Over the past 15-20 years parents (good and bad) have become more involved with youth sports, high school sports, and now college sports. I believe the mindset has become "I'm paying the money and I should be involved in the process." I agree with that statement to an extent because parents should absolutely be involved but they shouldn't be the main focus. There is no way that a child can be the best they can be when the parent(s) overwhelm the process.
So, here are some words of advice for the parents out there during the recruiting process:
1) Remember it's your son or daughter that is being recruited, not you. Yes, the college coaches will try to recruit you on top of your child, but you shouldn't be the main focus of the recruitment. Your child is and should be the #1 priority in this situation.
2) Do your research. Know the colleges that your son or daughter is looking at. Know the acceptance rate, know the average academic scholarship, and know the average financial aid package. Know the academic programs, know the retention rates, know the graduation rates of the regular students, student-athletes, and athletes from the particular team that is recruiting your son or daughter. Know internship opportunities, know average salary of recent graduates, and know graduate school acceptance rates for graduates. If the questions to these answers aren't posted (many are), please ask an admissions counselor and the coaches.
3) Know the roster. As a parent, you think your son or daughter is the best thing since sliced bread. Guess what? There are a lot of slices of bread on college rosters. Look to see how many players are on the roster. See how are the classes distributed. Make sure to look at how many players on the roster play the same position as your son or daughter.
4) Be honest with coaches. How many times do teenagers tell people what they want to hear rather than what should be said? This same thing happens during the recruiting process as well. Kids don't want to disappoint anyone. They won't tell coaches that they aren't interested anymore. It shouldn't be the parents job to tell coaches if their son or daughter wants to or doesn't want to attend their school. If coaches ask where things stand, you can always hint what is going on and then have your son or daughter call the coaches to tell them they aren't interested anymore.
5) Don't be afraid to say NO. This is the second best answer college coaches can get. The earlier they get a "no" the better it is for everyone. You and your child should not drag out the process. Their college choice should be a tough one. It's where they are going to spend the next four or five years of the life. If you know there is a college that your child isn't interested in, encourage your child to tell that college "no."
6) If you don't know, ask someone that does. As a parent, you should have a ton of questions. Your child is one of the most important things in your life. You want the best possible situation for them. If you don't know, get advice from someone that has been through the process before, whether that be a player or parent. If you can't find anyone, ask a high school or AAU coach to help a little bit. They generally have a good grasp of how things work.
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Investing in Players
Over the course of an athlete's career that are a lot of people that are looking out for them. It usually includes their parents, HS coach(es), and AAU coach(es). Quite a few people are investing money and a lot of time in order for the athlete to succeed. The hope is that everyone works together in order for the athlete to achieve his or her goals.
Parents are investing by pouring time and money into many different ventures. Some of which include traveling tournaments, training, AAU, and team associated events in high school. They want what's best for their son or daughter. Their idea of what is best usually is completely structured around their son or daughter. Yes, they want the team to win but their son or daughter is the number one priority.
A lot of times, parents are spending more time with their kids than they are with each other. Or at least more time watching their kid play than with each other. In some parents' cases, coaching their kid, especially at the youth levels. Many parents have kids that are different ages and/or different genders that are separated every weekend and a lot of week nights because of tournaments and games. Anyway you look at it, it's a lot of time spent in balmy gyms all over the place.
HS coaches are investing by having open gyms, team workouts, working with youth programs, etc. HS coaches could be investing in a player's career for 13 years. That time commitment is unparalleled compared to any other coach. Kids from kindergarten to ninth grade are going the camps and clinics hosted by the high school coach. Yes, he/she wants what is best for their program but they are looking out for every player as well.
A lot of coaches are taking the time away from their own children to help out kids in their program. They generally aren't getting paid to the level that they should considering how much time they put in. Imagine putting in 20-30 hours a week for a job that they get paid less than half of the minimum wage. Most do it because they love it. They want to see the kids they've seen grow up physically grow up emotionally and socially.
AAU coaches are investing by spending their spring and summer time with 13-17 year olds. They usually aren't getting paid much and want to see the kids do the best to their abilities. Many will spend countless hours in contact with college coaches in hopes of helping find the best college for each kid's future.
