Redshirt Definition:

The term “redshirt” is used to describe a student-athlete who does not participate in competition in a sport for an entire academic year. If you do not compete in a sport the entire academic year, you have not used a season of competition. For example, if you are a qualifier, and you attend a four-year college your freshman year, and you practice but do not compete against outside competition, you would still have the next four years to play four seasons of competition.

Each student is allowed no more than four seasons of competition per sport. If you were not a qualifier, you may have fewer seasons of competition available to you. You should know that NCAA rules indicate that any competition, regardless of time, during a season counts as one of your seasons of competition in that sport. It does not matter how long you were involved in a particular competition (for example, one play in a football game, one point in a volleyball match); you will be charged with one season of competition. Source NCAA

This redshirt year gives you a year to acclimate yourself to college academics, sports and a year to learn the system and grow physically and mentally. The main benefit is you don’t have to lose a year of eligibility while sitting on the sidelines. Athletic scholarships still cover athletes who redshirt their first year on the team.

21 Year Age Rule for Division I:

In Division I only, if a student-athlete has participated as an individual or as a team representative in organized sports competition, that kind of participation during each 12-month period after his/her 21st birthday and prior to initial full-time collegiate enrollment will count as one year of varsity competition in that sport. Any participation in organized competition during time spent in the U.S. armed services will be excepted. Source NCAA

It is more common that one thinks, especially for those coming out of the Military to re-kindle that desire to play college athletics.

Graduate Student Eligibility

A student-athlete who is enrolled in a graduate or professional school of the college or university which he or she previously attended as an undergraduate student may participate in intercollegiate athletics, provided he or she has eligibility remaining and is within five calendar years of initial full-time collegiate enrollment for Division I and within the first 10 full-time semesters of collegiate enrollment for Divisions II and III.

Also, a student-athlete who has eligibility remaining and is within the specified 10-semester period may participate while enrolled in a graduate or professional school at a Division II college or university other than the institution at which he or she completed an undergraduate degree.

Finally, a student-athlete who has eligibility remaining and is within the specified five-year period may participate while enrolled in a graduate or professional school at a Division I college or university other than the institution at which he or she completed an undergraduate degree, provided he or she meets the criteria of the one-time transfer exception to the general transfer residence requirement. That exception is as follows:

• The student-athlete must be seeking to participate in a sport other than baseball, football, basketball and men’s ice hockey, except that a student-athlete who seeks to participate in NCAA Football Championship Subdivision may use this exception only if transferring from a Football Bowl Subdivision program.
• The student-athlete may not have transferred previously from another four-year institution unless he or she transferred previously and received an exception to the transfer residence requirement because his or her institution either discontinued the sport or did not sponsor the sport in which the student-athlete is a participant.
• The student must have been in good academic standing and eligible to compete had he or she decided to remain at the previous institution.
• The student-athlete’s previous institution must certify in writing that it has no objection to the student-athlete being granted an exception to the transfer residence requirement.

NOTE: This exception does not apply to a student-athlete who attends a Division III institution for graduate school, unless the student-athlete is attending the same institution at which he or she was an undergraduate.

NOTE: If the student-athlete transfers to the certifying institution from a Division III member institution and meets the above-mentioned conditions, he or she may be eligible to compete but may not receive athletically related financial aid during that year. Source NCAA

Please don’t hesitate to keep asking your questions and we will post an article to help.

1. Are you going to get access to the same facilities, equipment, dining hall, academic and support services as scholarship athletes? Some programs call this a preferred or recruited walk on. You need to ask the coach how you will be considered when arriving on campus.  You will seem like an outsider on your team if you don’t have access to at least training table, equipment and locker room as scholarship athletes.
2. Will you be going to pre-season camp? Fall sports start weeks earlier on campus before other students arrive.  Spring sports often travel South or West to warmer climates. Are you invited to camp and will you have the ability to compete for a spot on the travel rooster?
3. If you attend college there, have you already made the team or are you going to have to compete for a spot? Do not make the mistake of thinking you have made the team before enrolling in school only to get cut after a couple days of pre-season.
4. Do you have the ability to play in the program? Many athletes don’t get scholarships for a particular program because the numbers just didn’t work out that year. Ask the coach if they think you have the ability to compete and earn a scholarship. Coaches do not want players that can’t play at their level and most will be honest if you ask directly.
5. Ask about other players in the program who have walked on. Find out how many other athletes there are and if any have earned a scholarship. When visiting the college, ask to talk with a team member who walked-on so you may get an unfiltered view of how your experience may be.

When considering walking on a college athletic program, you must have this conversation with the coach. Yes, it can be hard and uncomfortable but you need to be sure you are making the right decision and it meets your goals and expectations. Some players don’t mind walking on and being on the practice team or a backup for their career.  On the other side, there are too many walk-on success stories to ignore, but you need to know how the coach views your walking on their team. What role do they see you filling? Do they think you can play at this level and compete for a starting position eventually?

Another option if you did not get the athletic scholarship you wanted is to attend a Junior College for two years and go through the recruiting process again. There are many excellent two-year programs for each sport that specialize in having players that are scholarship quality athletes who missed a scholarships out of high school. If you were being recruited by a 4 year school and did not receive an offer, ask the coach if they can recommend a JUCO program that fits your abilities and goals. The recruiting cycle is later for JUCO’s and there are athletic scholarships available.  You will be playing at a high level of competition and may even be better prepared physically and ability wise for recruiting in two more years.

We run into families and athletes everyday who have the wrong information about college athletic recruiting, at it can hurt them. The most common mistake is not being aggressive in their efforts. Don’t assume coaches are going to call. You have to make it happen. That is one of the main themes in our book. We show you how to grab the power and go after colleges you want to attend and coaches you want to play for. Use our knowledge to your advantage and play at the school you deserve too.

Things have settled down now after the last NLI signing date and we will be back to blogging new articles, tips and advice starting this week. Best of luck to everyone and if you are wanting to play college athletics, check out our recruiting guide that has helped hundreds of student athletes and their families.

CLICK HERE to check out our “Get Recruited to Play College Athletics” eBook. Only $7 and 100% money back guarantee.

Blame it on the economy, higher demand for college aid, limited sources for free money, increased competition among coaches and colleges or a host of other reasons,  but competition for college athletic scholarships has never been higher. Coaches also have more information about recruits at their disposable with the rise of the internet.  It is never too early to start the process if you have the desire to play college sports.

High school freshmen should contact their high school guidance counselors to make sure they are in the right course track to graduate with all NCAA academic qualifying courses. Summer camps and travel teams allow you to be seen and identified by college coaches as early as 7th or 8th grade.

We have never heard from any recruit that they started too early in their high school career to be prepared. The opposite is of course true. Wait too long to take action and that phone call offering a scholarship is unlikely to happen.  Get a solid plan in place now so you are ahead of the competition throughout the athletic recruiting process and get the college athletic scholarship you deserve.

A special thanks to The Learn Worm for recognizing our effort to bring you the top college athletic scholarships information on the web. To see our listing view http://associatesdegrees.com/2010/top-50-college-admissions-blogs/#34.

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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.”

CLICK HERE to read the original article.

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.

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.

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.

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