California Community Colleges operate under a strict set of restrictions with regard to recruiting. They cannot simply find talented players wherever they may be and hope to attract them to their campus, as most 4-year schools do. That type of thing can only happen if the player is within their Community College District or a neighboring district within California. (A handful of schools have permission to recruit in limited areas outside California, but only Feather River and Lassen operate without restriction). And for purposes of this feature, I'm presuming most readers are either not in California or not being recruited by the local Community Colleges.
The key concept here is the idea of First Contact. This means, quite simply, that the student-athlete must contact the school that he or she is interested in attending BEFORE they can do ANYTHING.
In other words, YOU (the student-athlete) must CONTACT the SCHOOL. This can be done via phone call, letter or however the student-athlete sees fit. Many schools have a form you can fill out on their website. Once this first contact is made, the school will file the appropriate paperwork with the COA (the governing body over California Community College athletics).
At this point, the school can only provide information about the school. They still CANNOT RECRUIT student-athletes. This can ONLY be done when the student-athlete is PHYSICALLY in the Community College District.
So...if you're a student-athlete and you're wondering why nobody from California has approached you, now you know. These restrictions require you to take the initiative. Find out which schools you might be interested in and make that all-important first contact, and then the process can get started.
Continue the Guide / Go Back to Intro
Page 1 - Intro
Page 2 - Finding a California Community College
Page 4 - Finding a team to play for
List of California Community Colleges (with my comments)
Links to California Community College websites
An introduction to California
