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The way Brandon Sizemore figured it, his basketball career had come to a near-perfect, albeit unwanted, ending.

The recent Newport graduate, a scrappy sparkplug on an overachieving team, had helped the Wildcats to an improbable run to the state tournament at Rupp Arena.

But he was 5 feet 9 and the squad’s sixth-leading scorer. His name wasn’t on recruiting watch lists, and college coaches hadn’t come to see his games. “I thought that was it,” Sizemore said. “Then this kind of popped up.”

Sizemore will attend NAIA Georgetown College in the fall on a partial basketball scholarship. He’ll face an uphill climb for varsity playing time on a huge roster that features several former NCAA Division I players.

And he’s not alone. Every year, small colleges add more roster space on more athletic teams to attract more students and more tuition money to their campuses. As a result, high school students have more opportunities than ever to play college sports, sometimes regardless of their skill level. It’s an option for many. But according to experts, students and their parents must enter the small-school recruiting process with open eyes.

According to a recent NCAA study, the association’s member schools are adding nearly 8,000 athletes every year. According to another NCAA study, from 1982 to 2007 the number of Division III athletes increased from 85,521 to 158,621 – a growth rate of 85 percent.

Most of the increase has come at the smallest schools because they have little to lose and much to gain. Division III schools can’t offer athletic scholarships. They field a variety of teams while spending relatively little. Those teams bring exposure – as well as millions of dollars in tuition – to the schools’ typically small, private and expensive liberal arts campuses.

Similarly priced and sized NAIA colleges are in a comparable situation but do offer athletic scholarships.

What small schools find in the recruiting process, according to experts, are students and parents who are willing to go to any lengths for a college athletics experience.

“The parents – even if they’re smart – they’re lambs to slaughter,” said Tom Elias of College Prospects of America. “Kids are emotional. They pick a school because of the color of the uniform or because the coach is nice or the other guys in the cafeteria say it’s a cool school. Meanwhile, the parents are looking at an expense of $20,000 to $40,000 per year for four years. Maybe that school gives your kid $1,000 and you can put in the newspaper that Johnny got a scholarship. But all of a sudden the parents are getting a loan for $19,000 a year.”

Some coaches say that for some seniors, the allure of calling oneself a college athlete – along with the pomp and circumstance that surrounds their decision – directly affects their futures.

Conner athletic director Tom Stellman said as recently as 10 years ago his school would hold one or two “signing ceremonies” a year. They usually were held when a highly recruited Division I athlete signed his or her national letter of intent. Now, he says, Conner averages 40 ceremonies a year. Sometimes the athletes are going to college on scholarship. This time of year, when Division III schools are landing commitments from students, many are not.

“Our policy is supposed to be one group (signing) in the winter and one in the spring,” Stellman said. “But everybody wants their own. We need to do them all at one time, as a team. It used to be more about team, not the individual. It just kind of evolved that way. … It’s out of hand.”

How out of hand? Roster numbers tell the tale.

Lindsey Wilson, an NAIA program in Kentucky, had 33 players on its men’s basketball roster last year. Rio Grande, an NAIA program in Ohio, had 30. By contrast, NCAA Division I schools such as UC, Xavier and Kentucky carry about half that many players.

Brescia, another NAIA school in Kentucky, had a 46-player baseball roster last year. That’s 13 players more than last year’s College World Series champion, LSU.

NCAA Division III football power Mount Union started the 2008 season with 215 players, including an 84-player freshman team. Meanwhile, Division I programs are allowed just 85 total scholarships.

Local Division III schools Thomas More and Mount St. Joseph started their football programs in 1990, partly to increase the schools’ enrollments. After struggling early, both programs have been nationally ranked in recent years and maintained rosters between 90 and 120 players..

Mount St. Joseph coach Rod Huber said building a program is a process – one that places a premium on numbers.

“When we were 0-10, we took anybody who would walk and chew gum,” he said. “… I tell kids all the time, if you really love this game, there’s a Division III program for you. It might not be Mount St. Joseph. But there are places out there, like we were 10 years ago, that are just looking for bodies – anybody who wants to play.”

Even at elite small-college programs, the numbers game is evident.

Harrison graduate Steve Strassell was a standout pitcher at Division II power Tusculum (Tenn.) College. He arrived on campus in 2004 to find a 51-player roster that included 27 pitchers.

