A Parent's Guide to Winning the Game of College Recruiting

March 23, 2009

Speaking to Laurie Richter, you find out almost immediately that she didn't intend on coming into her role as an expert on the recruiting process for student-athletes coming out of high school and hoping to play sports at the collegiate level; instead, it, more than anything, came onto her.

Richter, after all, spent much of her life pursuing one of two things: first, advancing her education, where she finished a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Maryland in 1978 and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin; and second, following a career-path, which almost incidentally landed her a job in market research with the Quaker Oats Company, and ultimately ended up opening her own agency, Consumer Voice.

But then there was her son, Dylan, a bright-eyed, enthusiastic kid that performed well in the classroom, but was equally as productive on the basketball court -- good enough, in fact to make the Adlai E. Stevenson High School (Lincolnshire High School) varsity basketball team as a 6'3" small forward, where, by the time he was a junior and senior, he'd proven himself a highly sought-after Division III recruit.

The one thing that Dylan was not fully prepared for, however, was the intensity of the recruiting process. He had more than enough to focus on, being both a successful student and athlete.

So Richter, being the supportive mother she's always been -- rarely did a game go by when she couldn't be found somewhere dotting the stands of her son's basketball games -- did what most parents in a similar position could or would not do -- stepped away from her own business and set out determined to understand just how to successfully navigate the muddy waters of college recruitment.

Richter hardly found getting started an easy task; yet, she refused to sit back and fall victim to the biggest mistake that she believes most recruits and their families make at the beginning of the recruiting process -- waiting to be contacted by college sports programs in the belief that scouts and coaches will always automatically serve as the impetus by which recruitment is introduced. Such inroads made by representatives of a university are reserved for the first-tier / blue chip recruits alone, notes Richter, and are founded on evaluations based strictly on athletic, not academic or social, function of the recruit being contacted. The majority of young student-athletes entering their junior or senior years, however, find it necessary to research and discover a program that best fits the respective prospects needs, and not the other way around.

Like many parents of potential college recruits, Richter first turned to Dylan's coaches. Soon after doing so, she realized that there was only so much each individual Dylan had or currently played for could do. The expectation was that Richter and her son set the tone and agenda for the recruiting process. The role of the coach was simply to provide secondary support during Dylan's recruitment, offering, for instance, a list of schools each felt were programs the Richters should check out before making a final decision or promising to make phone calls to prospective colleges of interest that the family identified along the way as time became available.

Richter, it is important to point out, finds little fault in the fact that coaches like Dylan's take more-or-less a back-seat in the recruiting process; they are, after all, she notes, regular people, with job requirements to meet, families to take care of, and their own personal interests to follow up on before being able to legitimately commit any degree of time to furthering the recruiting desires of any one given athlete comprising the entirety of the team for which he / she is responsible.

Realizing that she was going to have to play a much more centralized role in Dylan's recruitment than expected, Richter grappled with the realization that there was no centralized entity which student-athletes and their parents could turn to in order to identify answers to the ifs, when’s, and how’s of the recruiting process. There was no registry upon which to qualify for consideration; no application to fill out in order to be reviewed. More or less, each time a student-athlete made the decision to investigate the possibility of playing a sport at the collegiate level; he or she was doing so as if it were the first time that any individual in similar circumstances had garnered enough courage to set on the path upon which future recruits would follow. It was as if Dylan himself was the first of a new breed -- a young man that desired to find a college that would fit both his need for a challenging environment to learn, but also propagated a growing desire to continue playing basketball beyond high school.

Fortunately, Richter had a clear understanding of what Dylan and the rest of the family was looking for: a school with a strong academic reputation, somewhere nearby to home, but located in an urban setting, something not too big, yet not too small. Initial research landed some 30 different prospective universities, but was quickly narrowed down to a mere handful, which, eventually, ended up with Dylan committing to Washington University in St. Louis, where he has, to this point in time as a freshman, found great success, including capturing a Division III national title this past weekend.

But things hardly remained that cut and dry. Many lessons were learned along the way, Dylan's mother explains, the collective whole of which she felt compelled to compile into a recently published book on the college recruiting process entitled, Put Me In, Coach: A Parent's Guide to Winning the Game of College Recruiting.

Her reasons for penning such a text are many; still, one stands out above the rest, with Richter undeniably inspired to provide families like her own a resource to help avoid the chaos and confusion she and Dylan were lucky enough to be able to avoid thanks to Richter's commitment to finding the right choice of schools and programs for the son she loves so dearly.

