Saturday, February 28, 2015

Lessons From Athletes Who Transfer Colleges

The rate of athletes transferring colleges is growing every year. I get a lot of questions from recruits and parents about what their options are and many times, athletes have no choice but to lose a year of eligibility.
This article is for athletes and parents of athletes who are trying to identify the right school. Hopefully you will gain some insight as to why athletes are transferring so much, and offer some hope to avoid these problems by doing a little more homework when deciding on a college.
You are choosing a school not a sports team
As an athlete you have the added pressure of deciding on a team and coach you want to play for as well as a university. With so much time going into finding an opportunity to play sports, it is easy to forget you need to be considering the school as well. A lot of athletes who are upset with the school they are at is because they didn’t take enough time to get to know the school first. They spent all of their time focused on the athletics associated with the school, they didn’t realize they wouldn’t like living on the campus, in that town or taking classes there.
The solution is to visit a campus and talk to regular students, not just other athletes. Find out where students typically live and what the town is like. See if you can sit in on classes and maybe talk to a professor who teaches a subject you are interested. Yes, you are probably going to have to be seen walking on campus with your parents, but that perceived embarrassment is a small price to pay compared to transferring and losing a year of eligibility.
You will have things you don’t like
Too many times athletes are transferring or leaving because they don’t like something that is more or less just part of leaving home and going to college. Despite what you see on ESPN, athletes don’t all live in luxury dorms and have access to all you can eat gourmet food. Gross dorm rooms, smelly roommates, loud neighbors, bad professors, and less than five star training facilities are the norm for a lot of colleges. Sometimes even more serious things can happen like break-ins or things getting stolen. Remember, sometimes bad things happen in life and college is life. By no means should you stay in a dangerous situation, but don’t think that leaving a school will fix something like a less than perfect living situation.
As a parent, before your athlete decides to leave a school, make sure you think long and hard about the real reason they are leaving. I’ve seen a lot of athletes leave schools because they just had difficulty adjusting to life away from home. At some point your athlete is going to have a bad day, week or down month, and many times that is part of the adjustment. Ultimately, it is going to be your call on what type of situation is acceptable or not, but several times athletes I’ve talked with simply needed to stick it out a couple more weeks and ended up having a great college experience.
If you are going to leave, you need the coach on your side
My final piece of advice regarding transfers is, if you are committed to leaving the school, you are going to want the coach on your side. Understand that if you are going to leave the program unexpectedly and not give them any warning, they are going to do a little as possible to help you. If you are on the team and especially if you are a scholarship athlete, the coach is committed to keeping you with the team. Talk to them about the problems you are having, show them you are willing to try and make it work. If you still want to leave after trying to make it work, the coach is going to be much more willing to help.
Leaving a school is a very difficult process and having the difficult conversations with coaches is a hard thing to do, but that’s what adulthood is about. No coach expects every athlete to stay with their program 100% of the time, but they do expect you to talk to them if you are having a problem.

Hopefully this will give some perspective on the problems you are facing or help you make the right choice when choosing a college

Friday, February 27, 2015

Writing a Subject Line for Your Emails to College Coaches

Before you can get a coach to read and respond to your email you need to get them to open it. You might have a perfect personalized email with a link to your online profile and video but if your subject line looks generic or uninteresting, they might skip right over it. There is no one way to write a single subject line that is good for all coaches and all universities. The information below is meant to provide you with a frame work to think about for each coach and sport specific examples of email subject lines for coaches.

Think About What’s Important to the Coach
Your subject line needs to appeal to that coach and what is unique about their university. It’s not always easy to know what is most important to a coach in the recruiting process, here are a couple of things to consider about different schools.
§  Top level DI programs need to know you qualify athletically – Coaches at this level make their first judgment on recruits based on if they think they are good enough now or will eventually be good enough to play at that level. You need to list your size, best times or the fact you are including a video to let a coach know they can determine your athletic qualifications in that email.
§  You must have the grades to qualify for elite academic universities – The most challenging thing for coaches at elite academic institutions is finding athletes that can get through the admissions process at their school. It takes a lot more then the NCAA minimum requirements
§  In-state or out-of-state can make a difference – Many public schools are experiencing budget crunches and college coaches are being asked to try and find out-of-state walk-on’s for their programs. If you are inquiring about a walk-on opportunity with an out-of-state public school, tell the coach you are from another state. Similarly, some coaches are asked to recruit in-state for scholarships so you might want to include that in your subject line to in-state schools.
§  Tell a DIII coach you are looking for a DIII opportunity – Coaches at DIII programs have a difficult time finding recruits who understand how financial aid works for DIII athletes. If you are emailing a DIII coach, try to communicate that you understand what a DIII school means for them.

