<p>My daughter has two athlete friends, both good, neither phenomenal athletes. One is will swim this fall for a D3 school (Clark in Worcester)--big scholarship (mostly due to her academics, but being able to help their swim team didn't hurt, either.) The second will play soccer for Colgate in the fall. Played HS soccer for two years, NEVER played "travelling" soccer. She spoke with the coach, sent videos, had her HS coach talk with Colgate coach--she's on the varsity team as a freshman (or so her very proud mama tells me.) My own daughter is going out for the Women's Crew team as a walk-on at her D1 school--never rowed before. The coach told her "no worries, come out for the freshman tem, we'll see how you do". Moral of the story: contact coaches and ask questions. Good luck!</p>
<p>SBmom, and Susu, thanks for the posts. It's nice to see people can still walk-on. </p>
<p>Sbmom, can't start taping now. Season hasn't even started. :)</p>
<p>Tape the drilling, the scrimmaging....</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yes, walk-ons still happen. Believe it or not, a kid I know recently walked on to a team at Stanford-- and wound up playing.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Stanford doesn't limit walk-ons, I have a friend "running" there that was a 5 minute miler in high school but he's still "on the team". There's no cuts at Stanford.</p>
<p>My kid is a junior. I hope he has time.</p>
<p>But this kid played tennis--where you are either on the court, top 6, or sitting on the bench. </p>
<p>An ex-Stanford player (who was recruited in the 80's) told me the same tale. She explained to me that the walk-ons can be superior in some respects-- like they are less likely to be "mental cases" than the recruited players. They have less pressure, they are less burned out, and they can better play loose, aggressive tennis "for the love of it."</p>
<p>What happens after you send out the game tape and transcript and go and watch one of the college's games?</p>
<p>Just a couple of things . I have an in-law that was a D-1 women's basketball coach and he advises , at least for basketball, to send a game tape, not just a highlight reel. Says coaches want to see them move without the ball, run the floor , play defense, set screens, not just shot after shot after block after rebound.</p>
<p>As to how soon the coaches will contact the player after submitting the online recruiting form at D-3 schools , let's see-D sent out 9 in the last 8 days and the responses have been from several hours (2) to a few days (1) to mailing a response that arrived today (1) to nothing yet (5). My favorite was the response from a noted D-3 volleyball program :eek:. D followed up with a nice note saying she "had obviously goofed something up, and please forgive her but her dad still planned to frame the letter from the volleyball coach". (I will put it right next to the letter from Williams asking her to attend their diversity weekend for urms although D still insists that southern hill-billy may in fact be a urm to the Ephs.)</p>
<p>Dstark, I was in the same place you are now this last winter so D and I saddled up and rode down to Southwestern U. in Georgetown to watch Centre-one of D's favorite schools-play Southwestern. The quality of ball was very good but D left with the feeling that she could make a D3 team if she worked hard at it. I know that D3 programs run the gamut from great to gruesome but try to watch a conference game roughly equivalent to the conferences that interest them. Seems obvious enough but there is a world of difference in quality. </p>
<p>Another trick I have is to pull up the intended school's roster and google the kid most similar in stats (and in D's case, position she'd like to play) and see what kind of player they were in high school, credentials-wise. At some national schools you may even find kids from your area or an area you are familiar with. Believe it or not, this even works for my D. You can google her name+basketball, or her name+her high school and pull up some basketball stories and leaderboard stats (not to mention UIL Math Scores,etc.. Sort of spooky, when you think about it.) . Not a lot of stuff , but some good stuff.</p>
<p>The next thing is to do the math. D is a 5'11" 4 or forward. If the roster at a school is full of freshman and sophomore 4's that are 6' and over, well maybe there's a better place to play if she is looking for a hook. (Although mine is picking her schools and then will let BBall take care of itself, rather than excluding schools where it is doubtful she can play-this can certainly be a tiebreaker between equally arttractive schools.)</p>
<p>Dstark, send me a PM or email.</p>
<p>dstark - I just have to ask. I have nothing invested in the answer, but if your son wants to play soccer in college, that must means he likes it. If he likes it, how come he isn't playing club? I only ask because soccer is my S's only sport, he loves it, plays club albeit at a Class 3 level just for love of the game and affection for his team and coaches. And it hasn't been grueling at all.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon, great post. Good luck to your daughter.</p>
<p>Alumother, the short version...physically he has developed slowly. He burned out. He wanted to play another sport too.</p>
<p>He did play Class 3 last year. A couple of years before that, he was playing Class 1 soccer for 10 months a year.</p>
<p>I don't know for sure if he wants to play soccer in college, but I see the joy of the game coming back.</p>
<p>Does your son want to play in college?</p>
<p>My son would love to play in college, I'm sure, if it were possible. The thing is, he also wants to go to Stanford....</p>
<p>So we are just playing it by ear. I think that it's possible that if he went to look at some liberal arts colleges, and he liked them, and he were accepted to one of the highly academic ones, that there is actually a possibility he could play.</p>
<p>He too grew sort of late. Still growing, 5'8" something at 15. And so skinny I ask him where he keeps his guts. Given the genetics, he will probably hit 5'10", maybe even 5'11" before he is finished. He just wants to finally get to be taller than Aludaughter:).</p>
<p>So it's one of those it depends situations. He keeps up his skills training, might make varsity as a sophomore, but then probably not, probably will as a junior...</p>
<p>As you can tell, my heart as a parent isn't centered on athletic achievement. So this is one of those areas where thank god I can back off and just let him do whatever he wants. That and the bad saxophone playing...</p>
<p>And of course, what am I thinking? I am very glad to hear your son is finding the joy of the game again. I know people who still play as adults and love it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, remember NCAA rules state they cannot contact you until July 1 before your senior year, so it is still very early in the summer to be getting a lot of feedback.
