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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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If you want to play college football, you need to start taking action now. We are not talking about waiting for college coaches to start calling you. Gone  are the days when you can have a great game and expect phone calls on Monday. You need to get your athletic profile and game film in front of coaches.

Everyone has started their pre-season practices and the first games are weeks away.  Get your athletic profile done now and complete your personal assessment to narrow down at least 50 colleges that you feel are a good fit to earn a football scholarship from.

Make sure you have someone, a family member, friend, your coaches, etc…filming the games and you can get your own copy the day after the game. This is a crucial step that many players neglect to take care of. Coaches are going to be flooded with game tapes in October. Why wait? Beat out the competition and get film into college football coaches hands in September.

While the college season is also in full swing, football coaches devote as much or more time to recruiting than their actual season. Recruiting is the lifeblood of a college team and a coaches career. Make it easy on coaches. Use the steps we outline to make their job easy and show them you are the football player that deserves the college football scholarship.

CLICK HERE to view the step-by-step recruiting guide that shows you how to play college football. Don’t wait any longer, your competition has already started…have you?

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The hunt for college football scholarships really picks up come September. College football coaches may begin calling you once per week if you are a Senior and may being sending your recruiting materials if you are a Junior starting September 1st. You on the other hand may call coaches as much as you want.

Many of you will begin to receive letters and phone calls from coaches starting next month. Does this mean you are being recruited for a college football scholarship? Yes and No.  The mailing of letters and initial phone calls is just the start to a long exhaustive recruiting season by football coaches. Colleges will mail our thousands of letters and questionnaires to players of every caliber. We have heard of players receiving dozens of letters, but not so much as a phone call after that.

Coaches and especially the Graduate Assistant coaches (each team has two) as tasked with calling up to 100 to 200 players a day. From the coaches perspective they want to start with as large of a recruiting base as possible by contacting literally thousands of players. If you make the inital screening you will be asked to send in a tape for review.  Rest assured, all tapes are screened. Coaches can make a decision to see more, pass on you, or place you in a potential pile within minutes.

We have a detailed strategy in our book how to deal with these letters and phone calls to help navigate the recruiting game. It can be hard to tell who is actually interested in you and who is merely making contact to build a base. During the month of August you should be making your initial recruiting list of  50 to 100 schools that match your academic and athletic profile.  Begin making contact with coaches in September and mailing out your recruiting packets. The real rush of college football recruiting starts in late October. It is best to make contact early to beat out the thousands of other high school players who want the same college football scholarship.

CLICK HERE to view the “Get Recruited To Play College Athletics” eBook that shows you how to beat out the competition. Develop a proven recruiting strategy and takes you step by step all the way to signing day. If you want a college football scholarship and are willing to put in the work, our book will show you the way.

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Do you want to play college football? It is the dream of thousands of high school players every year to make it too the next level.  There are over 306,000 senior high school football players every year. Of those only 17,500 on average will make it to the NCAA. That number includes all freshman from DI, DII and DIII. Less than 6% take the step and play in college. That number may seem low and it is.

The main reason high school players don’t play in college is simply because they don’t want to. That means if you have the desire and a little talent, you will be able to find a college to play football at.

If you just want to play in college, enjoy your social life and have a great overall experience, DIII is the place for you. Those football players who want to play in college and earn a scholarship are up against serious competition. There are 85 scholarships in NCAA DI, 63 in I-AA and 36 at DII colleges.

To compete for these and play college football you need to have a recruiting system that you are willing to put time and effort into. There is no easy way to play college football, you have to work. Those football players who put the same effort into their recruiting as they do on the field, as the ones who get invited to camp.

You can also walk-on at all NCAA football programs. What you want to be is called a “preferred walk-on.” This means you go through the recruiting process the same as you would when seeking a football scholarship. If you are not offered a scholarship by the college of your choice, you can ask to be a preferred walk-on and get invited to camp. You will have all the same privileges and access as a scholarship athlete does, but will be paying 100% until you become a contributing player.

Here are 5 quick tips to play college football:

1. Start the recruiting process early: While it is never too late to start technically, those football players who start before their Senior year have a much higher success rate.
2. Get good grades: Even though the NCAA Clearinghouse minimum can be met by anyone with a high school diploma, 50% of DI programs can’t get you past admissions without a 3.0 GPA.
3. Get great film: Make sure you get a copy of every game tape. Even if your coach films the games, give him a blank tape to make a copy. You will need these when making your personal recruiting packet.
4. Take the extra steps: Are you lifting extra during the off-season and in-season? Are you doing extra conditioning and speed work outside of practice? Putting in a few extra hours a week will show during games and is what separates scholarship from walk-on.
5. Communicate: Tell your high school coach you want to play in college. Call college coaches and tell them you want to play for their program. If college coaches don’t know about you and don’t know you are a player, they can’t recruit you.

To play college football you need to put in effort, both on and off the field. Off the field in the classroom and towards football recruiting. With a solid recruiting plan you can beat out the competition and find a great college football program to play at.

CLICK HERE to get the recruiting system that has showed over one thousand high school football players how to play college football.