Covering the basics in the subject line
With the idea of making the subject line unique to each program, you want to make sure not to forget the basics. You must include your name, graduation year (or walk-on request) and then the unique information. For example
“John Doe 2015 Grad [unique information” or “Jane Doe Walk-On Interest [unique information]”
Examples of subject lines to coaches
Softball [Pitcher] – “Jane Doe 2015 Grad LH Pitcher 55mph Skill Video Included”
Softball [Outfielder] – “Jane Doe2014 Grad OF/LH Slapper 2.6 Home-1st Skill Video Included”

Make sure you have what you need to write an email first
When you read these email headlines you might think to yourself “I don’t have the information necessary to write that.” You might not have a highlight tape, established rankings or maybe your grades aren’t very good. This should serve as a wake up call to get things together and get organized in your recruiting.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Common Traits of Successful Recruits

For over 10 years we have been helping athletes and families find scholarship opportunities by utilizing online recruiting tools. Over that time we have spoken with all types of recruits and seen amazing results, both positive and negative. We’ve seen top DI talent end up without a team to play for and athletes get scholarships ahead of other more talented recruits because of their great attitude and hard work.
Across the thousands of recruits and scholarships there are a couple of traits that almost all of our successful recruits have in common.
The recruits have unwavering persistence
You are going to have far more disappointments then success in recruiting and you have to keep fighting. The recruits I have worked with that have the best “luck” are the ones that can get told no 20 times and keep emailing and calling. Coaches have to try and find the serious recruits through all of the half-hearted emails. Getting through this filter requires a consistent, quality effort from you.
They want a scholarship, but don’t ask for it
There is a difference between asking “for” and asking “about” a scholarship and successful recruits ask about scholarships. What you want to know from a coach is what it takes to get a scholarship from their program; it is your job to show that you are that type of student athlete. What you don’t want to do is ask a coach for a scholarship and then leave it up to them to try and determine if you are qualified. Help the coach recruit you, don’t expect them to just come after you.

They have more than one scholarship offer
Nothing gets a scholarship offer like already having one on the table. Even if you are talking to a DI school and only have a DII offer, the coaches know they are now competing against a scholarship offer. When a coach knows a recruit is getting part of their education paid for, it is going to be very difficult to get that recruit without offering some money. Recruits are encouraged to have several schools involved in the recruiting process. This protects against losing an opportunity late in the process and leveraging offers against other schools.
An ability to follow instructions
You need to be able to read a coaches questions, respond and ask questions of your own. One of the most frustrating experiences for a coach is when they send you instructions to follow and you don’t follow them. If a coach sends you a link to a page with instructions and you ask them for something that was clearly answered on that page, they are going to question your ability to follow instructions. There are going to be several tasks that are going to require you read complex instructions, ask the appropriate people for help and get answers back to your coach. If you cause the process to drag on and waste time, this can cause a coach to stop recruiting you.
Where you’re from doesn’t matter
Being from a small town or an international athlete is never an excuse to not get recruited; you can get recruited from anywhere. Almost every college coach has recruited an international athlete or someone from across the country. It is all about fit, you need to show the coach you fit their program. Will you have to email more or look at more schools, yes, but who said this was going to be easy?

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

I Heard Back From the Coach, Now What?

We spend a lot of time discussing how to begin the recruiting process. It can be difficult to get the attention of the coach and universities that are right for you. Whether you are emailing coaches on your own or using our online profiles to get discovered, the first step is to have 5-10 coaches that are actively recruiting you. Once you have accomplished that, it is not as straight forward on what to do next. The goal is to find a school you want to attend, a team that fits your expectations and if possible get it all paid for through an athletic scholarship. Getting to that point takes a lot of work and it is easy to misread a coach’s response or interest for more than it is. 

