Are you fight-ready for your recruiting competition?

Assertive or passive, which are you?

A new catch phrase will soon sweep the athletic landscape — fight-ready.  I heard it recently in an interview and the imagery created was powerful.  For me, it speaks to recruiting and what an NSR prospect has to do to face and overcome the competition to secure a college athletic scholarship.  While I will reserve the details of how to best accomplish this formidable task for our monthly newsletters to NSR prospects worldwide, I will say here that for high school athletes, your fight starts the moment you enter the ninth grade.  And if you are not fight-ready, you will lose the battle for a scholarship offer.

If you are a legit college prospect, you are in a fight, that is for certain.  It is not a direct, physical fight, but it is a fight nonetheless.  Yes, an unavoidable and integral part of the fight occurs in the classroom, on the field, court or track.  That’s where you prove you belong in the recruiting mix.  But, for the most part, this battle happens on paper and on video.  More importantly, howeverr, it is manifested in your commitment level to winning a scholarship.  But, are you fight-ready?

If this were a televised race and you knew that the starting point was your first day of the ninth grade and the final day was the end of your senior year, would it make sense to begin the race in the middle of your junior year?  Would it not make sense that at least a good number of your competitors would be taking their initial steps on Day One and that they would be taking at least a a few strides forward every day from that point onward?  Yet, knowing this, you would choose to wait two years before taking your first steps in the race?  Think about how far behind the others you would be.  Think about all the advantages your competitors would have over you.  So, are you fight-ready?

College coaches can make contact with you as a high school freshman and they will if they know about you.  Some coaches have, in fact, already contacted and scouted some of your competitors.  Those relationships will continue to grow in time as you sit on the sidelines.  Some of your competitors may actually receive offers as you wait patiently for coaches to find you.  Are you fight-ready?

Your competitors, the ones in the race, are proving that they are indeed fight-ready because they are actually in the race.   They are being assertive.  If you are not in the race, you are being passive.  Which one of you will get the most scholarship considerations?

Get fight-ready.