College coaches invest a ton of resources into potential recruits. It's usually not their money but it is their time. They spend weekends during the spring and summer away from their family. They also spend a lot of week nights during the season trying to lure your son or daughter to their campus. There are times that the coaches are investing time and energy in keeping kids at their colleges. It's almost an every year thing. They not only have to recruit the kid from high school but also recruit them not to leave their college. It shouldn't be that way but a lot of times it is.
The idea of "what's best for little Timmy/Tammy" is drastically different from everyone's perspective. The more everyone communicates, the more likely people will on the same page. It's communication at all three levels.
Parents are investing by pouring time and money into many different ventures. Some of which include traveling tournaments, training, AAU, and team associated events in high school. They want what's best for their son or daughter. Their idea of what is best usually is completely structured around their son or daughter. Yes, they want the team to win but their son or daughter is the number one priority.
A lot of times, parents are spending more time with their kids than they are with each other. Or at least more time watching their kid play than with each other. In some parents' cases, coaching their kid, especially at the youth levels. Many parents have kids that are different ages and/or different genders that are separated every weekend and a lot of week nights because of tournaments and games. Anyway you look at it, it's a lot of time spent in balmy gyms all over the place.
HS coaches are investing by having open gyms, team workouts, working with youth programs, etc. HS coaches could be investing in a player's career for 13 years. That time commitment is unparalleled compared to any other coach. Kids from kindergarten to ninth grade are going the camps and clinics hosted by the high school coach. Yes, he/she wants what is best for their program but they are looking out for every player as well.
A lot of coaches are taking the time away from their own children to help out kids in their program. They generally aren't getting paid to the level that they should considering how much time they put in. Imagine putting in 20-30 hours a week for a job that they get paid less than half of the minimum wage. Most do it because they love it. They want to see the kids they've seen grow up physically grow up emotionally and socially.
AAU coaches are investing by spending their spring and summer time with 13-17 year olds. They usually aren't getting paid much and want to see the kids do the best to their abilities. Many will spend countless hours in contact with college coaches in hopes of helping find the best college for each kid's future.
College coaches invest a ton of resources into potential recruits. It's usually not their money but it is their time. They spend weekends during the spring and summer away from their family. They also spend a lot of week nights during the season trying to lure your son or daughter to their campus. There are times that the coaches are investing time and energy in keeping kids at their colleges. It's almost an every year thing. They not only have to recruit the kid from high school but also recruit them not to leave their college. It shouldn't be that way but a lot of times it is.
The idea of "what's best for little Timmy/Tammy" is drastically different from everyone's perspective. The more everyone communicates, the more likely people will on the same page. It's communication at all three levels.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Picking an AAU Team
This is the time of the year that you'll see some AAU coaches/directors start to linger around high school games. Some get the ball rolling early and are around all season. Just like with picking a college, there are many things that need to be looked at when picking an AAU team. I am strictly talking about players that want to play in college when it comes to picking the correct AAU team/program.
Most if not all guys that play AAU think they are or want to be Division One basketball players. If you think you are a D1 player, you HAVE to play during the Division One Live Periods. A Live Period is when Division One coaches are allowed to watch travel basketball and evaluate prospects. The Live Periods this year are April 10-12, April 24-26, July 8-12, July 15-19, and July 22-26. It is very important that you are playing in tournaments during those weekends to be seen.
Division Two and Division Three coaches have a much different recruiting calendar. They are allowed to see prospects almost all the time. I'm not as familiar with the D2 coaches but they certainly aren't as restricted as the D1 coaches. There are no dead periods for D3 coaches. They can be out ALL THE TIME.
Last thing when it comes to what tournaments the team plays in is, you want college coaches to see you play when you are fresh. Both Nike and adidas have structured their travel team schedules with guys only playing three or four games a weekend. It's brilliant thinking. The Upper Midwest has done the same thing with their Sanford Pentagon Series. If you are tired (your body especially), you will not be your best and you want coaches to see you at your best. Simply put, four games is MUCH better than seven or eight games every weekend.
Playing at a high level is important. You want to be able to play against other good players on a consistent basis. By playing on a program's second team (generally speaking) doesn't allow you to do that. Yes, there are some programs that have very good second teams but make sure to look at the schedules of each team to see which is the top team and which is the second team, especially if the program directors tell you the "teams are equal." Top teams will generally travel a bit more and/or play in slightly better tournaments.