Please Send Us Your Summer Schedule and Call if You Have Questions
If you hear back from a coach, this is the typical response. Coaches use profiles and film to make initial evaluations. If they like what they see, they make time in their summer recruiting to come watch you play in person. This can be at a travel tournament, their summer camp or third party combine. When a coach has told you they want to watch you this summer, you are still a long way from a scholarship offer. As a general rule, I say 100-200 recruits have received this same response “that a school will come watch them play” and it is up to you to take advantage of the opportunity giving coaches what they have asked for.

Also, if a coach asks you to call them, CALL THEM! This is how you show a coach you are interested. If you don’t call, another recruit will and they will have a better relationship with the school.

Great Communication but No Scholarship Offer
Coaches will recruit a walk-on just as hard as a scholarship athlete. Just because you are having great conversations and the coach says things like “I am really looking forward to having you on our team next year” doesn’t mean they are planning on offering you a scholarship. Most college athletes are non-scholarship athletes and the majority of scholarships are partial scholarships. If you are communicating regularly with the coach, making visits to their campus and feel like you have made it clear you really like their school, maybe it is time to discuss a scholarship with them.

Being Asked to Verbally Commit but You Aren’t Sure
Some athletes run into a situation where a coach offers them a scholarship and is asking them to make a verbal commitment very early in the recruiting process (their junior year or earlier). For families this can be an uncomfortable situation because they are not sure yet.
Coaches are not doing this to make the process more difficult for you (coaches don’t like making scholarship offers to underclassmen either), but because this is just the way recruiting has evolved. In the competition for the best recruits, schools take the chance of committing scholarships to an athlete in their sophomore or junior year in order to get that athlete on their team. Their fear is if they don’t offer, someone else will and they will lose you.

As a recruit, it is your right to ask for more time before making a decision. You should always ask a coach who has offered you “how long do I have to decide on the offer?” After you get timeline for your response, you can plan out your decision making process accordingly. The difficult truth is, there will probably not be a perfect time to commit and ultimately you are going to have to just make a decision based on the options available to you.

This is not an exhaustive list of situation’s you face as a recruit but was written to address some of the most common things asked in regards to recruiting.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

The Difference Between Generic and Serious Interest from a Coach

As a recruit or family it can be difficult to feel like you are making progress in recruiting when coaches send what feel like impersonal emails. People are wise enough to know, generic letters and camp invites don’t constitute serious recruiting interest. When trying to determine if a coach is interested, it is easy to misconstrue a short email for a generic email and think coaches are not interested. In the question below, a recruit nearly made the mistake of giving up on schools that were showing strong interest because she did not understand the coach’s emails.

I have contacted multiple coaches and updating them on my progress. Three coaches have responded multiple times. All going like this, “thanks for the email. See you on the field. Keep the updates coming.”

Are they interested in me or are these emails generic emails?

Every time I contact one of these three coaches they end with giving me their cell # and other various contact information. They also sometimes send emails “we would like to personally invite you to our camp on date… So and so.”

What does this all mean? Should I bother continue contacting these coaches as I feel I am going nowhere in this process.

These are not generic coach responses.
Depending on the size of the program, a single coach could be sharing correspondence like that described with 100 recruits. They simply don’t have time to write lengthy emails to “show” how interested they are. Coach’s emails fall into two categories, those with their cell phone/personal contact info and those without contact information. These email responses might be short, but when a coach includes their personal contact information (cell phone number), they are showing genuine interest.

What does this mean for this recruit?
My guess is this recruit is wondering things like, “are they going to offer me a scholarship” and “what else do I need to do to get more interest.” It is easy to feel like things aren’t going anywhere when you have exchanged multiple emails and the conversation doesn’t appear to be changing.
I would say this recruit is at the half-way point in the recruiting process. This is where coaches have identified him as a potential recruit (they feel he qualifies athletically and academically) and they are moving forward with more in-depth evaluations. As a recruit you want to come away from this period in the recruiting process knowing things like:

How many athletes is the program recruiting this year?
Do you like the way the program is run?
Do your expectations on playing time match what the coach is thinking?
Do they plan on offering you a scholarship? If so, how much?

The recruit should take the opportunity to call each coach and begin asking questions about their level of interest and where they see her fitting in with their program. Additionally, she should strongly consider attending these schools camps. Camps give coaches the type of detailed evaluations they count on when making their final decisions between scholarship and walk-on athletes.

