Even those of us who have served as NCAA Division I Athletic Administrators have a difficult time navigating the maze that is College Athletic recruiting.
Understand first-thing that NO ONE can "guarantee" that your son or daughter will secure an athletic scholarship.
Secondly, securing a college athletic scholarship takes commitment and persistence on your part and on the part of your Student-Athlete.
The same persistence and drive that they show on the field, course, rink or court...
If anyone promises you a "Silver Bullet" run and hide.
As with life, you only get out of an endeavor what you put into it.
The question that my friends and associates in College Athletics always get is "When should we start?" The confounding thing to us is that Parents who are very successful in their careers, often have no clue about what it takes to even get noticed by college coaches or recruiters.
The Answer: A: The NCAA considers freshmen in High School "prospective Student-Athletes".
The NCAA has very specific guidelines regarding core course curriculum and GPA attainment beginning freshman year and continuing through High School graduation.
Which means that you should start tracking your child's curriculum as soon as they start 9th grade.
Unfortunately, as we have found throughout our travels and discussions with high school athletic directors and booster clubs, many guidance departments are woefully unprepared to answer even the most remedial questions about NCAA core course requirements.
Many aren't even aware that there is the NCAA Eligibility Center, which tracks prospective student -athletes beginning their Junior year and that the student-athlete has to register.
Additionally, the competition for athletic scholarships will continue be intense, due to the increasing number of high school student-athletes and overall high school graduates which will peak in 2015 according to the US Department of Education.
What does this mean for the "non"-elite athlete that has the opportunity to play at a mid-major, D-1AA (FCS now..
LOL), D-II, D-III, NAIA or Junior College? It means, start early by marketing your academic and athletic skills to coaches in your specific sport during your Freshman year.
Why? Well, that's what the aggressive and smart people are doing to get the jump on the competition.
Additionally, many of the "smaller" colleges end up with open scholarships that need to be filled.
While a coach can't contact you before your Junior year in most cases (certain sports/divisions have different rules), every College coach that we know personally, or have spoken with, starts hunting for players in 9th grade and compiles a dossier of prospects so that when the recruiting period begins for their respective sport, they are out of the gate fast.
With NCAA members providing more than $2 billion in athletics scholarships annually and NAIA member institutions shelling out another $450 MM a year, It may be worth your while to start paying attention to what your volleyball-playing duaghter is taking in school and how she is tracking in her matches.
Sure would beat mortgaging the house to pay $30,000 a year (if you're lucky) to attend College...