| SCHOLARSHIP ISSUES WHAT THE ASA COACH NEEDS TO KNOW By Steve Olsen Coaching a softball team is a tremendous responsibility. Working with players in the 18-under and even 16-under division carries the additional responsibility of preparing some of the players to compete in college whether at the NCAA, NAIA, NJCAA or Community College level. Just as you expect your players to commit to you and the team, you must be knowledgeable of the college recruiting process. You owe it to them as their coach. GETTING STARTED "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." There is a tremendous range of opportunity for softball players to advance to college ranks. "Blue Chip" athletes amount to only 1 or 2 percent of all players. Some 28 men's and women's sports - at several different levels of competition offers a broad range of financial support for college athletes. NCAA member institutions are authorized to grant about 49,000 scholarships in 15 men's sports in Division I and II alone. Plus, more than 30,000 additional scholarships are authorized for women in 13 sports at the Division I and II levels. That's still not the whole picture. Over 300 NCAA Division III schools provide various forms of need and merit-based financial aid, plus almost 350 NAIA schools provide financial support to a substantial percentage of athletes. |
Hundred of junior and community colleges and military academies round out the picture. It's also important to realize that colleges are permitted to split scholarships. This allows them to spread assistance to even more players than the above mentioned numbers convey. Now more than ever before, there is a much greater opportunity to receive financial support for playing college softball than most athletes or parents realize. Women's sports programs are growing the most rapidly, as colleges race to implement gender equity. So, if your players want to play college softball and are willing to consider a variety of options, more and more opportunities are available to them every year. HOW RECRUITING WORKS It's exciting for a player to get mail and phone calls from college coaches, but it can also be very confusing. What do the calls really mean? What constitutes an official visit? Let's do a quick review of the recruiting process. It's impossible to recruit athletes if coaches don't know who or where they are, so college coaches start developing a list of prospects. They get athlete names from a variety of sources including high school coaches, recruiting services, newspapers, other college coaches, alumni or the players initiates contact. Once a player gets a coaches attention the next step for the coach is to find out as much information as possible about the student athlete. A coach may request answers to a questionaie, a detailed profile and statistics form, and/or a skills videotape. But remember, coaches are prohibited from contacting prospects by letter or in person until after the athletes junior year. |
Colleges may visit a school during an athletes junior year to talk to anyone except the player. If a coach has continued interest, they may offer an unofficial campus tour (at the player's expense), a summer playing camp invitation, come to one or more actual games or visit the player in their home during their senior year. An official visit is when a college invites an athlete to campus and offers to pay for transportation, food and lodging.A player may only accept five official visits. Scholarship offers are often solidified during an official visit. The final steps in the recruiting process are a verbal commitment to attend a particular school (this as not binding) and acceptance by signing a letter of intent. It's impossible to do justice to the recruting process in a small amount of space. The rules are many, but rewards are potentially big dollar savings, with state schools approaching $50,000 in costs for four years of tuition and room and broad and private schools double that or more. To get started in finding the information you need for your players, contact the following associations and information sources. NCAA ~ NAIA ~ NJCAA ~ CCLC Other publications with helpful information are Preparing to Play College Softball, published by the Amateur Softball Association, to order call 1-800-44COACH or College Admission and the High School Athlete, by Jack Disalva and Theresa Foy Digeronimo at your local bookstore. |