated by what seems too overwhelming, confusing, or mysterious to figure out. Nothing is as hard as you think. Take a minute and shoot me a note--what are the obstacles that are looming large in your way?

Election Learnings for the Recruiting Trail

2008-11-03T19:31:00.000-08:00

It’s the day before the 2008 Presidential election and I find myself drawing parallels between this election and college recruiting. We have all watched this political season forever. Everyone has their own take on what they’ve witnessed and their own personal reaction to it. I learned something interesting about myself during the dog days of the presidential campaign. I had some pretty strong feelings about my candidate and got more and more frustrated and anxious when I heard what I thought were unfair attacks or untrue lies. Late in the campaign, a friend talked me into volunteering at a phone bank. There are few things I find more distasteful than cold calling and trying to twist arms, but I did it. Much to my surprise, I felt great about it when we finished and here’s why: you can only feel powerless for so long before it starts to get to you. When you take some action, it’s liberating. I know that sounds clichéd and who knows if the calls I made did any good for my candidate but the cobwebs of inaction were cleared and I was energized to soldier on.

So what does all of this have to do with college recruiting? The parallels are unmistakable. When the recruiting season starts, you’re pretty clear on what would constitute a good outcome. Time goes on. You’re waiting for something to break and getting a little antsy. More time goes on. Maybe a few things start coming your way but not what you were hoping for. Now you’re getting anxious. And frustrated. And finally, worried that time is passing and you’re not getting any closer to the goal. Inaction is usually the result of distaste for the task (as it was for me cold calling) or lack of knowledge about what to go do (as it is for many families and college recruiting). What makes them similar is that passivity leads to frustration, and effort invigorates.

So please, just do something. Take action. Educate yourself. Make some contacts, Do some research on college programs. Learn about scholarships. Talk to coaches. Just do something. The process doesn’t belong just to the college coach, it belongs to both of you. There’s no honor in waiting for him or her to initiate something. Make the process your own and you will be delighted at how much more you will begin to enjoy it.