It's important to have a plan in place for each individual player's development. Ideally, you want to be able to play a position that you will in college. Practice time is generally limited so it's extremely important that practice has some type of skill development in it. It can't just be scrimmaging. Communication with high school coaches on what their thoughts on the player's development is something that is forgotten at times (it's a two-way street).
You want to be on a good team. Good teams go further in tournaments (yes, I know I'm not a huge fan of tournaments but everyone still plays in them) and the further the team goes, the better chance of college coaches see that team. Asking who else is on the team is important. You don't want to play with guys/girls that aren't very good or don't have the same goals as you. Continuity on the roster is important as well. You don't want to have a new roster every weekend and ideally the roster only changes one to three guys every year.
Winning at the expense of development is an interesting concept (much like youth travel basketball). The reason I say this is because A LOT of travel teams will play zone. They play zone because a lot of the players play with different defensive concepts and zone is easy to teach and just about all HS programs teach it the same way. I know when I coached in college it was important to see how players moved side to side on defense. On top of that, with the exception of Syracuse, how many college programs exclusively play zone? Some zone isn't bad, but all zone isn't what you want.
Cost is important for just about all families. Programs will range from $800-$2500 and sometimes more. Some programs don't charge or charge very little and that is usually for the programs with the sneaker affiliations. There are times with the "sneaker affiliated programs" to charge a way more money to the kids that aren't on their top team in order to fill the gap because their top team is barely paying anything at all. Your son or daughter is paying to have "_________" across his/her chest and it doesn't mean that much. All these programs make money for their coaches/directors, you don't want to be the sacrificial pawn in their money making machine. Which program gives you the best bang for your buck?
Last thing I will talk about is what I think is the most important. Obviously, you want exposure to college coaches but you WANT to be exposed as a player. You want to get beat on defense, you want to miss shots around the basket, you want to struggle from 3, you want to get matched up against someone much better than you, you want to be dominated physically, and you want to get benched. Why????? Because you need to get better and you need to get stronger. And you need to figure how what works and what doesn't work against better players.
Can the team that you picked expose you to all of this? I hope so.
Most if not all guys that play AAU think they are or want to be Division One basketball players. If you think you are a D1 player, you HAVE to play during the Division One Live Periods. A Live Period is when Division One coaches are allowed to watch travel basketball and evaluate prospects. The Live Periods this year are April 10-12, April 24-26, July 8-12, July 15-19, and July 22-26. It is very important that you are playing in tournaments during those weekends to be seen.
Division Two and Division Three coaches have a much different recruiting calendar. They are allowed to see prospects almost all the time. I'm not as familiar with the D2 coaches but they certainly aren't as restricted as the D1 coaches. There are no dead periods for D3 coaches. They can be out ALL THE TIME.
Last thing when it comes to what tournaments the team plays in is, you want college coaches to see you play when you are fresh. Both Nike and adidas have structured their travel team schedules with guys only playing three or four games a weekend. It's brilliant thinking. The Upper Midwest has done the same thing with their Sanford Pentagon Series. If you are tired (your body especially), you will not be your best and you want coaches to see you at your best. Simply put, four games is MUCH better than seven or eight games every weekend.
Playing at a high level is important. You want to be able to play against other good players on a consistent basis. By playing on a program's second team (generally speaking) doesn't allow you to do that. Yes, there are some programs that have very good second teams but make sure to look at the schedules of each team to see which is the top team and which is the second team, especially if the program directors tell you the "teams are equal." Top teams will generally travel a bit more and/or play in slightly better tournaments.
It's important to have a plan in place for each individual player's development. Ideally, you want to be able to play a position that you will in college. Practice time is generally limited so it's extremely important that practice has some type of skill development in it. It can't just be scrimmaging. Communication with high school coaches on what their thoughts on the player's development is something that is forgotten at times (it's a two-way street).
You want to be on a good team. Good teams go further in tournaments (yes, I know I'm not a huge fan of tournaments but everyone still plays in them) and the further the team goes, the better chance of college coaches see that team. Asking who else is on the team is important. You don't want to play with guys/girls that aren't very good or don't have the same goals as you. Continuity on the roster is important as well. You don't want to have a new roster every weekend and ideally the roster only changes one to three guys every year.
Winning at the expense of development is an interesting concept (much like youth travel basketball). The reason I say this is because A LOT of travel teams will play zone. They play zone because a lot of the players play with different defensive concepts and zone is easy to teach and just about all HS programs teach it the same way. I know when I coached in college it was important to see how players moved side to side on defense. On top of that, with the exception of Syracuse, how many college programs exclusively play zone? Some zone isn't bad, but all zone isn't what you want.
