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Recruiting Guides

The Making of a
Student- Athlete: Your key to successful athletic recruiting.

 

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May 30th - what was that I said about TXT Messages on 5/26?  ESPN is running a long article about TXT and recruiting and what the NCAA might do about it. Sooner or later, the NCAA is going to regulate any prevalent form for recruiting. Before high tech, the big fear was that the big money programs could outspend and create a competitive advantage over their less well healed rivals. Technology has leveled that playing field considerably and any regulation against emails, TXT, etc will be felt far and wide.

May 26th - Kelvin Sampson and the NCAA.  The former Oklahoma coach and current Indiana coach is nailed by the NCAA for making over 500 illegal calls to recruits while at OU.  The NCAA slaps his wrist with a 1 year ban on making calls or recruiting off campus. No stopping emails or TXT messages which rapidly becoming as common as a phone call. Now Sampson can TXT a recruit the following message - Call me!

Perhaps the sentence was light so as to not whack the legendary and spotless program that is IU?  Who knows.

500+ calls people!  We are not talking about a few dozen. From The Houston Chronicle you can read the NCAA's comments on this:

"Over a four-year period, they deliberately disregarded NCAA rules," Yeager said. "The coaching staff rationalized the infractions as not important, and while they may not be as notorious as some the committee has dealt with in the past, they are important."

IU hired Sampson knowing this investigation was underway and they turned a cold shoulder to IU golden boy Steve Alford who is still at rival Iowa.  At least the penalties do not hurt the players currently at IU by banning post season play.

With the summer season now upon us, the real issue for Sampson is not watching players. College coaches at all levels will be on the road at AAU tourneys, select camps and at home conducting their own camps.  At the higher levels, the Blue Chippers seem to expect the coach to watch them - as if they deserve it.  For the majority of recruits, when a college coach makes a point to come watch you play, multiple times - that is a good sign there is a real interest in evaluating you and in showing you they are truly interested in you as a student athlete.

Every year we hear about the player who turns a blind eye to the small school coach, in hopes of the bigger fish. More often than not, the player does not belong at the bigger programs. Keep it in mind players - the right fit is not always the popular school or the school with the biggest reputation. 
 

May 22 - Officially I took almost a year off from my newsletter.  I have decided to give it a go again in more of a daily blogesque format. My thought is that for those interested in regular updates, you can return to get info on a more regular basis. For those interested in one read a month I will send out a monthly reminder.

Since last June I still been writing - I updated a Football Blog pretty regularly on my site tracked the ups and downs of Hamilton College's football foils. Mostly, I have been working on resources for the company I work for Frozen Ropes Training Centers, a chain of Baseball and Softball Training Centers. In a short year I have met a lot of great people around the country and learned a lot about both games. Two  highlights of the job is running the Big Apple Baseball and Softball Coaches Convention and being a part of the newly formed New York State Baseball Coaches Association.

A big project was the creation of what we call the College Bound Resource Center - which is a lot of what I used to do on this site. 

Other news - College Bound: The Official Guide to Playing College Baseball (formerly titled Baseball Playing Outside the Lines) has been picked up by BaseballExpress.com - the leading online baseball retailer in the country...Nancy Petro, who I used to work for back in the Internet era of my life when I was the web editor of Highwiredsports.com (defunct), just resigned from her post as President of Digital Scout in Ohio to support her husband  Jim Petro's run at the Governor post in that state. Digital Scout is a PDA stat and scouting software company.

On to recruiting...
  - This is a great time of year - dozens of NCAA championship tourneys going on. The website NCAASports.com does a great job of tracking Championship results almost in real time, at all levels.  The site allows easy tracking to follow those school you might be interested in or in discovering new schools you had never heard of.  A few highlights:
   - Women's Lax D-III - While the folks at Middlebury might not agree, the 3rd final four loss in a row is not a failure, but a testament to the success of their program. The College Of New Jersey took the crown, their second in a row,  over the weekend by beating Middlebury and previously unbeaten Gettysburg.
 - Division III Baseball - Wheaton (MA)  College's Erik Podbelski, the engineer of this program from it's very roots, finally broke through and has a trip to the Championship Tourney in Wisconsin.  His nemesis over the years Eastern CT State - was placed in the Auburn, NY bracket where they battled back in the elimination bracket and took two from last years NCAA runner-up Cortland State to advance as well. I wonder if Wheaton and Eastern will square off again?

 

Ray Lauenstein is the author of College Bound: The Official Guide to Playing College Baseball 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.