[/quote]
I'm pretty sure this means the coaches can not proactively contact a prospective student before July 1st ... but that they are allowed to respond to contacts from prospective students. So be proactive!</p>
<p>I have another question... </p>
<p>I am a rising senior and will definately start and play a lot this year and be an integral part of my varsity basketball team. I feel that I am pretty good too. Last year as a Junior though, I played very little and never started. But the thing was I was still better then some of the older starters and people that got off the bench before me. During my 10th grade year I played for the Junior Varsity Team though and did extremely well. I have several game tapes from that year. My question is this, how do you guys propose me sending in a tape of my skills considering the fact that my junior year totally sucked and my sophmore year I played not even on a varsity team? Suggestions? :-|</p>
<p>Yeah, ChunRich, it's very tricky for rising seniors with spring sports... </p>
<p>I had a different problem getting tape of my D. Her HS has a very strong team, league was much weaker; she annihilated most of her opponents in very one sided matches. Thus game tapes were very poor because you did not see much in the way of finessing a point. </p>
<p>I taped some practice matches between her & her teammates. The level of play was much better.</p>
<p>Maybe you could do this to get game tape. Find ten guys and play/tape a practice game. </p>
<p>Wraider:</p>
<p>Once you have determined the appropriate level, student gets in touch with the coaches with stats, awards, etc as outlined above.</p>
<p>I hear they like to see actual basketball games though. And not summer league games... which i got a few tapes of. Yeah, I dont know what im going to do.</p>
<p>ChunRich--I notice that you first mentioned MIT. Our son went through the trauma of thinking he wanted to do sports at college, and then deciding not to--after his acceptances. He wasn't trying to game the system, just realized after visiting the colleges and getting a feel for the sports commitment that it wasn't him. Because he accepted MIT, I have some knowledge of the role that sports play in admittance. The answer is: barely any. We were so worried that his acceptance was based on his sport that on our post-acceptance visit we talked to people in admissions and the coaches of two sports. We got the same answer: all that a coach wanting you will do is get you a second look by the admissions director herself if you are rejected. Coaches said that sports isn't a "boost" at MIT as it might be at other DIII schools. Good luck!</p>
<p>S is going through the recruiting process now. He has been in contact with a few coaches since last fall, but wanted to get some times this spring before he contacted many more. He emailed some coaches in June and filled out a number of online recruiting forms. On July 1 he got a few calls and emails from some of the schools- one of them a top Ivy which is notorious for not getting recruited athletes into the school. A top NE DIII coach is contacting him every few days. S plans to visit that school early in the fall and see if he thinks DIII (and isolated) would work for him. One of S's top schools (another Ivy) was quite silent but an email came yesterday. That school has a little more clout with admissions. At this point it is still a "dance". The coaches are testing the waters and contacting many recruits, getting the academic stats and seeing who looks like a good match athletically and academically. Then they will try to figure out which of the kids are serious about the school. At the same time the kids are trying to figure out where they stand with the coaches. It will be a sprint to the finish for the ED applications in November.</p>
<p>MomofWildChild-- how did you figure out which athletic programs have more recruitment pull (vs promises) than others? Seems like this is valuable information.</p>