“When you’re a senior in high school and you’re being recruited, sometimes you can get a sense for how competitive it’s going to be,” he said. “You have schools come in and say, ‘We really want you, but we’d really like you to walk on and then earn a scholarship.’ You kind of get the feeling that they’re thinking, ‘Hey, worst-case scenario, we have one more body on campus paying tuition.’ ”

To that end, the athletic departments at many smaller schools assign each sport an enrollment goal – a number of roster spots each coach should fill to increase or maintain the size of the student body.

The policy has worked at Lindsey Wilson, where athletic director Willis Pooler said enrollment goals and the addition of several sports have raised the number of the school’s athletes from 400 to 700 in the last seven years.

“One of the things that athletics bring to the table from an enrollment standpoint is you’re bringing in students who might not have otherwise looked at your school,” said Pooler. “That’s important. We look at that when we look at what programs we want to offer. We also just started a nursing program. We try to attract students in all kinds of ways.”

Lindsey Wilson uses JV teams to develop varsity players and add enrollment.

“For some students, it’s just participatory,” said Pooler. “For others, it’s a way to get into the varsity lineup. … But we’re not taking people who have no business playing. They’re at least JV-level athletes coming in.”

And when it comes to NAIA programs like Lindsey Wilson, many of the JV players receive athletic scholarships. According to NAIA rules, JV scholarships don’t count against the program’s scholarship limits. So even JV recruits often receive thousands of dollars worth of incentives to continue their careers.

Cooper High School senior Shumekia Overstreet is one of those players. The undersized center, who averaged 2.0 points and 2.9 rebounds for a fledgling program that went 11-16 this past season, recently signed with Midway College. The NAIA school’s annual tuition is $24,000. After grants and academic money and $11,000 in athletic money, she’ll pay about a quarter of regular tuition.

“I was stunned (by the scholarship offer),” said Overstreet’s mother Darla. “… When she first mentioned she wanted to play basketball in college, I said, ‘Ummm, Shumekia, I don’t know.

“But she loves the game. Even if she doesn’t get a lot of playing time, she has a core group of people that she can bond with and turn to. That’s important in college.”

Brandon Sizemore, the Newport grad, will have plenty of teammates to turn to. Georgetown had 33 players on last season’s varsity and JV teams. He said he knows he’s entering the program as a JV player – the JV and varsity practice separately and play different schedules – but he hopes to crack the starting lineup.

Georgetown coach Happy Osborne wouldn’t comment about Sizemore’s future or the inner workings of his program, but it’s obvious Georgetown isn’t the only side benefiting from the arrangement. Sizemore, who landed on Georgetown’s radar after Newport’s athletic director sent out a recruiting questionnaire on his behalf, wanted to go to Georgetown even before Osborne contacted him. He said if he keeps his grades up, after grants and scholarships, he’ll pay only $2,000 of the school’s annual $35,000 tuition.

“Money would have been the only reason why I couldn’t have gone there,” he said. “I’m not the richest. Coach Osborne told me he’d see what he could do, and they came back with a great offer.”

The challenge facing small-college coaches is projecting how high school seniors will develop while giving them a fair assessment. The coaches then must decide how much scholarship money to give the player, or in the case of Division III coaches, whether or not to invite him or her to join the team. At times, it becomes an ethical dilemma.

“There are schools that bring 20 or 25 kids in as freshmen, and then the kids show up and all of a sudden they get cut,” said Mount St. Joseph men’s basketball coach Larry Cox. “The creed I try to tell our coaches: Never recruit anybody who we don’t think can ever be anything more than a JV player after two years.”

The onus, according to high school coaches, should be on the recruits. Many tell players and their parents to research the schools interested in them. Go to their games; ask to see their practices; talk to the players. Compare your skills to theirs.

Ryan Vogel is doing just that. The recent Silver Grove graduate plans on attending Thomas More in the fall. He also would like to play on the Saints’ JV basketball team. So he spent the weeks after his senior season playing in open gyms with Thomas More players to find out if he could compete.

Batavia graduate Justin Lowe said he wished he’d had that same mentality when he enrolled at Thomas More in 2000. Lowe was part of a 15-player freshman class for the Saints basketball team. But he quickly learned why some small schools bring in so many players. He received enough money in grants and academic scholarships that during his freshman season he paid only room and board. By his sophomore year, he was on academic probation. Without the academic scholarships, he owed full tuition. On top of school and basketball, he took a job at CVS before leaving school.

