Two-sport Star Alexa Gerchman Uses NSR to Get More Choices

Parents Enrolled Daughter Early in Both for Maximum Affect

Alexa Gerchman had just completed her freshman year at Dunmore High in Pennsylvania and was playing in a summer, travel softball tournament when an opposing coach approached Alexa’s dad, Mark.  “Your daughter is the best shortstop here,” the coach told Mark.  With that, Mark got on the phone and called NSR’s Ed McGrady and asked him to enroll Alexa with NSR as a softball prospect ASAP.  See, Alexa was already a member of NSR’s 2011 basketball class, but to maximize her chances of getting scholarship offers, Mark and his wife Elizabeth, did not hesitate to get her aboard NSR’s promotional program in a second sport.  

Three years later and the best of all possible scenarios is happening for Alexa and her family.  To date, she has received 17 pages of emails from college basketball coaches and another 15 full pages of emails from softball coaches.  Oh, did we fail to mention that Alexa is a junior?  Think it’s paid off?  Well, with solid offers already in both sports, Alexa has what every senior athlete in America would love to have — multiple choices. 

It’s a dream come true initiated by parents who saw the potential in their daughter and sought out a scouting service with the best placement record in the scouting industry, National Scouting Report.  For Mark, a high school principal, an online search led him to eventually call NSR after evaluating all the reputable services.  The things NSR offered were the things the Gerchman family needed — personal scout who lived in the area, proven record of getting results for other kids, experience in working with college coaches at all levels of college athletics.  And, once NSR’s promotional machine went to work marketing Alexa, college coaches across America began to see her as an excellent prospect. 

Alexa was facing what so many prep prospects encounter — an excellent resume which no one really knew about.  In today’s fast-paced communication environment, there are plenty of online options for high school athletes, but what parents and prospects often fail to realize is that college coaches do not have time to surf the Web to identify recruits.  Yes, they want the ease of recognizing top talent online, but their time is valuable.  Coaches cannot afford to waste time on sites where just anyone can post their info.  Those are unreliable sites because the prospects are not screened. 

Alexa, on the other hand, was scouted in person by NSR’s Northeast Pennsylvania Area Director, Ed McGrady.  As her personal recruiting coordinator, Ed knows first hand about her athletic strengths and weaknesses.  When a college coach calls Ed about Alexa, she will get the very best representation.  Look at the scouting reports he wrote about Alexa in both sports.  They reflect that knowledge and familiarity.  Had Mark and Elizabeth enrolled Alexa with any other scouting service, college coaches would have been routed to a person in the home office whose only knowledge about Alexa would have been from a teleph0ne conversation, not from personal observations.  College coaches appreciate that kind of professional assistance NSR provides.  Ed can, and does, speak to Alexa’s tremendous athleticism, academic record and outstanding character.  She has a professional scout who has her back.  Moreover, when she and her family have questions, they can call Ed for help at anytime.      

In all, Alexa has received more than 70 questionnaires from college coaches.  Of course, it helps that she is an honor student, is ranked in the top 10% of her class and has earned excellent standardized test scores.  One Ivy League school has been contacting her continuously in hopes of landing her as a basketball recruit, and she already has offers on the table in softball.  Because of all the attention, Ed recently asked Mark and Elizabeth if they wanted NSR to take Alexa off the available listing.  They laughed and said no, indicating that they are loving the excitement and process.      

Two-sport athletes like Alexa are often torn between deciding which sport they want to pursue in college.  It’s a dilemma we often confront at NSR as on-the-ground, field scouts.  Our best advice is to enroll in both.  Let the coaches convince you which sport you should play in college.  Through their questionnaires and recruiting letters, and later phone calls and campus visits, you will learn which college sport will work best for you.     

As for Alexa, her senior basketball campaign couldn’t go much better.  Her high school’s basketball team is on a 66-game winning streak and with Alexa at point guard, the season is looking promising, not to mention her future as a college student-athlete.