Seeking an Athletic Scholarship - Advice for Athletes and Parents

After my sophomore summer baseball season my attention shifted to the recruiting process. Having naively self-defined myself as a “star-athlete,” I was terrified of the possibility that I wouldn’t be offered a college scholarship.  It bothered me every single day and often kept me awake at night. I had no clear idea about how well I had to perform to earn a scholarship, and didn’t know what level of competition I should be aiming for.

I got a lot of advice from parents, coaches, and other adults in my community. Some told me what I hoped was true - that if I was good enough I’d be discovered, even in remote southern Oregon. Others advised me to market myself, which meant sending emails, calling coaches, and going to camps and “showcases.” Now that I’ve seen the process from the perspective of coaches as well as players, I know that unless you’re a truly elite athlete, and play at a prestigious school known to produce outstanding athletes, there’s no guarantee that the right coach will find you. A majority of high school athletes are essentially playing in the dark. College coaches are busy and don’t have time to scour through local papers from small towns searching for players. Many players have to promote themselves, and there are better and worse ways to do it.

Theoretically, travel tournaments and showcases make sense.  Prospects show up to compete against each other during favorable recruiting periods so that college scouts can watch and evaluate them, saving time and lowering expenses by assessing many players from many different areas all at once.

A problem is the incentives players and coaches operate under. The game isn’t being played as it should be, with two teams focused on winning. Instead, all the participants have the same objective - to attract attention and thereby increase their stock in the recruiting pool.

After our regional championship in Montana my parents paid to send me to an expensive baseball showcase in Arizona which was marketed to be ripe with college scouts and excellent coaching. We would play in four games at the showcase, two of them before 8 a.m. so as to allow time for all the other games that had to be squeezed in during a day.

We all took Sparq athletic tests, designed by Nike to evaluate a baseball player’s athleticism (and we were encouraged to purchase Sparq gear so we could train with it and improve our scores). The showcase was a mockery of nearly everything that’s appealing about baseball.  Neither my “teammates” nor I had any genuine interest in getting to know each other and competing together to win games. Many of us strutted around like aspiring alpha chimps, trying to appear superior to our teammates.  We were trying to impress our “coaches,” retired professional baseball players who claimed to have many connections with college coaches and scouts. The traditional dugout jokes and banter, one of the most enjoyable elements of baseball culture, were replaced with scant and insincere encouragement for teammates, and sucking up to the coaches, who lectured us about how hard they’d worked when they were young.

I played fairly well, with solid defense and six hits in four games. But I didn’t interact with a single college scout. This isn’t proof that no players benefited from the camp  -  many of them played better than I did, and may have made connections - but the event didn’t increase my chances of playing at the next level.   It struck me as something like a mob of people signing up for an Amway pyramid scheme, where the masses at the bottom of the pyramid enable a few people at the top to profit. The event was definitely a financial success for the organizers.

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An even worse dynamic operates on the AAU basketball circuits and “showcases.” Basketball is a team game, but the incentive to get noticed by college scouts works against playing team basketball.  Players capable of breaking down a defender and creating an open shot, or a shot for a teammate, attract the most attention. Individual shot creation is indeed an important skill, and for teams with a player who excels at it (i.e. James Harden of Houston), it can be a team’s most effective offensive weapon.  But there are many other necessary skills a successful team needs - setting screens, moving well without the ball, running off screens to create shots - that don’t receive the attention they deserve in AAU basketball.  I wasn’t very good at breaking down defenders with the dribble and creating my own shots.  I needed ball movement, screeners and willing passers to help me find space to shoot, and as a result I often felt lost and ineffectual in AAU tournaments.

Because of baseball I didn’t participate in the traditional AAU circuit to the degree that most other college hopefuls did. But each year I joined a few AAU teams and traveled with them to tournaments where we’d often play as many as five games in a weekend. Before my junior season in high school I played in two such tournaments and left both feeling frustrated. When a teammate was scoring a lot I sometimes resented him for taking too many shots. No doubt my teammates sometimes felt that way about me. Bickering among teammates about shot selection wasn’t uncommon. After games we barely pretended to care about whether we’d won or lost.