Cost is important for just about all families. Programs will range from $800-$2500 and sometimes more. Some programs don't charge or charge very little and that is usually for the programs with the sneaker affiliations. There are times with the "sneaker affiliated programs" to charge a way more money to the kids that aren't on their top team in order to fill the gap because their top team is barely paying anything at all. Your son or daughter is paying to have "_________" across his/her chest and it doesn't mean that much. All these programs make money for their coaches/directors, you don't want to be the sacrificial pawn in their money making machine. Which program gives you the best bang for your buck?
Last thing I will talk about is what I think is the most important. Obviously, you want exposure to college coaches but you WANT to be exposed as a player. You want to get beat on defense, you want to miss shots around the basket, you want to struggle from 3, you want to get matched up against someone much better than you, you want to be dominated physically, and you want to get benched. Why????? Because you need to get better and you need to get stronger. And you need to figure how what works and what doesn't work against better players.
Can the team that you picked expose you to all of this? I hope so.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Trickle Down Recruiting
Trickle down recruiting happens every year throughout the country. What exactly is it? It's when there aren't enough recruitable prospects that fit the level of certain schools and it forces that same school to recruit a player that normally would be recruitable at a lower level. In normal terms, it's when a D1 school recruits what is normally a D2 player and when a D2 school recruits what is normally a D3 player.
Why does this happen?
You will see it a lot with schools that recruit at a state or regional level. Most of their athletes are from the state that the school is located or in the surrounding states. Knowing that there isn't as many as recruitable athletes in a certain class, schools will go after a player that fits perfectly into a lower level school.
I'll just throw an example of schools that are local. North Dakota State generally gets kids from the Upper Midwest. In the class of 2016 (I don't know this, it's all hypothetical) there is a limited amount of low major D1 players that are available. Since there is a very limited number of players that are recruitable, they will go after a kid that would normally go to MN-Duluth. Since, MN-Duluth can't get their "normal" prospect, they then go after a kid that would normally go to UW-Eau Claire.
In the grand scheme of things, the D3 school gets hit the most. Why? The prospects that they are normally looking for get decreased drastically. It also forces the D3 schools to get creative with their recruiting. By creative, I mean, go out of state and/or get junior college guys.
What happens next?
After about an year or two, the kids and their current coach realize (maybe it's just the kid) that there really isn't a role for the player on the current team. They realize that playing time won't be very easy to come by, especially after the next recruiting comes in and that now sophomore isn't the player that a few of the freshmen are.
These players then transfer down a level to where they originally fit. They end up being successful at that level and everyone ends up happy. Sometimes you'll see kids eventually transfer down two levels and realize the D3 level is exactly what they are looking for. The allure of the scholarship blinded their decision making skills during their recruitment.
Why does this happen?
You will see it a lot with schools that recruit at a state or regional level. Most of their athletes are from the state that the school is located or in the surrounding states. Knowing that there isn't as many as recruitable athletes in a certain class, schools will go after a player that fits perfectly into a lower level school.
I'll just throw an example of schools that are local. North Dakota State generally gets kids from the Upper Midwest. In the class of 2016 (I don't know this, it's all hypothetical) there is a limited amount of low major D1 players that are available. Since there is a very limited number of players that are recruitable, they will go after a kid that would normally go to MN-Duluth. Since, MN-Duluth can't get their "normal" prospect, they then go after a kid that would normally go to UW-Eau Claire.
In the grand scheme of things, the D3 school gets hit the most. Why? The prospects that they are normally looking for get decreased drastically. It also forces the D3 schools to get creative with their recruiting. By creative, I mean, go out of state and/or get junior college guys.
What happens next?
After about an year or two, the kids and their current coach realize (maybe it's just the kid) that there really isn't a role for the player on the current team. They realize that playing time won't be very easy to come by, especially after the next recruiting comes in and that now sophomore isn't the player that a few of the freshmen are.
These players then transfer down a level to where they originally fit. They end up being successful at that level and everyone ends up happy. Sometimes you'll see kids eventually transfer down two levels and realize the D3 level is exactly what they are looking for. The allure of the scholarship blinded their decision making skills during their recruitment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)