Lowe, now 28, still owes approximately $30,000 in student loans.

“I wanted to stay in school, but there was really nothing else I could do,” he said. “There’s school and there’s sports. But at the end of the day you have to pay your bills. I’m still happy I went there. I just wish I would have had my head on right.”

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While there are many intangible factors that go into earning a college athletic scholarship, the whole process can be broken down into 3 easy steps. If you can take charge and master these steps, you will be way ahead of your competition.

1. Game and Highlight Tape

As soon as you have great game film, two to three games, make a tape and send these out to colleges. Once your son or daughter has played a few games in their Senior year, (or Junior year for Spring sports) it is time to package these along with the next two items and get them into the hands of schools that match your recruiting profile.  It is not too early to start in your Junior or Sophomore years if these are varsity games, just be aware of NCAA recruiting rules that may prevent the coach from contacting you to discuss these films.

2. Athletic Recruiting Resume

Make an athletic recruiting resume that highlights your accomplishments, includes your stats and interests. You should approach recruiting the same way you would a job. Also include other sports you play and your stats if you excel in those also. Make sure your contact information along with your coaches and high schools is predominate so they can enter you into their recruiting database and have a resume to look at while they are viewing your game/ highlight film.

3. Official Transcripts

Grades and your academics are more important than ever. We have spoken so much about this in the past but it is something you can control and we hate to see talented athletes who are turned down for college athletic scholarships because they did not take care of business in the classroom. Before a coach can truly recruit you, they will need to see an academic transcript. Get copies from your guidance office to send with your athletic resume and film.

These three steps will put your name and face in front of coaches. Now you must be as aggressive as you are on the field, towards your recruiting. The athlete who works hard during recruiting, calling coaches, promoting themselves, sending out the most athletic recruiting packets, often wins.  Every year less talented athletes beat out those with better stats because they had a plan for their recruiting, followed through and earned the college athletic scholarship. Do you have the drive it takes to take charge of your recruiting process?

CLICK HERE to get the college athletic scholarship recruiting guide that will show you step-by-step how to get recruited and help you beat out the competition.

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Colleges amass huge databases of high school athletes. Athletic departments buy lists from recruiting services, compile rosters and buy mailing lists from camps, and collect athletic questionnaires. When colleges start the recruiting process they will have in some cases 2,000 or more high school athletes on a list for 20 scholarship spots or less. There recruited list is not very targeted early in the recruiting season. Schools cast a wide net hoping not to miss anyone that could be a potential recruit.

If you got a letter early in September, chances are at least 1000 other high school players got that letter as well. Letters and forms of communication change as the recruiting process wears on. You can tell a schools level of interest in you for an athletic scholarship based on the materials and calls you receive from coaches.

An easy way to forget about all of this letter hype is to start contacting colleges now. Use the recruiting plan laid out by us in our book. Letters, phone calls, recruiting packets. Get them in now and make first contact before coaches are swamped and they won’t even be able to remember your name. Those athletes who have the most success at receiving an athletic scholarship, start early, make first contact, and persevere through the competition. Are you that athlete?

CLICK HERE if you are that athlete who has the drive to take charge of their atheltic recruiting, we will show you how to get it done.

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Checklist for Seniors:

1. Register with the NCAA Clearinghouse if you have not done so already.
2. Finish your personal assessment and narrow school choices down.
3. Finish recruiting strategy plan.
4. Complete athletic resume and start making highlight tapes.
5. Communicate with high school coach.
6. Register to take SAT or ACT’s.
7. Have a great Senior athletic season.

You only get one chance to go through your senior athletic recruiting. You should be doing everything possible to make sure it is a success. Remember it is often not the most talented athlete that gets the college athletic scholarship, but the athlete who prepares their self for college recruiting the most and follows a proven system.

Learn how to do athletic recruiting the right way and beat out your competition. CLICK HERE

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Earning a golf scholarship at highly competitive college is very difficult. There are a few schools that dominate college golf each year and they recruit from the top 5% of players in the Country. Small to mid-size conferences in Division I and Division II schools hold the most promise for above average high school golfers wanting to get a college golf scholarship.