The lessons for other recruits and families
This recruit mentioned a critical piece of information, “I have contacted multiple coaches and updating them on my progress. Three coaches have responded…” Notice that not every coach is responding to their emails. We don’t know how many programs they have contacted in total, but you must remember, the majority of coaches aren’t going to respond to your emails. Don’t focus on who you are not hearing from and focus on those who are responding.

Know what to expect and when. After you have gone back-and-froth a few times with a coach, you might be thinking it’s “time to start talking scholarship” and the coach is thinking “time for serious evaluations.” One of the things you want to know with any program is, what’s next. Try to get in the habit of asking a coach what is next in the process. You might not get a response, but when you do, getting that insight into what they are thinking can be invaluable for setting your expectations.


Monday, February 23, 2015

10 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Rule out Division II Athletics

When it comes to playing a sport in college, a lot of student-athletes focus on Division I schools and put DII and DIII schools on the back burner.  If you really want to play Division I and think you belong there, that’s fine.  However, Division I isn’t for everybody.  Here are ten reasons why you should consider playing at the DII level provided by the NCAA:

·        Traditional rivalries with regional institutions dominate schedules of many Division II athletics programs.
·        Division II teams usually feature a number of local or in-state studentathletes.
·        Many Division II coaches perform other jobs or functions at their institutions, including teaching.
·        Many Division II studentathletes pay for school through a combination of scholarship money, grants, student loans and employment earnings.
·        Division II athletics programs are fully integrated into the institution’s operations and budgets, like other academic departments on campus.
·        The Division II membership is focused on an “academics first” philosophy, and the division’s commitment to academic excellence supports the primary mission for NCAA schools: We are preparing studentathletes to go pro in something other than sports.
·        Division II studentathletes consistently graduate at a higher rate than the overall student body at Division II schools. This past year, Division II studentathletes on average graduated at a six percent higher rate than the total student population at Division II schools.
·        Division II has a diverse membership, with two active member institutions in Alaska and four in Hawaii. Additionally, it is the only division that has member institutions in Puerto Rico and the only division that has expanded its membership to include an international member institution.
·        A regionalization philosophy is used to select teams for Division II national championships brackets from four, six or eight geographic regions of the country. This emphasis on being the best team in your geographic area helps schools prioritize scheduling of regional opponents, limit missed class time and manage travel expenses.
·        Division II athletics events are affordable, fans are in close proximity to the action and the environment is “fan friendly.”

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Unofficial Vs. Official Visits

While going through the athletic recruiting process, you’re going to be taking both unofficial visits and official visits.  It’s important to understand the difference between the two kinds of visits because there are rules surrounding these visits.
An unofficial visit is any visit by you and your parents to a college campus paid for by you and your parents. The only expense you may receive from the college is three complimentary admissions to a home athletics contest. You may make as many unofficial visits as you like and at any time. The only time you CANNOT talk with a coach face-to-face during an unofficial visit is during a dead period.
When student-athletes start to really narrow down their schools, most of them will take multiple unofficial visits to a school to make sure it’s the right school for them.
An official visit is any visit to a college campus by you and your parents paid for by the college. The college may pay for all or some of the following expenses:
·        Your transportation to and from the college
·        Room and meals (3 per day) while you are visiting the college

·        Reasonable entertainment expenses, including three complimentary admissions to a home athletics contest

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Five Financial Mistakes that Can Limit Your Chance of Playing at the College Level

