The Athlete's Advisor-January 2005 Newsletter

In The News...
Did you see that $3 million in private donations is funding a new habitat for the LSU Bengal Tiger Mascot? I am not against fair treatment of animals but what does this say about priorities.

The Great Moneyball Debate! For you baseball fans and parents, this one's for you. GO

Not really news, but if you are new to Lacrosse, this link explains the game pretty well GO

College Programs on the Come and Go:
- Facilities can tell you a lot about a schools commitment to athletics. For example, do you think baseball is important at Weatherford Junior College in Texas? I think so...Fitchburg State (MA) is planning a major renovation for its baseball, football and soccer facilities...Central Washington State has a $63 million student union and athletic center opening in 2006...

Your family income may be too high for financial aid eligibility today, but what if you lose your job next year? Some colleges will not consider students for financial aid unless the financial aid forms were filed every year beginning in freshman year. So in a worst-case scenario—you could be laid off during your son’s sophomore year, and still face a full tuition payment despite the downturn in your family income. Think of the process of filing as a kind of insurance policy to protect you if your employment situation changes. It is highly recommended that all college-bound students file for financial aid whether need is indicated or not. You can find out if you are currently eligible for need by visiting www.collegeboard.com and using their financial calculator. Keep in mind that colleges are not required to meet all of the need of prospective applicants. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid can be found at www.fafsa.ed.gov. Some colleges require additional applications, so be sure to check the requirements of the colleges to which you are applying. Aid is awarded on a first-come, first-serve basis and some colleges have firm January deadlines. So don’t delay.

Joan Casey is the principal of Educational Advocates, an educational consulting firm in Brookline, Mass., specializing in college admission consulting and life coaching services. For more information, visit www.educationaladvocates.com

Dean College - the pro's of a private 2 year school.
Did you know that Dean College gives every student a scholarship averaging about $10,000? Did you know that they offer athletic scholarship money? Did you know that Dean Jr. College also has about a 98% success rate in getting their students into four year college? I had no idea either until I spoke with the energetic Admissions Counselor and Assistant Baseball Coach/Recruiting Coordinator John Flanders.

Being private, Dean is expensive at around $30,000 dollars (but they do have the ammenities of a four year school as 90% of the student body lives on campus) but when you factor in the attractive financial aid potential, with the success rate of getting students into four year schools you can see why it is proving to be a popular stop for late blooming or historically underachieving students.

Says Flanders, "Our goal is to move each athlete to a four year school. We offer far more placement help than a high school would because this is our job, to get kids into four year schools. (Whereas some junior colleges are vocational, Dean is not.) If an athlete can't qualify for a four year school, we are a good choice compared to a prep school. You gain social maturity but also earn college credit for the money you spend. Dean has to sell itself as a school to the four year colleges so that we can increase the chances for your students. As a coach, I am able to actively help in the process of my players finding a 4 year program. College coaches will be calling us to find out what players we have that might fit their program. It is not like the recruiting process in high school."

It seems that the draw of Dean College is working out of state as well. This year the baseball team has first year players from MA, CT, NJ, NY, RI, GA and FL. Some of the upperclassmen are currently being recruited by schools like Northeastern, UMASS Lowell, and Mary Washington - all three of whom are very good programs in Division I, II and III. Where they end up is not for certain yet, but the level of program interested speaks well for Dean College players.

I thought Flanders had a lot of good points to make here. The Advisor grew up in Upstate NY and a lot of my classmates went to Community Colleges like Broome, Delhi, Cobleskill and Herkimer to play sports and get ready for a four year college education. It was the perfect thing for those who went. And very affordable I might add. Junior College makes a lot of sense for the right student and is a very popular and acceptable educational option in most parts of the country. Ironically, where Dean College is located (Massachusetts) the Junior College alternative is not popular, but that does not mean it isn't a good choice.

NCAA Division Academic Reform Update:
The NCAA has approved a reform policy that will penalize college teams for not meeting set graduation and academic progress milestones each year, as well as historically. Under the new rules, programs that do not meet standards can face penalties such as loss of scholarships, recruiting limitations, lose post-season eligibility and in extreme cases lose their Division I status.

