Many times we hear horror stories about how little help a parent gave their son or daughter in the college selection and recruiting process. Or we hear how much pressure a parent puts on the players high school performance because they are so worried about getting a shot in college. But that parent forgets to focus on the college admissions process and ends up even more of a stress ball. Hopefully reading this book will keep all parents from similar fates. The good news is that there are parents who really have their act together and are a proactive champion of their son our daughter without being a "problem parent!" We interviewed one such father, Neil Nuzie the father of UCONN place kicker Matt Nuzie.

Matt Nuzie, a place kicker from Trumbell, CT was not a kid the colleges where beating the door down for. Rather he was a kid who knocked on their doors to put himself in the position of potentially getting scholarship offers to ACC, MAC and Atlantic 10 schools, before finally accepting a full scholarship to the upstart, and home state UNCONN Huskies of the Big East.

While Matt is an excellent athlete, quality student and very hard worker, he also benefited from his father Neil's assistance. I had a chance to catch up with Neil Nuzzie and find out what the key to Matts' scholarship success was.

RJL: When did Matt decide he wanted to play Division I college football?
NN: It was when he gave up baseball his sophomore year to focus on kicking and strength training. Matt is a good athlete, he runs a 4.6 40 and is very strong. He played AAU baseball and was very good, but he felt that getting to the next level in football required his full attention, and he needed to kick. He could have played split end in HS, but not at the Division I level.

RJL: What was the key to the recruiting process for you?
NN: Camps! He went to the right camps, met the right people and had some good fortune fall his way. The 4th Down Kickers camp, which is based out of Virginia had a session at Lehigh University. In fact Matt still goes, all the best kickers do – Notre Dame, Colorado, and Marylands kickers all attend. As it turns out Matt met coach Paul Woodside and gotten along well with him. The key was that Woodside was the guest kicking coach at UCONN’s camp and Matt was the only kicker! Woodside put Matt through a grueling 3 days of kicking drills, Matt worked hard and Paul liked him.

I can’t stress enough the fact that you need to go to camp at the school you want to attend!

RJL: How did you start the process of deciding who to contact regarding Matts kicking ability?
NN: We did a tremendous amount of research. First we tried to find out what Matt would really want to study. For a while he talked about sport science and rehabilitation, so I arranged an internship at a Physical Therapy clinic for him. As it turns out it was not for him. Anyway he is majoring in business/management. So we basically crossed off schools that could not offer a quality program in that degree area.

The second thing we did was research schools that were going to need a kicker. If a school has an underclassmen kicker they are not going to bring one in the next year on scholarship. Colleges do bring in walk-on kickers every year but usually only a scholarship every 3 years or so. I went so far as to watch game and see who’s kicker had a bad game(s) and would call the head coach. They were interested, we sent film and it went from there.

RJL: Speaking of film, what did you do for that?
NN: Well I did it all myself because the thing about most game tapes is that they don’t really show where the ball lands most of the time, especially on kick-offs. So I recorded all his kicks every game the way they needed to be shown and we put together a tape and sent it to 25 or 30 schools.
We also had some tape from his camps, and that was helpful in the first version when we used school film. Basically we showed several of his field goals, kick-offs and a few extra points.

RJL: Who else was interested in Matt?
NN: Virginia was the most interested from the start. They really wanted him, and they were honest about everything during the process. As it turns out, they recruited so well that they did not think they would have a scholarship for Matt and basically said "We would love to have you, walk-on but do what you have to do." For us that meant looking elsewhere.

UNH was the first school to offer us any scholarship money, and it was a pretty good package at 70%. In the end, Matt’s connection with Paul Woodside enabled him to get a good look from UCONN and they had not offered a CT kid a scholarship. Thankfully those factors weighed in our favor and Matt is at UCONN which I think is the best place for him after all.

RJL: Why do you think that?
NN: Well the program had a great year going 6-6 and upsetting Iowa State, the new stadium is opening next year and Matt has had a great year learning from and working with the senior place kicker and punter, both great guys. While he has to earn the job next year, I think he will get more than a fair chance to win the place kicking job.!
UCONN has a good business program and the state is investing a lot of money into the school. It is a good time to be at UCONN!

Ray Lauenstein is the author of Baseball: Playing Outside the Lines and The Making of a Student Athlete.  He also holds a Masters Degree in Sport Psychology and gives seminars on Mental Skills Training and the Recruiting Process.  If you would like him to speak to your team, booster club or other group please contact him via the online form or call 1-617-835-1836.