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Most recruiting services just send out your profile by fax along with hundreds of other athletes each day to college athletic offices. There is no way for coaches to go through each of these profiles one by one and decide on whom to call back. You are not setting yourself apart from the competition by going this route. Other services charge you hundreds of dollars to make a recruiting highlight tape. The more you spend on your tape, does no make you a better athlete.

As coaches, the athlete who did their recruiting themselves, showed a genuine interest and determination, are the athletes we are interested in. Do it yourself, save money  and show coaches that you are serious.

CLICK HERE to see our insider guide that gives you over 100 pages of athletic recruiting insider information with step by step actions to take to get recruited and help you earn the sports 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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It is becoming more competitive each year for football scholarships. More high school students are looking for athletic scholarships as a means to play for college than before. Athletes area also becoming better educated to the proper way to get recruited to play college football. No longer can you sit on the couch and wait for a coach to call you. Athletes are starting earlier in the high school career preparing and laying the foundation for a scholarship.

There are is approximately 1.1 million high school football players in the United States. Of those, just over 300,000 are seniors. Each one is possible competition for the approximate 17,500 freshman roster spots in the NCAA. This means about 6 in every 100 high school seniors will play college football. The numbers are even less for those who will get a scholarship.

As you can see it is very competitive to get a scholarship. There are 85 scholarships in DI-A football, 63 in DI-AA football and only 36 for DII football. In order to get a scholarship, you must start planning and working towards it no matter what year you are in high school. You don’t have to be a blue chip athlete or even an all-state athlete.

Due to the competitive nature you must treat recruiting as the most important game of your life. Just as you would prepare for a state-playoff game, you should study and develop a game plan for getting a football scholarship.

You need to develop a system that begins with a personal assessment of your talent and ability. From there develop a list of at least 50 schools that fit your profile. You must then initiate contact the correct way and become the recruiter, not the recruited. When done right you can end the recruiting season with multiple scholarship offers.

If you want a college athletic scholarship then don’t wait any longer. You must start today. Start developing your recruiting game plan now and beat out the competition.

CLICK HERE if you have the ability and drive to get a college football scholarship. The top recruiting guide for college football will show you how to get recruiting guaranteed.

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It is not easy to get a football scholarship to play in college. You are competing with thousands of other high school seniors all with the same goal as you. You must be able to separate yourself from your competition and gain a recruiting edge. The margin of those who sign a scholarship and those who don’t is very slim.

Here are 5 Tips that will help you increase your chances for a scholarship:

1.      Start early. Gone are the days of waiting until your senior season has ended and waiting for a couple of college coaches to contact you. Successful players are now starting in their sophomore and early in their junior year.

2.      Attend summer camps and combines. By selecting the right camps and combines to attend you can go from high school athlete to college recruit in one day. Not all camps and combines are created equal so make sure you choose ones that will maximize your exposure and recruiting potential.

3.      Get the best academic grades and test scores possible. Colleges keep raising the minimum that they will grant waivers for athletes. If you graduate with under a 3.0 GPA, you just shut the door on 50% of NCAA schools. It is never too late to increase your grades so make it a priority now.

4.      Play multiple sports. College coaches like to see football players who excel in other sports like track, wrestling, lacrosse, baseball and basketball. Athletic diversity shows true raw athletic talent and can make up for minor deficiencies on the football field. Football is a sport where specialization does not matter as much as raw athletic talent.

5.      Do it yourself. Handle the recruiting process yourself. This shows much more initiative than a player whose family pays a recruiting service to fax out online profiles and make a fancy highlight tape. College football coaches evaluate much more than your athletic ability. Determination and initiative show a lot towards whether the high school athlete will be a success in college.

There are many other little details that go into making a successful recruiting season. The most important is having the desire and wanting to play in college for the right reasons. If you have a solid strategy for recruiting, you can earn a football scholarship and beat out the thousands of other athletes all fighting for the same spot.

CLICK HERE if you have the drive and determination it takes and truly want a football scholarship.

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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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There are a lot of football scholarships out there and if you are willing to put in the effort you can get one. The biggest mistake we see if athletes who think they are not good enough to get one, so they don’t even try. You don’t have to be a “blue-chip” athlete or even All-State. If you have the desire and some talent, you will be able to find a college coach you will believe in you.

Here are 5 Tips to Increase Your Scholarship Chances:

1. Play Multiple Positions: Show coaches you are an athlete and not just a wide-receiver.
2. Get the job done in the classroom: Having less than a 3.0 GPA closes the door on 50% of DI schools.
3. Play another sport:Success in other sports makes up for minor deficiencies on the football field.
4. Get good film: Get copies of all of your games from your coach if your family can’t film the games.
5. Strength & Conditioning: Put in the extra effort in the weight room to prepare your body for college football.

Incorporate these 5 items into your routine now and start developing a recruiting game plan that will help you get a football scholarship. We have seen year after year, those who have determination and put in alot of effort during the recruiting season get scholarships over those athletes who may be more talented, but didn’t know how to play the recruiting game.

Want to earn a college football scholarship? Let us show you the insider recruiting guide that has helped over one thousand high school football players like you. CLICK HERE to get recruited today.

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