Between DI and DII colleges in the NCAA there are 489 schools that offer men’s golf scholarships and 337 that offer golf scholarships for women. Golf is classified as an “equivalency” sport in the NCAA which means scholarships can be divided up and distributed to multiple athletes. Golf scholarships are most always partial.

Division I men’s golf has 4.5 scholarships, while DII has 3.6. Women have 6 in DI and 5.4 in DII. If a coach offers you a .5 or 50% partial, then there are 4.0 scholarships remaining. Often in college golf, the amount of your scholarship increases each year as you become more valuable to the team.

Take maximum advantage of both your in-season play as well as competition on your own in the summer and off-season from high school. To get a college golf scholarship you must recruit yourself with the same level of focus and dedication you devote to your golf game.

Show coaches you are willing to constantly improve your game and that you will be an asset to both the golf team as athlete and the college as a student. Academics are important when trying to earn a scholarship. Having less than a B average in high school will eliminate you from half of DI colleges, because they can’t admit you. Makes your academics a focus now, even if you are a Senior.

If all things are equal on the golf course between potential recruits, the one who gets the golf scholarship is the athlete who works harder and is more prepared for their recruiting. Don’t wait to start. No matter if you are a sophomore or a senior in high school, you should have a solid recruiting plan in place for golf. With almost 2,000 scholarships available for men and over 1,800 for women, what are you waiting for? Get started today!

CLICK HERE if are ready to learn how to earn a golf scholarship.

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As an International student-athlete you should start your recruiting process early. Don’t wait until late into your Senior year. Getting recruited from overseas takes more time and to earn a scholarship you must still send recruiting tapes and other information coaches need. This will all take longer. Coaches in the US are accustomed to recruiting overseas now.

International student athletes make up a large percentage of rosters in such sports as Hockey, Soccer and increasingly Baseball as well. Students who attend high school outside the US and certain territories must also take either the SAT or ACT and submit grades and transcripts for review to the NCAA Clearinghouse just as any US student does. The main question asked is whether the TOEFL or TWSE tests are acceptable. They are not allowed for students who are pursuing an athletic scholarship or want to play in NCAA Division One or Two.

The positive and negative aspect of being a foreign student athlete is coaches don’t know who you are. Positive in that a coach can recruit you after you make initial contact without much fear of you being well-known in recruiting circles and having to compete with other colleges. When you contact a coach from another Country, believe me, they are going to want to find out who you are and hoping that you turn out to be a hidden athletic scholarship treasure for them. The negative is coaches have to evaluate the talent you play against and work out more logistics than recruiting a player in the US. This can be overcome by again, starting your recruiting early and being aggressive when contacting schools.

As the recruiting process is no different for a student in the US opposed to an athlete in a foreign country, our book, “Get Recruited To Play College Athletics,” is a great resource and step-by-step guide to help you earn the athletic scholarship in the US you deserve. CLICK HERE to review it and download.

The NCAA publishes a guide for International Student Athletes wishing to get a college athletic scholarship in the US. It can be found by CLICKING HERE.

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You are a high school athlete who wants to play in college and earn a scholarship. Should you pay for or hire a recruiting service to help you? If you have done any research into getting a college athletic scholarship you have seen these websites that promise big things and in most cases cost big money. Do they deliver on their promise and can they really help you get money for playing?

The most popular are the athletic profile based websites. For a fee, money, you can post an athletic profile that is promised to be seen by hundreds of coaches. They say they will blast your profile to schools across the country and scholarship offers will come rolling in. Is this the truth?

Well, they will take your money and they will blast your profile to schools across the country. As for coaches viewing your profile online, yes and no. These services will fax your profile to hundreds of colleges, but along with the profile of the other hundreds of registered athletes. It is not possible for a coach to take a stack of profiles and sort through these to figure out who to call. Take a look at the profiles, every athlete looks the same. There is not much of a call to action for the college coach. Also in DI and DII, coaches do not have the time or the patience to sort through online websites. Most of the views you will be getting are from other users, high school athletes online.

The other type are companies that for hundreds of dollars will make a highlight tape for you. They promise a professional highlight tape that will stand out above the competition. This is true, the tape will cost you hundreds of dollars, but what matters in the tape is your talent, not how well the tape is cut together.