AAU basketball culture isn’t popular with many college and professional coaches. There’s a lack of emphasis on teaching fundamentals, and many of the athletes who show up at college have to unlearn bad habits, and learn the basics: how to fight through a screen, how to pivot and play forward against pressure, etc....

I suspect that America’s flawed AAU culture is contributing to the rapid influx of foreign players into the NCAA and NBA. European basketball is famously team oriented, producing outcomes that must be refreshing to many American coaches. Instead of bouncing between AAU teams throughout adolescence, European players play club basketball, often with the same teammates for many years. They’re also taught to play all positions, which likely explains why the big men who come from Europe are often skilled shooters, passers and ball handlers.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who’s fostered an offensive system entirely antithetical to AAU culture - one where superstars are happy to share the ball with one another - voiced his concerns about AAU basketball:

“Even if today’s players are incredibly gifted, they grow up in a basketball environment that can only be called counterproductive. AAU basketball has replaced high school ball as the dominant form of development in the teen years. I coached my son’s AAU team for three years; it’s a genuinely weird subculture. Like everywhere else, you have good coaches and bad coaches, or strong programs and weak ones, but what troubled me was how much winning is devalued in the AAU structure. Teams play game after game after game, sometimes winning or losing four times in one day. Very rarely do teams ever hold a practice. Some programs fly in top players from out of state for a single weekend to join their team. Certain players play for one team in the morning and another one in the afternoon. If mom and dad aren’t happy with their son’s playing time, they switch club teams and stick him on a different one the following week. The process of growing as a team basketball player — learning how to become part of a whole, how to fit into something bigger than oneself — becomes completely lost within the AAU fabric.”

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The sheer volume of AAU basketball games creates health and sustainability problems. In recent years there’s been a substantial increase in player injuries between ages 18 and 22. Dr. Marcus Elliott, the founder of P3 Applied Sports Science Lab, a training center specializing in athlete assessment, drew this conclusion when asked about modern youth basketball: “What they put their bodies through is so rigorous. It's so extreme. And a lot of them don't make it out to the other side.” He goes so far as to call those who make it through without injury “survivors.”

Kobe Bryant was a vocal critic of youth basketball and AAU culture throughout his career.  He didn’t think he could have lasted 20 years in the NBA if he’d taken on the modern youth schedule.  He played one game every two weeks until he was 15 years old. Before that he shot and practiced ball handling every day, but not long enough for it to feel like work. Instead of playing in tournaments weekend after weekend, most of his work was on skill development and strength training.

Lebron James told Yahoo Sports that he regularly holds his children out of AAU games because he understands that their schedules are too demanding, jeopardizing young athletes’ futures. I remember waking up on Sunday mornings after playing in four AAU games on a Saturday feeling nearly crippled with stiffness and soreness.

Despite their obvious shortcomings, AAU games and showcases offer opportunities for exposure. Athletes who refuse to play AAU ball out of principle could harm their chances. But young players and their families should be very discriminating about which camps and showcases they choose. As Kerr points out, some teams and coaches are far superior to others, making research necessary. Parents and players should look for programs that have specific goals and emphasize team basketball, and that have historically made connections with good fits. “Good” doesn’t mean that players end up in Division 1, but that they end up with good college experiences.

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Many or most gifted high school athletes are determined to go “D-1.” While playing for any college generally carries prestige, Division I is the top level. The best players on major college football and basketball teams are treated like superheroes, and the reasons are clear: in football and basketball, popular teams appear regularly on nationwide television. Professional teams draft almost exclusively from Division 1, so signing a letter of intent to a D-1 school carries at least the possibility of playing professionally, even though the percentage of D-1 athletes who compete professionally is minuscule.

Most young people have no idea how few high schoolers are offered Division 1 scholarships. I broke records at Ashland High School, and my baseball teams were in the hunt for state championships every year. This led many community members (teachers, family friends, classmates) to assume that, after signing with a high-powered university, I’d soon be appearing in prime-time television games. Their misplaced confidence in me wrongly inflated my expectations.

