Being Good at Your Sport Is Not Enough
We come across too many athletes that think if they just concentrate on their sport and are really good, they will find an athletic scholarship. Maybe it is due to the growing popularity of college football recruiting. With things like ESPN’s NEXT, national TV coverage on football’s initial signing day, and the popularity of top recruiting lists, athletes can be led to think that if they just play hard enough, they can be marketed or placed in one of those lists. Or perhaps athletes are just misinformed about the whole process altogether.
Contact Coaches First, don’t Wait For Them to Contact You
To set the record straight, you must actively market yourself to college coaches to get recruited. Most sports outside of football do not have the recruiting budgets to go out there and find you. If you want a scholarship, you will have to be responsible for calling and e-mailing college coaches. You will have to keep them updated, provide them with video and your playing schedule so they can come see you play, and ultimately keep them interested in you so you can move up their recruiting board.
A perfect example of this is New Jersey senior Jose Martinez. Martinez has done something that not many other high school baseball players (or baseball players on any level, for that matter) have done. Last year, he had a .745 batting average, and this year, he is batting .733. To give you some perspective on how incredible that is, according to Cameron Smith on Yahoo!’s Prep Rally Blog, he would rank 10th all-time in high school batting average.
You would think that Martinez’s phone is ringing off the hook with scholarship offers or that he won’t even end up with a scholarship offer because he is bound straight for Major League Baseball. I mean, come on, Martinez could potentially finish in the top 10 all-time for batting average in high school; surely more than 10 high school baseball players will be drafted by MLB teams this year alone. But Martinez has accepted an offer to play at Harford Community College. In fact, Martinez’s coach had to argue just to get him selected to his conference’s all-star team because other coaches could not believe his stats.
Jose Martinez’s story highlights the necessity of contacting coaches and taking your recruiting into your own hands. Ask us how, and we can help. Leave a comment below or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.
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