The new standard is based on a 50% graduation rate over a 5 year period and also takes into account the number of players who return academically eligible each semester. According to published reports, 30% of current college football, 25% of baseball, and 20% of basketball teams would not currently meet the standards. All schools will be warned in the coming weeks of their status and penalties will commence in December of 2005.

What does this mean to you, the recruited athlete? For one, at risk schools should start to look for better students. So if you are lazy in the classroom, there is a good chance concerned schools will find that out. College coaches talk to more than your athletic coach, especially when there is a scholarship being considered. Second, those same schools should also be looking internally at their academic support infrastructure and how it can be improved. Third, while it is year or so too early to tell, you are going to want to stay away from an at risk program that is not improving academically. Your team will be less competitive as scholarships are reduced and you might miss out on post season play because of the academic standing policies.

Does the University of Michigan Reject Applicants that Harvard Accepts?
Yes, when they come from the prestigious Belmont Hill School in Massachusetts. According to an article in the Boston Globe Magazine (Jan 9th, 2005) on grade inflation, the venerable old school is one of the few remaining that does not inflate grades. A's are very rare from this school that annually sends 8-10 kids to Harvard and the rest to some of the top liberal arts and Ivy schools in the country. If a college admissions office is not familiar with "the Belmont Hill way", those low grades hurt the candidate when they apply to large schools like Michigan which uses GPA/SAT formulas to whittle down the candidate pool.

As I said to Dave from VarsityEdge.com, those poor kids at Belmont Hill who love Ann Arbor will go to Harvard and LIKE IT!

If you thought Old School the movie was funny keep in mind that the term can have several meanings!

Ok parents, this one might be a little hard to take, but this was the feedback I received when I surveyed some coaches and asked, "What one thing would make the recruiting process better?" Sit down before you read this...

"Eliminate parents from equation and things would be a lot better off, for the kids! My advice to any kid, athlete or not, is to be as totally independent from your parents in the decision making process as possible. When parents call me to tell me about their kid, I don’t even listen! A lot of people call me old school, but I felt this way 30 years ago!

I wish parents would give their kids some credit for making decisions and developing on their own. They over manage their kids, put them into all these pay to play programs, over extend them and then assume you should be honored to want to recruit their son? I turn a lot of people off because I tell them they should not be talking to me when they are going to pay $40,000 to send their son here, they need to be talking to the educators first and foremost. They think I’m not interested, but I just see the process differently.

To me, if you are a player that a top college program has not expressed interest in and offered a scholarship to, then you are just like the rest of us, NOT THAT good. At this point baseball should not be the reason your choose a school with a $40,000 tuition bill. Why do parents, who have committed to paying for college, want to talk to me – the baseball coach? What about the deans and the professors? They all demand an overnight weekend stay! I ask "why don’t you visit during the week, go to class, see what it is really like?" They all say no! I guess they want to see who screws around on the weekends!

People are distorted about their talent level, and they have a distorted view about being recruited by a school that cannot even offer them a scholarship. If you are good, especially in New England where there are not a lot of top prospects each year, you will not go unnoticed. So that leaves the rest of them about the same in my opinion. My view is the extreme minority, but this is how I feel."

There you go folks, feel better? While he is in the minority, I do see some of his points about evaluating a school for the entire package, not just a sports program. Don't think I am totally dumping on you with that one. Here is one to share with your child (different coach).

"Parents and athletes need to know one thing. Academics are important. And they are important from the first day of high school. I can’t tell you how many kids I look at and speak with only to find out that they don’t have the grades or test scores to get into our school.""

I don’t think, for some reason, that kids and parents are aware of how important it all is. It cuts your options down considerably, especially if you are considering private colleges."

I have heard this one before...beware of the word MAYBE

A dad emailed me this question recently:
My daughter is a HS senior & has been offered an athletic scholarship for year 3 & possibly year 4 (the coach says no $ available years 1&2) at a D-2 school. Right now the coach says they cannot guarantee a full scholarship for year 3 but can at least put a set amount aside. Would we still sign a NLI in this case?

