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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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Get on the phone and start calling colleges to find out if they are still recruiting. If you are not concerned about a scholarship, but just want to have a chance to play at a high level and earn a scholarship, then most coaches are open to examining the possibility of you becoming a preferred walk-on for the fall semester.

Many college applications are past the due date but athletic programs can still push through applicants in most cases. Make sure you have your tapes and athletic profile ready to go as we outline in our book. This is not the time to keep coaches waiting. Also have transcripts ready and make sure your test scores are in line.

You also need to be prepared to broaden your athletic recruiting goals and realize that this late, your chances of a DI scholarship may be minimal. Open up your recruiting goals to include lower, DI schools, IAA and DII schools. These levels of competition often recruit later than DI, trying to secure players who may have been on top IA recruiting maps early in the season, but after the signing date were left with no place to play.

Coaches are not going to find you this late in the season, you are going to have to find them. Be aggressive, if you find one door to be shut, ask that coach if he or she knows of any colleges that may have needs for your ability. Coaches network constantly and will have no problem referring you to a fellow coach as a favor.

Junior Colleges are also in full recruiting swing now. You can use these schools as a stepping stone to DI competition after two years. If you have the ability and in some cases, the resources, there are many prep schools and post grad schools that specialize in one or more sports that are recruiting hotbeds for DI colleges. You can attend these for 1 or 2 years, depending on a few factors and go through the recruiting process again at a school that will give you tons of tools to succeed in athletics, academics and recruiting.

Current Juniors and even Sophomores can use this time to examine the recruiting classes that colleges just signed to compare the resumes and athletic ability of signed recruits. Do the athletes that were signed have similar stats and accomplishments that you already have or expect to during your upcoming season? If so, make sure you take note and contact these schools with your desire to play there and get your name out there before your competition does and takes the athletic scholarship that you deserve.

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Your high school coach can play an important role in the recruiting process but sometimes we see an over reliance and misunderstanding of how they can actually help you. It is common to believe that the high school coach will take care of the recruiting process for your son or daughter. After all, they have done everything to help their career up to this point, surely they will help your son/daughter get recruited as well.

Making this simple assumption can really hurt your scholarship chances.  The recruiting process is too important to leave in one person’s hands. The best approach is too work together with the high school coach. Communicate with them what you are doing and your goals.

It is now September, an important month in college recruiting. Your high school coach will be getting phone calls every night from college coaches to find out what athletes they have that can play or are potential scholarship candidates. Let your coach know that you want to play in college and to let coaches know if they receive recruiting calls.

Most athletes and parents also believe the high school coach has a Rolodex of college coaches they can call. This is just not true either in most cases. Research has shown the average high school coach only has regular contact with about 5 local colleges. This is just too small of a number to guarantee recruiting success.

You need to be active in your recruiting starting now. Work with your high school coach but do not rely on them as your main source of recruiting information or leads. Your coach can be an asset to your recruiting, but don’t let them become a liability by not being proactive and taking charge of the scholarship search yourself.

If you want to take charge of your athletic recruiting and get a college athletic scholarship, the CLICK HERE.

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The high school soccer season has started and that also means the beginning of the college soccer scholarship recruiting season. If you are a Senior high school student-athlete you should be working on your soccer scholarship recruiting plan now and should be ready to put the plan into action.

1. Complete your athletic and personal profile.
2. Make  sure you have someone you trust or your soccer team is going to be filming your soccer matches and you will have immediate access to a copy.
3. Start contacting college soccer coaches.
4. Make plans to visit schools and meet with coaches.
5. Register with the NCAA Clearinghouse if you haven’t already. Review your grades and classes with your guidance counselor to make sure you are taking all required courses this fall.

The path to a college soccer scholarship can be long and hard. But trust us, it will go by fast. The soccer players that end up with the scholarship are the one’s who took time during the recruiting process to plan out a solid course of action. They have done their research, know what schools match their abilities, set realistic expectations and goals and communicate with college coaches the right way.

If you have already started, great! Keep the momentum going all fall and don’t quit until you get the soccer scholarship you deserve. If you haven’t taken any action yet, start today, don’t wait because your competition already started. You are competing against thousands of other high school seniors for the same scholarship spot. Don’t be left home next fall.

