Misinformation!

Hi Everyone,

It was been awhile since we updated our blog, but with the holidays, basketball season, and just getting back into work, it has taken us until February to write a new blog. In early January of 2009, we were talking with parents of college basketball players, and several of them had gone to a high school presentation where they as parents were told that their student athlete or they themselves as parents should not contact colleges or coaches, that colleges and coaches will contact them. WRONG!!! on so many levels.

Now, while it is true that colleges and coaches are always scouting for the recruited athlete, the one who is targeting Division I and is the superstart athlete with all the awards and local press, this is not necessarily true for the non-superstar athlete. What is the definition of non-superstar? In our minds, it is the athlete who has real talent, desire to play and determination and some experience playing, but who may be a late bloomer, someone who was injured and couldn’t benefit from a long playing history, wasn’t a starter perhaps on his or her team, didn’t get the most play time, didn’t decide until very late to play his or her sport in college, wasn’t that supported by a high school coach, etc. For these athletes, it is critical to get your name in front of coaches and colleges where you think you might want to play and would be a good match for your level of play and the academics you want.

The college coaches we contacted as parents of a student athlete would not have come to scout our daughter. When we contacted them by email, then by phone and with a letter attaching our daughter’s profile, most of the coaches were very responsive, some stating she would not be a fit, some with no openings, some with interest, but all of them giving good information not only about their own programs, but about their competition, suggesting other coaches we could contact and where they themselves saw possibilities. They were very forthcoming, but the first step for us was to put our daughter’s athletic information and interest in their school’s academic program in front of them. Of course, our daughter had done her research on where she thought she would want to attend college, had made applications to 8 of them, and we directed our search towards these programs first. But, as we talked to more and more assistant coaches, recruiting coaches and even head coaches sometimes, we found out about other opportunities.

So, our advice to those of you who are student athletes or parents of students athletes who might be thinking about where you or your child could play, remember to look at the breadth of what is available in the NCAA, not just the top ranked Division I schools, but lower ranked Division I and Division II and III, the NAIA, the National Junior College Athletic Association, California Community College Commission on Athletics, National Christian College Athletic Association, United States Collegiate Athletic Association and more. Emailing college coaches and visiting your local university, college and junior college athletic programs and getting to know the local coaches is a good way to learn what is going on in your sport. Even if you or if you are a parent, your student athlete, are not interested in playing for the local colleges, this is a great way to begin to develop some contacts in your particular sport and learn what it takes to play at this level.

So, please don’t think the colleges are coming to you. If you know that you want to play at some level in college, start finding out more about college athletics and building information over a couple of years. We emailed coaches cold and found most of them to be responsive. Obviously, respect the coach’s time and don’t expect instant feedback, but email, phone, write — COMMUNICATE! All they can say is no and you really have lost nothing. If they respond, you will have another kernel of information that may help you on the road to playing college sports!

Happy Presidents Day! Pat and Al

Are We Having Fun Yet?

 

A friend of mine used to wear a t-shirt with this phrase on it when she was in the midst of raising a teenager, but the phrase hit me the other day when I saw some sports channel covering a Little League tournament. I thought to myself whatever happened to just playing playground ball and having fun?

And, what part do we as parents pay in the push to make competition such a “serious business” for elementary school kids. While our book is about helping your student athlete get a “berth” somewhere in the college athletic ship, we do understand that there has to be a love of the sport deep down within the athlete in order to sustain the many years of workouts, conditioning and playing. What seems to be happening in our generation and the ones following ours, are parents who want to be the player, coach, or sports critic. These are the “wanna bees”, those who probably never played sports, or those that played, but never made a varsity team, or those that were passed over. The desire to somehow transfer their unfulfilled goals of being an athlete onto their unsuspecting children plays out more frequently than not in youth soccer games, swim meets, basketball games, etc. across the country.

We are all for getting kids involved in sports because we have seen the added value of correctly managed competition to real life. But, limiting children to one sport in elementary school or turning the love of a sport into a job to get a “jump” on the competition is really a form of insanity. Our daughter started out riding horses and became quite good, so good that she participated in jumping competition. But, along with that, we felt she needed to understand what a team sport felt like and she began playing soccer at age eight. We were just happy that she enjoyed athletics and loved horseback riding and soccer. In seventh grade, she dropped both and turned to basketball, cross-country and even played a season of volleyball. The multiple sports we think made her a better basketball player and we were just happy that she was an involved kid.

But, so many parents today, are second guessing coaches even without having a real knowledge of the sport. Parents push to have their athlete get more time than another person on the team and, often, go beyond harassing to threatening using political clout to try to change an outcome for their child. Case in point was a group of parents in Castro Valley, California who didn’t like the amount of time their high school athletes were getting from the coach in games and convinced the school board into establishing an “independent committee with the coach on it” who would choose players for the coach’s team. When the independent committee did not choose the parent’s children to play, they cried foul and said the committee had been rigged. Who has time for this nonsense?? And, the sad thing is, instead of letting their student athletes enjoy their time playing basketball, the camaraderie of their friends and having good memories of their high school basketball life, the parents chose to put their egos ahead of their children. The NCAA states that less than 1% of NCAA athletes go on to play professional sports. And, not every high school athlete will be able to play in college. Why not put our energy as parents into supporting our children’s joyfulness with their sport, helping them to improve their abilities, learning about being a member of a team and working for the common good? And, if they want to play in college, then put that unfulfilled energy into helping our student athletes know how to do that and being the ballast they need in their adolescent lives.

Sure, we want to make sure that those kids with talent get a chance to play in college, but can we get rid of the ESPN media pressure on young student athletes and bring back the love of the game? We are all for having some fun while working hard. Let us know what you think.

Pat and Al
December 2008