To learn the full extent of what Richter's involvement in Dylan's recruiting process uncovered, our readers are encouraged to pick up a copy of her book, most easily obtained by visiting her website, www.rightfitpress.com. Still, the author was kind enough to share some of her more important findings with NATS, a few of which are outlined below:

• Many recruits and their parents remain unaware (or refuse to recognize) that a visit to the local area by college scouts / coaches is, more times than not, done with the intentions of seeing a particular player, not to evaluate the whole of the talent comprising one highly-regarded coach's (high school or external sports league) team or another. As such, one of the most important rules of recruitment, suggests Richter, is for student-athletes and their parents / guardians to understand just how difficult it is for the average high school recruit to get recognized, not only by premier institutions, but, in fact, by any program at all. Subsequently, Richter advises that the process of investigating recruitment begin as soon as possible, even in the student's freshman year. This puts the recruit and his / her family ahead of the curve when it comes to fielding potential offers from universities and will set him / her apart from prospective competition early on in the eyes of coaches and athletic directors of the programs for which he / she may apply.
• Speaking of getting started early in the recruiting process, Richter suggests that the student-athlete, family, and school counselor get together and create an academic road-map as early as the freshman year, a move which not only sets the expectation for strong academic performance in the classroom as a component of recruiting, but also ensures that a potential recruit is on track to meet the requirements laid out by the NCAA Eligibility Center. Too many high school athletes, she states, wait until it is too late to identify whether or not they've taken all the necessary core courses needed to obtain clearance to play at the college level. Doing so in the junior / senior year of high school can be, at times, a fatal blow to the recruiting process and could force additional classes to be taken before being allowed to join a university team / program, delaying the student-athlete's intention on playing a NCAA sport without having to burn a year of eligibility. A core course calculator, called the TeamMate, is included in the free NATS player locker at www.nats.us.
• Student-athletes need to remain open to the potential that they may be recruited to positions at the collegiate level for which they did not play in high school; remaining cognizant and accepting of this will not only allow a particular recruit to field a broader array of options from interested programs, but emphasizes the fact that the average participant in high school sports is recruited by and for addition to a collegiate team to meet that program's particular needs -- even if it means doing so in a different role than one has grown accustomed to serving at a secondary institution of learning.
• Those involved in the recruitment of a high school athletic recruit must familiarize themselves with the different expectations of being considered by programs at the various levels of collegiate sports. For instance, Richter notes, playing for a Division I school may be the ideal for the majority of recruits, particularly given the role of scholarships in committing to such programs. Yet, only a minor fraction of incoming freshmen will earn the opportunity to come onboard at a well-established university with monetary assistance coming in the form of a guaranteed scholarship. More times than not, the decision to play sports means investigating playing at a Division II or Division III school, neither of which will provide complete coverage of all expenses associated with obtaining a college degree. This being the case, student-athletes and their families must be prepared to identify alternative means of paying for tuition; especially should a particular recruit not be regarded as an elite athlete. Playing a sport of choice in college certainly is not an impossibility by any stretch of the imagination, but comes with a price that some may, in reality, find too great to pay.
• In order to better understand which level of collegiate athletics a particular student-athlete may find the best fit given their means, needs, and desires, Richter says it should be a priority for all recruits to participate in an accurate assessment of their physical skills in order to obtain a clearer picture of the opportunities he / she may / may not have in playing a NCAA-sponsored sport. Fact of the matter is, states Richter, any individual who is "a halfway decent athlete, and possesses the initiative and attitude to find a place to play sports in college," will find an option available to them. The question then remains whether or not the option provided is an acceptable one or not, both for the student-athlete and family. Again, curbing the ideal, as mentioned before, becomes a crucial part of the recruiting process in this circumstance; a school may provide the opportunity for a student-athlete to play college athletics, but, truth be told, it may not be exactly what the recruit him / herself expected. Whether or not that is acceptable enough is a decision only the recruit and family can determine. Still, engaging oneself in a league external to that defined by the high school the student-athlete attends (AAU, for instance), asking for evaluations from coaches of programs that play in the same district as the school for which the student-athlete plays, or participating in a quality combine such as that offered by NATS, is the best way in which such introspective assessments can be made by the recruit in question, a well as reasonable expectations of the recruiting process formed.

The advice provided by Richter, as outlined above, merely scratches the surface of those things which should be taken into consideration even prior to a student-athlete making the decision of pursuing a collegiate career in a sport of choice or not. There certainly is more to be understood, with Put Me In, Coach a valuable resource that such knowledge can be acquired, as well as periodical articles this recruiting expert publishes on her own site, again, www.rightfitpress.com.

Yet, as it relates to the last point covered in the previous section, perhaps the most important step a potential college athlete can take in preparing himself for all that is entailed in the recruitment process, is gaining an objective assessment of the student-athlete him / herself and understanding what doors may open and / or close as a result of that appraisal.

There are many options available to high school student-athletes as a means of attaining such an assessment, but perhaps none is nearly as complete and thorough as that provided by NATS. Incorporating an unyielding commitment to provide accurate data, collaborating with the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) and the American School Counselor Association (ASCA), NATS seeks on multiple levels -- academically, as well as athletically -- to provide everything a high school football recruit could need to approach recruiting from a perspective that is both well-informed and confident in its essence.