If not, do we get something in writing?

Here was my reply

To the best of my knowledge you do not sign a National Letter of Intent (NLI) unless you are being awarded athletic scholarship money to attend. In this case she is not. You could ask the coach to put the offer in in writing, but I doubt they would do it. For several reasons:

1) The promise of some scholarship money down the road is potentially told to a lot of people (depending on the coach and program) because they can lure a recruit in who does not cost the coach a dime. If it works out, great, they got you for no money, but will likely find it worth while to give you some in the 2nd or 3rd year, and if it does not work out there was no loss.

2) Think of the things that could happen between now and the 3rd year that would be a valid reason not to give your daughter any money...
   - She does not perform well enough to merit athletic aid
   - She gets hurt
   - Another player comes along who the coach values more and gives the money to.
   - The coach decides that her top recruit in that 3rd year will come to the school if she offers an extra $3,000 (hypothetical amount)...there goes your daughter's money.
   - The coach leaves, now you are starting from scratch and a new coach will not be likely to offer money without seeing your value...

The thing to find out is how many players the coach is bringing in this year as scholarship athletes and recruited walk-ons. What you were told might have been told to 10 kids. Coaches almost always say, "I have no money for you now, but we might have money in the 2nd or 3rd year." This is usually a long shot. Might means - we might if you end up being better than I think you are. Might means - if other better players are not found in the next two years. Might means a lot of things. Coaches, especially D-II and D-I equivalency sport coaches, have to recruit like this as they typically don't have much money to disperse relative to their roster size.

How many scholarship athletes are you recruiting at my position this year?
How much money is a typical athletic scholarship worth? (is it even significant?)
How many of the current players came here without a scholarship and later earned one in their 2nd or 3rd year?
What would I have to do on the field to be considered for scholarship money in that 3rd year?

It is true that coaches often run into years where they have little if any money. For example, maybe they only lost two seniors last year who were not big money athletes. So it only opens up X thousand dollars. The coach still wants a decent size class because they will be losing a lot of Juniors and Sophomores in one and two years, but they have to do it with little money. It is a juggling act. Coaches know that 9 out of 10 kids and families hear the word scholarship and jump at the chance, even if they might have gone to a non-scholarship school and got a better grant and aid package. It happens all the time in a lot of sports.

Any opinions on this situation from the readers?
I will post them next month.

Virtual Schools Gain Popularity for Athlete's...
Time Magazine (Nov 29, 2004) - It appears that serious athletes in need of academic flexibility are finding it on-line. Time featured one Junior Tennis play who enrolled at the UMOHS (University of Miami Online High School.) The workload is the same as normal high school, but the work can be done on the athlete's schedule. This particular player moved up almost 800 spots in the rankings when he could devote more time to training. 65% of the 400 UMOHS students are athletes. Another on-line school, Laurel Springs in Ojai, CA, has 1,800 students, 25% who are child athletes or entertainers.

Useless to most, interesting to Baseball Players - I found this information on a www.hsbaseballweb.com message board post.

Estimating the velocity of a throw by how far it travels in the air.

Speed Distance
40 mph 95 ft
50 mph 120 ft
60 mph 170 ft
70 mph 210 ft
80 mph 260 ft
90 mph 305 ft - Football field
100 mph 360 ft
Source: http://raincreekbooks.home.mindspring.com/questions.htm#radar

Links -
Choosing a College Savings Plan - summarizes and compares State 529 Plans, 529 Prepaid Plans, Independent 529 Plans, Coverdell Education Savings Accounts, and more
Independent529plan.org - a complete site dedicated to the Ind. 529 plan - private schools
NCAA.com now links to www.ncaasports.com
NCAA.org is their official business site - rules, publications, etc. Let's hope they make that site a little user friendly as well.
Campus Dirt - where college students tell you how they really feel! Need to register but it is free.
NextStepMagazine - Life after High School, great for students and parents.

Comments, questions or you want to subscribe?