If it’s really about using sports to help pay for college, you need to avoid the following college recruiting mistakes.
You don’t understand that most athletes don’t receive a full-ride scholarship.
Parents and players need to understand that the majority of college athletes do not receive full-ride scholarships. Sports is not a substitute for college financial planning and will not make up for poor academic performance.
Now I know that there are plenty of parents out there who would sign the statement thinking that it simply doesn’t apply to their children who are obviously different. But at least they couldn’t claim to be surprised when their kids don’t get the full ride scholarship they were counting on.
“But how is this a college recruiting mistake?” you may ask. If students really need help paying for college, the sooner they realize the limitations of athletic scholarships, the sooner they can start targeting schools that are likely to provide them with the money they need. This doesn’t necessarily mean giving up athletics as you’ll see in the discussion of the next mistake.
Ignoring D3 schools because they don’t provide athletic scholarships.
Since many athletes and their families reach high school still pursuing the full-ride athletic scholarship, they will ignore D3 schools which don’t provide athletic scholarships. This is a college recruiting mistake for two reasons. The first is that D3 is the usually the largest division with over a third of all college teams. Eliminating D3 means eliminating a large amount of your chances of just playing at the college level.
The second reason is that while D3 doesn’t allow for athletic scholarships, they do provide need-based and merit aid. In fact, some of the schools that provide the most generous financial aid are D3 schools. If the main reason you’re playing your sport is for money in college, you need to consider D3 schools. Of course, this means you can’t afford to make the next college recruiting mistake.
Not using financial aid calculators.
There are two financial aid calculators all families should be using when looking for colleges. The first is the EFC calculator on the College Board website. EFC stands for Expected Family Contribution. Your EFC is calculated as part of the financial aid process. Knowing your likely EFC will give you an idea if you’ll qualify for need-based aid or need to be targeting schools that provide merit aid.
The other calculator you should be using is the school’s Net Price Calculator (NPC). Every school is required to have one available on its website. Once you get past the full-ride scholarship mentality, you can use the NPCs to get an estimate of how much the school is likely to cost you without the scholarship. Knowing your EFC will allow to gage how much of your financial need the school is probably going to meet. The NPC will also allow you to compare attending a school with no athletic scholarship to one that is offering a partial scholarship. If you don’t use the EFC and NPC calculators, you’re very likely to make the next mistake.
Can’t afford the school if the student doesn’t have a scholarship.
Coaches can and will cut equivalency scholarships for performance. Schools have been known to eliminate entire athletic programs. And not many schools can afford to keep students on athletic scholarship with a career ending injury. So you need to make sure you can afford to attend the school should the athletic scholarship go away.
Transferring to another school can be an expensive proposition if for no other reason it often takes students longer to graduate. And given that an increasing number of coaches are promising scholarships years in advanced which means there is less of chance to immediately receive a scholarship when you transfer.
Ask coaches about scholarships right away.
While it makes sense that a player would want to know up front if there are even scholarships available for a specific program, asking the coaches about them right away isn’t really a good idea. Think about this from the coach’s point of view. There are two possibilities.
The first is that the coach is in a head count sport and knows exactly how many scholarships will be available. If you haven’t taken the time to learn anything about the program and demonstrate your abilities, asking about scholarships just appears presumptuous and may lead the coach to just move on to the next prospect. Yes, you will need to know your chances for the scholarship but you have to give the coach time to estimate those chances.
The second situation is where the coach is in an equivalency sport where often even the allowed scholarships are not fully funded. The coach knows that the scholarship by itself isn’t going to get the player to commit to the school. The coach knows the players need time to buy into the entire program and understand the available education and financial aid opportunities. If you immediately ask the coach about the scholarship, the coach may think that money is the only way to convince you to play at the school and will move on to other prospects who realize that they aren’t going to get a full-ride scholarship but believe that schools has plenty of other opportunities that make it worthwhile.

Friday, February 20, 2015

Mental Toughness of the Week


“Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them—a desire, a dream, a vision” (Muhammad Ali).
What separates a champion how bad they truly want it and how hard they are willing to work for it. Are you willing to wake up at 4am and work towards your dream while everyone else is asleep?
College coaches look for that edge. It is mental toughness that separates the weak from the strong. 


Thursday, February 19, 2015

How to Negotiate a Better Athletic Scholarship Offer

The idea of getting a four year full-ride athletic scholarship is the dream for many athletes and families. As the reality of the recruiting process sets in, you realize how rare athletic scholarships are and how infrequently athletes receive full-rides. If you are fortunate enough to be offered scholarship money, you might be surprised how small the scholarship actually is. This leaves many athletes asking “how can I negotiate a better scholarship offer?” 

Your Only Leverage is Other Scholarship Offers

Coaches up their scholarship offers for a few reasons, you improve significantly, they get more money available late or they think they are going to lose a recruit to another school. If we are talking about negotiating a better offer late in the recruiting process, they only thing you can really control to improve your offer is to have more schools interested. Too many athletes think that because they have a school show strong, early recruiting interest, the scholarship offer of their dreams will come their senior year…it probably won’t. You should have a minimum of five schools your senior year showing serious interest, any less and you risk being left with only one (or none) offers.

It is tempting to scramble late in the process and reach out to schools after you have been committed to a school for several months and you didn’t get the scholarship offer you were hoping for, don’t do this. Coaches are willing to negotiate if an athlete has been regularly talking to several schools, but if you are opening up discussions only after a coach has made their offer, they know you are probably only doing this to try and play that school for more money.

