Prospects Must Grasp Reality Before Opportunities Slip Away

Facing the Music Early Helps to Make the Recruiting Process Smoother

Determining which level of competition you realistically fit is a necessary first step toward considering and eventually accepting scholarship offers. Over blowing your status in particular can easily result in missing solid scholarship opportunities.

Parents, friends and high school, club or travel coaches, and especially your dreams, do not decide at which you belong. Only college coaches can make that call. Coaches know what their level of competition demands for their team to be successful and to establish, or continue, a program which has staying power. After getting their current team to perform at or beyond its potential, recruiting athletes which will keep them be competitive and vie for championships tops their to-do list. So, you either make the grade or you don’t. You either have the size, speed, strength and athletic skill set to help a college team improve or, again, you don’t. It’s really that simple.

When prospects over estimate their capabilities, they go on what can be categorized as a “wait” list. That is to say coaches know that they have to wait until reality sets in with that prospect before they, the coaches, can have a chance of getting the prospect to sign. Meanwhile, and this works against the athlete’s best interests, if another prospect of equal talent shows the coach a modicum of interest, the coach will naturally turn his or her attention toward the more interested prospect instead of holding a spot for the wait-list recruit.

This happens frequently. We talk to college coaches every day who shake their heads in disbelief that a prospect which could help their program but instead holds out for a higher-level offer which is unlikely to materialize. It’s a sad situation, but is the nature of recruiting.

Realizing which competition level one fits can be a cold shower experience. Typically there’s a strange mourning period of sorts which the prospect goes through. Counting on playing at a higher level for years and then seeing that dream go poof is devastating to many kids. It’s what they have clung to, dreamed about and targeted in their psyche. It has infiltrated their souls. So when that dream bubble gets punctured, it’s very, very tough to absorb and come to grips with.

Yet, years later, when they have gone through college and played at the level in which they belong, hind sight tells them that they were wrong to hold on that dream instead of exploring all their options, many of which went away because of their stubborn, inflated view of their abilities.

Look at yourself in realistic terms.  Do you have the size?  Do you have the speed and strength?  Are you capable?  Are coaches at the level you have seen yourself playing paying attention to you?  Answer these questions and you will know which steps to take next – continue to follow the dream or accept a new, rewarding path.