Early on in my junior year basketball season, I sent my highlight tape out along with my statistics and accolades to about 50 Division 1 schools. The highlight tape was a montage of splashed three pointers from all over the court. I immediately received a flurry of responses, all saying essentially the same thing: “Hi Billy, I’m very interested in you as a potential addition to our team. Could you send full-game film? Thanks, Coach X.”

My Dad and I were ecstatic, and I was all but certain that I’d realize my dream of playing at the highest college level. We chose a full-game film in which I scored 36 points including eight 3s, and led a come-back victory against a good team. It had been by far my best performance, and I felt confident each time I hit the send button to a coach.

Then came a crushing silence that lasted for weeks - I didn’t receive a single response from any of the coaches who’d requested the game film. Finally I sent a follow up email to each coach, and received a few replies informing me that I wasn’t right for their program, and wishing me luck in the future. I hadn’t kept my excitement to myself after the first flurry of emails, and had told friends, coaches and others about the interest I’d received from the likes of University of Portland, Davidson University, Air Force, and other D-1 schools. Now, with my hopes crushed, I had to deal with follow up questions about which school I’d likely sign with.

In hindsight, it’s clear that coaches were impressed with my shooting ability, but didn’t see me as athletic enough to be a Division I guard.

***

The only place I knew was Ashland, Oregon, and I had friends, family, female interests, and the local community to impress. My goal of committing to the best possible university had little if anything to do with where my best experience in college might be, and a lot to do with what the front page article in the Ashland Tidings would say about me, and how my community would respond. That’s what infected me with the D-1 virus.

Many Division - 2 coaches have told me that their challenge during recruiting is trying to convince prospects that they’re best suited for Division 2 competition. When I coached at Regis, we offered full scholarships to players late in the recruiting process, players who seemed ideal for our system and who would likely enjoy successful careers. They often refused in order to wait for the dust to settle at the D-1 level, hoping that a program that missed out on their first choices would finally settle for them. The way D-1 schools protect themselves compounds this problem. They want their target recruits, who often have many offers, so each D-1 school needs options to fall back on if their top choices don’t sign. The result is that they string three or four possibilities along in case they end up needing them.

The possibility of earning a scholarship at an elite school is so intoxicating that many athletes and parents try to manipulate their way into a program. When I was a recruit I spent hours combing through my highlight tape and my game film in an attempt to emphasize my strengths and hide my weaknesses. As a coach I saw countless players who had evidently done the same thing. They cared more about prestige than they did about finding a place where they’d likely enjoy a successful college career. Because so many of us fail to consider what life will be like once we show up at a campus, we advertise ourselves as players that we’re not. This is something like trying to lie your way into a software engineering job by exaggerating your coding skills. If it works, you’ll enjoy a jolt of accomplishment when offered the job, but what will happen the first day at work? In sports, the end result will be long hours sitting on a bench and feeling like a failure.

***

Our junior year baseball team suffered our second loss of the season in the state quarterfinals. We finished the year 27-2, without a championship to show for it. I ended the season batting .544, best in the state, and broke my high school’s batting average, hits, runs and doubles record. But I still wasn’t receiving any scholarship offers, and I wondered what I could possibly do to attract the attention of college scouts.

I finally drew some interest from the Oregon State baseball team, a dream school of mine growing up. When I was contacted by their recruiting coordinator, I was thrilled. He expressed what seemed to be genuine interest, and I hoped he’d make me an offer. Finally, though, he told me that he hoped I’d sign with Oregon State and become a Beaver, but no scholarship money was available for me at the time. If I accepted the very limited opportunity I knew I’d get a front page article about signing with a D-1 school, and I could tell anyone who wanted to know that I’d soon be playing major college baseball with a team that had recently won a national championship. Luckily, there were honest people in my life who convinced me to turn Oregon State down. Don Senestraro, my high school coach, explained that the vast majority of walk-ons “just fetch batting practice and carry balls around for the real players.” My Dad and Opa said the same thing in nicer words.