Negotiate on Your Expected Contribution, Not Scholarship Size

Coaches are going to measure their scholarship offers based on how much the athlete will be expected to pay. For example, if two schools are offering a 50% scholarship, but one school costs $20,000 per year and the other costs $30,000, the coach at the cheaper schools is less likely to up their scholarship offer. Always base your scholarship discussions on how much attending that school is going to cost you after the scholarship. If a school is offering a smaller scholarship but will cost the least of all of the schools you are considering, don’t expect the coach to up the offer.

Establish a Timeline on Every Decision

You should leave every conversation with a coach with a clear understanding of what to do next and when it needs to be done. This is most important when it comes to discussing scholarships or financial aid offers. You should know exactly what it takes to get a full financial aid estimate and how long you have to decide on any offers made. Many times coaches are going to make unofficial offers before a school is going to be able to make an official review of an athlete’s financial aid opportunities. Coaches can provide you with a good idea of what kind of costs you will be looking at, but you can’t get an official review from the school until you have applied your senior year.

Trying to get a better scholarship offer is a delicate process where you need to balance not offending the coach making the offer and making sure you look at all of your options. In the end, there is no perfect answer to how to when to negotiate. As long as you have been open and honest with coaches and have been regularly communicating with several schools, you stand the best chance of being able to up your scholarship offer.


Wednesday, February 18, 2015

How Important are Grades in the College Recruiting Process?

Your academics might be the single most important thing when it comes to college recruiting and trying to land an athletic scholarship.

There are certain things coaches look for in recruits: are you athletic, are you coachable, are you the right height/weight, do you have good speed, etc. The list goes on and on.  Coaches might be able to look past a few flaws in your game if they see a certain quality they really like. College coaches are good at what they do, and they believe they can “coach a kid up” if need be.  But, a coach cannot train a player to have better grades and therefore, grades are the only thing a college coach will not look past. You either have bad grades, decent grades, or good grades; if your grades are bad, you run a huge risk of jeopardizing any scholarship offers. When a coach recruits a player with poor grades, the coach runs the risk of not getting the recruit into the school and, if the recruit is accepted but the poor grades continue into college, the coach runs the risk of having an ineligible player.

Because of the risk-factor, college coaches don’t want to deal with athletes that have bad grades.  There are plenty of high school recruits out there with good grades that have similar playing abilities the coach would much rather run the risk of taking.

Just as having bad grades makes you less attractive as a recruit, having good grades makes you more attractive.  Good grades means you are less risky when it comes to being and staying eligible.  College coaches want athletes that can graduate and boost the team GPA. Having good grades not only indicates you are intelligent, but you are able to manage your time wisely which can correlate with the player’s ability to be coached and master the playbook.

Most people don’t realize that recruits can get athletic and academic scholarship money.  College coaches can offer a recruit with good grades a better academic package to save money on their athletic scholarship budget.  College coaches really like having the option to combine scholarship funds and free up athletic money to bring in more talent.

Your grades can also increase the number of schools that are recruiting you.  For example, division three programs do not offer athletic scholarships to high school athletes.  A division three school can only offer academic scholarships.  With good grades, you increase the chances of getting scholarship money to a program that doesn’t offer athletic money.

When do these grades matter? They matter all four years of high school! Even freshman year GPA is very critical. Having it at a high point starting out will help three years from now when colleges begin to put them under the microscope. It is easier to maintain a high GPA than it is to chase grades.

All in all, grades are extremely important to college coaches. After all, this is college and you are a student-athlete—education always comes first.

What is a prospective student athlete?

A prospective student athlete, or PSA, is any high school athlete that is getting recruited by college coaches. The NCAA officially gives this term to athletes when they enter ninth grade. It also is used when a college gives any financial aid or other benefits to an athlete before a student's ninth-grade year.

Coaches who are interested in an athlete and the athlete is interested in their school, they become a PSA by communicating openly with that coach. High school athletes can be considered PSAs to multiple coaches, since there might be many colleges interested in that athlete.

Coaches are recruiting dozens of PSAs concurrently, so it is important to start contacting coaches early and establishing relationships with them as soon as you can. Send them your information and recruiting video, and start garnering interest from multiple schools. You have to work hard to gain an advantage over other PSAs so you need to be willing to work hard!

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