Dear Coach Farrell,

1. My daughter worked extremely hard to rehab her acl, and used the downtime to study the nuances of the tactical game, learn some specialty moves, practice her stick work, and generally make the rest of her body stronger. She came out of the injury a better player than before she was hurt. She did end up committing to UNC –Chapel Hill to play field hockey- UNC has won the Div I field Hockey title 2 of the last 3 years. They offered her guaranteed acceptance to the school, and a place on the team, but no guarantee of scholarship money her first year. We made the decision to allow her to go, with the hope, but not expectation, that she will receive aid in following years. That seems to be the pattern at this particular school.

2. What got her a one on one interview with the head coach was that she compiled a video of herself and placed it onto YouTube.com. The coach, when she contacted my daughter, told her that she received dvds of players all the time, which she typically discarded without viewing. No one had ever sent her a link to YouTube.com to watch a player, so she checked it out, mainly out of curiosity, and liked what she saw. She also actually liked that the film had had not been compiled and edited by a professional, but that it was clearly my daughter’s own work… and that it showed off what my daughter thought was important to portray, not some professional video editor… misspelled words and all. She invited my daughter down the following weekend for a campus visit, and asked her to verbally commit while on the trip, while my daughter still had her leg brace on.

Although she was intimidated by the perceived level of play on a top 5 ranked program, she considered 2 things- (a) if I don’t go to the best competition I can find, I’ll never find out how good I really am, and am willing to take the risk of not playing much, and (b) if I have a career ending injury the first week of practice, where do I want to go to college as a student? She attended UNC summer camp this summer with 3 of the other recruits, and came back very convinced she has the skills to play at this high level.

Thanks again for the help from your book. R. Bell

Congrats to both you and your daughter on all of your hard work. The important thing to take away from this letter is they put into action the lessons taught in the book. They had clearly defined goals of playing at a top school and used the strategy to get the job done. Best of luck in your college career!

Field hockey scholarships are competitive to earn for the NCAA. Unlike football and basketball which award full-ride scholarships to every athlete, field hockey is an equivalency sport in the NCAA. This means scholarships are usually partial and can be divided to be awarded to multiple athletes.

Division I programs have 12 scholarships for the entire team while Division II schools have 6.3 scholarships to award. This means if you earn a .4 or 40% partial scholarship, the coach has 11.6 scholarships remaining. The minimum you can receive is 25% which covers tuition, room and board.  The amount of scholarship money you receive is only for that year. If you perform well on the field, coaches will increase the money when you renew the field hockey scholarship each year.

Full ride scholarships are possible but in the past 5 years, NCAA Division 1 programs have only awarded an average of 10 total to incoming freshman classes. With the competition become more fierce each year it is important that you follow a recruiting system, start early and take necessary steps that puts your name and game films in front of college coaches.

Here are 5 Mistakes to Avoid:

1. Quitting: We have seen athletes whom after hearing no from 50 colleges, get the scholarship from the 51st college coach they talk too. Don’t quit during the process. Sounds simple enough but you’d be surprised how many athletes just aren’t prepared mentally for how tough recruiting can be.
2. Letting your grades slip: If it comes down to an athlete with great test scores and solid grades over the same athlete with NCAA minimum qualifying standards, guess who gets the field hockey scholarship? Solid grades show you can handle balancing college field hockey and academics. Both are harder and require more time in college.
3. Poor attitude: You can be one of the best  players in your State but if a coach watches you play and see’s you get angry easily, argue with refs, don’t finish out the clock, no one will touch you. No coach wants to recruit an attitude like that and have to deal with you for 4 to 5 years.
4. Not contacting coaches: You need to be active and aggressive in your recruiting. Players who wait for college coaches to call them, don’t get the scholarship. Take initiative and let coaches know that you are the player for them.
5. Treating recruiting lightly: You only get one chance out of high school to earn a field hockey scholarship. Do everything you can to educate yourself about the process and then use that information to take action. Treat it like a job and you will be rewarded.

The recruiting process for a field hockey scholarship is not different from any other sport. Educating yourself about the recruiting process and following a system that works is what will separate yourself from the thousands of other Senior athletes, all wanting the same scholarship money.

CLICK HERE if you are ready to beat out your competition and earn a field hockey scholarship.