***

My dad helped me throughout the recruiting process. He traveled to all of my games and filmed them, and then spent countless hours editing highlight tapes. He spearheaded the effort of contacting coaches, collaborating with me in the process.  Even with all his help I was overwhelmed. The process of contacting recruiters is haphazard and stressful.  We collected emails from college websites and sent out emails with videos embedded. Though we established a few connections, we never felt satisfied and never seemed to be doing enough.

After my junior year my dad finally purchased a recruiting service - SAS - Student Athlete Showcase - which eventually became a major help. It was fairly expensive, but yielded a worthwhile return on investment. With experts doing the painstaking work, I was freed up to focus on performance.

SAS had a massive database of college contacts. They set up a sports portfolio web-page with relevant information about me. They kept in close contact regarding emails, and when follow up emails should be sent, and when coaches should be called to maximize the chance of establishing a connection. More importantly, they asked me what I wanted from my overall college experience.

I’ve learned since then that many recruiting services lead people on and take advantage of desperate athletes, so it’s necessary to do research and reject the often inflated claims made by opportunistic marketers. If a recruiting service doesn’t spend time honestly assessing your strengths and weaknesses, and getting to know what you want as an athlete, they probably won’t do you much good. 

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With the help of my recruiting service I got some serious attention from various Division 2 schools and set up official visits for the spring. The fact that I was a two-sport athlete made my situation unusual. I didn’t want to quit either sport and had no way of knowing which one offered better prospects. I also had to decide if I should accept a D-2 offer, or play for a junior college where I could hopefully develop and keep my D-1 dream alive.

My first of five scheduled visits was to Regis University in Denver, a member of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. My Dad and I arrived at the campus on a bright summer day and were immediately struck by the beautiful red brick buildings and blossoming trees. Friendly coaches showered me with praise, and the players I met were kind and welcoming. Through the weekend I was treated to delicious meals. The Regis head coach was Lonnie Porter, who had been an excellent player and eventually became a Colorado coaching legend. I was struck by his strong presence. He offered me a full scholarship, worth well over $40,000 per year for four years. Although Regis had struggled in recent years, he made a promise to my Dad and me that we’d win if I decided to come to Regis.

My Dad asked Coach Porter if I’d have to give up baseball if I took the scholarship. Coach Porter reached out to the baseball coach, who viewed my highlight tape, statistics and accolades, and offered me a roster position on the baseball team.

The offer was exciting, and I wanted the recruiting process to end. I saw myself at Ashland High School answering questions about where and why I’d signed, when I should have been asking myself if I’d be able to play two sports that overlap and still have time to do well in my classes. And I should have gone on my remaining visits and compared my options.

Instead, I looked forward to the praise I’d get back home after signing to play two sports. I cancelled my remaining visits, a lengthy feature story appeared in the Ashland Tidings, and I proudly wore a Regis hat on my high school campus.

***

Now that I’ve been through the process as a player, and seen it as a coach, I think I have clear ideas about what high school athletes being recruited should think about. They often hurt themselves when they care too much about what their classmates think of their decisions. It’s their college life that matters. Once I got to Regis, my concerns about impressing people in Oregon immediately disappeared, and only a few close friends and family cared about my college athletic career.

For players somewhere in between levels trying to decide which way to go, choosing the lower level almost always makes sense. Collegiate divisions (NCAA D-1, D-2, and D-3, NAIA, and Junior College) are distinct hierarchies. Players near the top of Division-2 are far more likely to have enjoyable careers than players near the bottom of Division 1. It has to be demoralizing to put in grueling hours of sacrifice with little if any opportunity to compete. So, choosing too low will always work better than choosing too high. Being on the court or on the field is a lot more fun than sitting on the bench. I’m certain that if a high level Division-I school had given me the scholarship I wanted, I’d have either lost my scholarship or spent my competitive career sitting down.