Bottom line, save your money. Getting a college athletic scholarship is incredibly competitive. If you want it done right and with success you need to do it yourself. By doing it yourself it shows the college coach that you have ambition and determination. A fax from a website says nothing about you. The more you spend making a highlight tape, does not improve your performance on that tape.

Don’t waste money towards empty promises. If you want a college athletic scholarship then don’t wait any longer. You must start today. CLICK HERE to learn more about how to avoid costly mistakes that will ruin your scholarship chances.

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Most colleges subscribe to the results of these combines and it is an easy way for college coaches to get a quick snap-shot of potential recruits. Coaches like them because the results are far more accurate and verified opposed to an athlete, saying how fast or how big they are.

Summer camps hosted by colleges are another option for high school athletes and athletes over 14 years old can attend most camps for the week. Theses are an amazing recruiting tool and puts you right in front of the coaching staff and can lead to a scholarship offer on the spot if the recruiting calendar allows.

From the view point of the high school athletes, summer camps are far better at producing valuable recruiting juice, than combines. If you use summer camps to your advantage, by choosing a camp that you have a realistic chance of being recruited too or has already actively been recruiting you, this will increase your chances, provided you perform well.

Combines on the other hand can lead to disastrous results. If you show up and produce badly, hundreds of coaches will know about it. Combines are often not attended by college coaches and are run by for-profit recruiting services that promise scholarship leads. This is an option if you cannot afford camps, but you should consider better focusing your recruiting efforts away from combines.

Athletic recruiting is getting very competitive and we believe that it is better to attend summer camps at colleges that have potential to offer you a scholarship, rather than risk one bad day ruining your athletic recruiting potential.

CLICK HERE to learn the best way to attack your athletic recruiting.

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Besides the natural way that athletes stop getting recruited, other recruits more athletically talented than you, there are a few sure-fire things you can do that will get you dropped from a recruiting list fast!

1. Academics: If your grades aren’t that strong, let the coaches know in the beginning. This is the worst thing possible to hide from a coaching staff. They are going to find out sooner or later, and later is not the way to go. If they find out early in the recruiting process, coaches can begin to start talking with the admissions office to help you gain admission to the school. If you wait until a month before the signing date, you will be passed up for an athlete of similar talent with passable grades.
2. Parents: Parents can be a great asset for an athlete getting recruited or the factor that tells the coaches to drop the athlete. Parents that call the coaches constantly during the recruiting process, try to pressure the coach for a scholarship, or question the coaches evaluation of their child all throw up red flags to the coaches. Parents need to walk a delicate line during the recruiting process and are best served helping the athlete make the best decision possible.
3. Attitude: You can have all the talent in the world, but if your attitude stinks or you look like you could be a attitude problem in the future to the coaches, they will not risk a college athletic scholarship on you. Game films do not always show the true character of a player. When talking to coaches, never complain about your current coach, teammates or playing time. Always be positive and it will help your athletic recruiting.

There are so many factors that go into a coaches decision on who to offer a scholarship to. Use these three tips as a starting point to take the right steps to earning your college athletic scholarship.

CLICK HERE to get the insider recruiting guide that will show you how to beat out your competition and earn the college athletic scholarship you deserve.

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As competitive recruiting is from the athletes perspective, the college coach has much more at stake during the recruiting process. Coaches must find fresh talent every year or risk have losing seasons if the talent doesn’t live up to expectations. As the economy shrinks, athletic departments are getting their budget cut and the first item that they lose is from their recruiting budget.

With smaller recruiting budgets and staffs it just is not possible to coaches to travel to tournaments across the country anymore in most cases. You as an athlete need the exposure to coaches and now is when developing a recruiting plan that saves college coaches time and money will benefit you over the competition.

In order for them to recruit you, they have to know about you. If you become the athlete that has their grades in order, delivers recruiting tapes to their doorstep without asking, calls the coach and takes initiative, you will beat out those who have to be recruited by the coach.

This makes it even more important as an athlete that you make the coaches job as easy as possible and recruit yourself to the college. An athlete who doesn’t have to be chased, found, or potential wastes a college coaches time is very valuable. If you take control of your recruiting, find colleges you can play at, and be the recruit that coaches look for, you will have a successful athletic reruiting season.

CLICK HERE to get the complete insider athletic recruiting guide that will show you how to beat out the competition and become the recruit college coaches can’t wait to recruit.

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