Part IV in a series: Are we, the family, willing to sacrifice financially to put our athlete in the best possible position to win a scholarship offer?

The finish line may be within sight 

You pay to play in America, even in youth sports. Whether it is a fee for the local little league or basketball team, community park soccer or gymnastics team, you pay. The families that want their athletes to go farther put out cash for travel and club teams, personal trainers, off-season leagues, camps, combines, tournaments, showcases and individual instructors. It adds up. Man, oh, man, does it add up. We estimate that if a family invests in even some of these additional options that by the time their prized athlete becomes a senior in high school they will have invested upwards of $35,000.00 in their child’s chances of becoming a college student-athlete. If you would like to read that last sentence again, we will understand.

Thirty-five grand – that’s hard-earned money. It’s sacrifice. It’s time. And it’s something you do willingly to help your child move on to the next level, the college level. Yet, only about one in ten high school athletes will actually reach their dream. That failure isn’t because of a lack of commitment. It isn’t due to a shortage of desire. No, the main reason their child doesn’t have the chance to grab the ultimate gold ring? College coaches still don’t know about your child. Seems impossible doesn’t it? Yet, it’s true. It’s been that way for eons and will continue to yield the same results, too, unless you opt to go that one, simple step farther.

It’s a financial step which you may have been told is unnecessary by friends and coaches. We can conjure up all kinds of different reasons your close advisors would take that attitude about a closing step which could actually connect your child with hundreds of college coaches. But, after working with high school prospects for 32 years, we know this: that advice is skewed and uninformed. Moreover, it’s born of short-sighted ignorance. There’s no other way to put it. People that should know better inextricably throw down the gauntlet when high school athletes are primed for a key push to the finish line.

What, then, is that one missing financial step which you can, and should, take? Marketing and promotions. Today in America marketing and promotions are part and parcel of getting the word out to a target market. From corn flakes to hybrid cars, marketing and promotions lets a target market know who you are and what you can offer. It makes sense, then, that following all the money which you have put into your child that you would want as many college coaches, which is your child’s target market, know that he or she is a viable prospect for them to consider. How else would they know? Newspapers? No, coaches don’t recruit from your local news outlet. Tournaments? No. There are too many prospects participating in these events to realistically think that a coach will pick out your athlete from among two, three of four hundred other prospects.

Going the extra financial step, the promotional step, only makes good, common sense. Can you imagine Ford designing and building a new model and not promoting it? Would it be reasonable to think that Kellogg’s would develop a new cereal and not promote it? Not a chance.

Your athlete is no different. Over the past six, seven or eight years, you have worked diligently to develop your athlete and to put your child in the position to reap the reward of a college scholarship offer. You have invested untold hours and uncalculated dollars on your well-honed athlete that has proven that he or she deserves every opportunity to play at the college level. So, why would you stop a hundred yards from the finish line because someone tells you that your child can win without going through the finish line tape? How much sense does that advice really make?

National Scouting Report is the most effective promotional juggernaut in the world for high school athletes wanting to play college sports. Our on-the-ground scouts coupled with our extraordinary, wide-ranging promotional efforts targeting and reaching every college coach in America in your child’s sport get results. But, you have to want it. You have to want to finish the race.

Are you a hundred yards from the finish line? Are people telling you that your child can win the race by stopping short of the running through the tape? If you are in this position, call us today. We can help.