CLICK HERE to view the recruiting system that has helped out hundreds of other soccer players like yourself who want a college soccer scholarship.

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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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Basketball scholarships get a lot of press. Players are begin discovered earlier and earlier into their high school and some in junior high. It may seem that if you are not discovered then, you can’t get a basketball scholarship. The media really skews the perception of what it takes to get recruited for basketball.

There are over 7,100 scholarships available for men in the NCAA and 9,200 for women. There are also NAIA and NJCAA scholarships. The media attention is only focused on the top 5% of high school basketball players which are considered “Blue Chip.”

If you are not in the top 5% of the country in basketball, don’t worry, you can earn a scholarship to play college basketball if you have some talent, room for improvement, and the drive to commit yourself to a long recruiting process.

Coaches look for 5 main traits in basketball recruits:

1. Maturity- How do you carry yourself on and off the court? Do you complain to coaches and refs at every bad play? Or do you keep your head high, show composure and act like an adult on and off the court?
2. Team Player- College basketball is very different than high school. You may not be the star anymore when you get to college. Are you willing to do what it takes to help the team more than yourself?
3. “Coachability”- Do you show room for improvement and are you willing to do what the coach says to improve your game?
4. Willingness- Are you willing to put the team above your personal goals? College coaches want to to win and will ask you to do whatever it takes to help the team. Are you willing to play multiple positions? Be a practice player? Sacrifice your stats for team wins?
5. Academics- Players who do better in the classroom as easier to coach, cause less problems off the court and are better able to handle the pressures of the college game.

Basketball is a headcount sport in the NCAA. Scholarships are awarded on a full ride basis. For men in NCAA DI there are 13 scholarships per team. DII has 10. For women in DI there are 15 and 10 scholarship in DII. This may not sound like a lot but considering there are hundreds of teams in both DI and DII, you can find a college that will award you a basketball scholarship.

Follow a recruiting system that shows coaches you are the recruit for them. Be willing and able to commit months to the recruiting process and show coaches who you are as a person and player and you will earn a basketball scholarship to play in college.

CLICK HERE if you have the ability and mental drive to get a college basketball scholarship.

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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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If you want a college athletic scholarship then don’t wait any longer. You must start today. Learn how to choose the right athletic conference for your talents and have a successful recruiting season ending with a scholarship offer.

CLICK HERE to see the college athletic scholarship recruiting guide that will show you how to earn the athletic scholarship you deserve.

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I originally wrote this article just for football although the information in it pertains to all college sports. Whether you are searching for a soccer scholarship or lacrosse scholarship, the process one takes to earn a college athletic scholarship in each sport remains the same.

Football scholarships are the most abundant in the NCAA. There are 85 full-rides in Division 1A, 63 in Division IAA and 36 in DII. There are certain steps you must take in order to get a sports scholarship. In order for the recruiting system to work, you must have some talent and raw athletic ability. You don’t have to be the best in the country, state or even on your team, but you must have potential and some talent for college coaches to work with.

1.      Do a personal assessment. Evaluate your abilities, talents and reasons for wanting to play in college. Also what type of college are you searching for athletically and academically.

2.      What level can you play at? Put your ego aside and do a real evaluation of your talent and what you want out of a college athletic career. Do you want to play at the biggest college possible and risk sitting the bench? Or are you happy with a smaller school where you can play all four years?

3.      Develop a personal recruiting packet. This should contain a athletic cover letter, athletic resume and video highlight and game films. You can do this better and cheaper than any company or service that charges you money to post an online profile or make a highlight tape for you.

4.      Initiate contact with colleges. Follow a system that will maximize your exposure to colleges and play the recruiting game on the college coach’s level. This will put you above the thousands of other recruits fighting for the same spots.

5.      Communicate and follow through. It is often difficult for high school students to communicate with college coaches. You must mature quickly during this process and ask the right questions and have the correct answers to show the coaches you are the player for them. It is also difficult to keep the drive and determination to get an offer late into the recruiting season if you have already been turned down multiple times.

High school athletes who are able to follow a game plan throughout the entire recruiting season are the ones who ultimately end up with a sports scholarship. It takes a lot of work but if you are willing to be mature and keep your dream alive, you will be able to earn a football scholarship and play in college.

CLICK HERE if you have the determination and are willing to put in the work to earn a sports scholarship.

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