NSR scout’s eighth grade daughter gets explosion of contact from top college coaches

Volleyball player from Alabama blown away by college responses 

“Susan and I would like to introduce you to our 13-year-old daughter, Mary Carol Cagle. Yes, I said 13 years old and in the 8th grade!!  She is much like any other 13-year-old girl. She has friends, she loves to shop, texts her friends, goes to church and even has the occasional boyfriend.  (Much to our dismay).  Oh, did I tell you she loves to play volleyball and basketball. She has been watching her older brother get heavily recruited in the football world and she asked, “When will that start for me?”  

Keep in mind she is really young, hasn’t mastered her sport of volleyball, but has ALL the drive, desire and work ethic of all the boy athletes.  No, we don’t video yet!  No, we don’t don’t know how tall she will be.  Right now is 5’9″ or so and long and lean and jumps like a gazelle! 

Not wanting to be like the cobbler that didn’t have shoes for his own family or a master mechanic that never had a car that ran properly, I decided to build her NSR portal.  We didn’t even have pictures from her high school volleyball season. Bad NSR parents!  But her older brother and NSR football prospect, Jordan Cagle, snapped a adequate picture of Mary Carol playing in the Big South Volleyball Tourney.  This picture, not the best quality, captured MCC approaching the net to KILL a ball. This picture has her head slightly above the net and her hitting arm almost two feet above that!!  This picture is now featured on her NSR website and her brochure.

But wait, there is more!  Do college coaches respond to and evaluate 8th grade volleyball players?  Isn’t it too early?  Don’t we have plenty of time to get recruited?  Can’t we wait till she is a junior?   You tell me!

This past Thursday, 4 days ago, I decided to put MCC out there on a Regional College Search (a feature unique to NSR). I figured it would just a few response from very small private colleges.  Man, was I wrong!!  There have been dozens of college coaches respond. Not only responding, but asked MCC to stay in touch via email and phone calls to their cell phones and personal invitations to their camps!!   But wait, there is more!

These emails and coreespndence with MCC, an 8th grader, were not from unknown colleges. Are you ready?  The list of email correspondence starts with Penn State. Arguably the TOP volleyball program in the country. Others include Tennessee, Florida, Central Arkansas, FIU, Indiana, Maryland, etc.  One coach simply said “Wow!!  You are on top of my 2016 watch list!  I’m totally impressed.”

Now, a lot of development, improvement and growth must still take place with Mary Carol to obtain scholarship offers from these types of volleyball programs. She is driven to do her part. Susan and I owe it to her for us to do our part. NSR owes it to Mary Carol to its part. Based on the success we have seen with Jordan on the football side and now Mary Carol on the volleyball side, it is overwhelmingly clear to us as parents and NSR folks that EVERYTHING we do at NSR works! 

So you tell me, should we have waited to start this recruiting process?  Only if we didn’t want our child to receive the very best opportunities available.  I can’t speak for every parent, but I can speak for me and Susan. We want and will provide our children with the most, the biggest and the best opportunities to succeed in their sports!  So when parents say, “It’s too early,” or “I can do it myself,” or “My coach will do this,” or “We don’t need help,” or “We can’t afford it,” they are being shortsighted, don’t understand modern recruiting and in the end really can’t afford NOT to enroll their child with NSR.”

Robert and Susan Cagle, NSR Licensees for Southern Mississippi, Southern Alabama and the Panhandle of Florida