The lower level also gives players the power to select for other important variables. Athletes on the bubble with limited Division 1 options can, in Division 2, be more selective about location, education, and the health of their programs. My friend and former Regis teammate Jarrett Brodbeck had offers from Division I schools, and was a very hot prospect at the Division 2 level. He chose Division 2 because he wanted to be the focal point of an offense. Instead of becoming a catch-and-shoot specialist, he became a freshman All-American, perennial all-league player, broke the league record for 3-pointers made, and led Regis to its first conference championship in school history. As I write this, he's playing professionally in China.

When I speak to young athletes going through the recruiting process, or otherwise deciding where to play, I emphasize how important it is to find the right coach in a decent program. A simple analogy can be drawn with healthy and unhealthy countries, and cultures. Unfortunate people are forced to exist in poverty and fear, often ruled by leaders who range from unethical to cruel.  In thriving societies with reasonable leaders, most people feel content and secure. Though failing sports programs are far less significant than suffering countries, the same basic principles apply. In poorly run athletic programs, turmoil between players and coaches is inevitable. Players who aren’t motivated cut corners wherever and whenever they can. Unhappy players and coaches blame each other and feel mutually disconnected to a collective goal. In healthy programs, neither coaches nor players tolerate unproductive or irresponsible behavior because every individual feels a responsibility to the team. Most programs fall somewhere between the extremes.

Time spent in any noxious environment can easily lead to serious problems that reach beyond the court or the field: mental health issues, alcoholism, frustration that leads to dropping out of school. Many of us are youthfully overconfident, certain that the future will somehow turn out well. But we all adapt to our environment to some extent, and it’s easier to paddle with the current than against it.

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Players lucky enough to have options in the recruiting process should take the time to research the programs they consider, and keep the character of the coach and the health of the program firmly in mind when making decisions. Recruiting visits can paint a flawed picture of what a program is really like. Recruits are generally treated like royalty when they visit schools, often showered with praise and treated to expensive dinners and enjoyable times with the coaching staff. The school that makes you feel best during a visit isn’t necessarily the best option. Coaches who put on impressive two-day shows aren’t necessarily outstanding leaders.

In recent years troubling data has surfaced about coaches mistreating their players. Dr. Ben Tepper of Ohio State University, a specialist in abusive workplace behavior, created a scale called “The Tepper Scale” that attempts to quantify abusive leadership. In an HBO Real Sports episode, Tepper discusses the results of his test when given to NCAA athletes. “My first reaction was I’m not reading the data right. It had to be a mistake. We’re talking two to three times higher than any other industry … It’s just off the charts.”  He speculates that the power dynamic is the primary driver of the abuse. Unlike the workforce, players have limited mobility, and often can’t justify quitting and losing their scholarships, and probably losing credits when transferring to another school. This gives unethical coaches too much power over them.

The uncertainty that comes with being a coach probably contributes to the prevalence of abuse. The overwhelming pressure to win in order to keep one’s job can lead to desperate, frustrated coaches mistreating players. Arian Foster describes some of his college football coaches at Tennessee in unflattering terms. He found it difficult to tolerate “fat middle-aged coaches” screaming at him on the football field, when they wouldn’t have dared to do it anywhere else on earth. 

Parents should do their best to make sure they’re not sending their sons or daughters to an abusive environment, but should also be aware of the fact that hard coaching often works. Well intentioned concern is probably making some perfectly ethical coaches walk on eggshells as they try to hold their players accountable. During the 2019 NCAA basketball tournament Michigan’s Tom Izzo, a coach with an excellent reputation, was taken to task by the national media for screaming at a player for not sprinting back on defense. What Izzo did seemed perfectly natural to those who have played college basketball, but must have looked cruel to those who don’t understand what it takes to win a basketball game.

Playing for an intense coach can be intimidating, and coaches with a history of abuse should be avoided. But seeking out softer coaches comes with its own set of potential problems. Coaches don’t have to yell and scream to be effective, but they do need to be strong leaders who command respect. Players committed to winning and improving can find themselves frustrated when their head coach doesn’t hold the line on bad behavior. In a well run program a coach is consistent with his standards and firmly enforces them. Then players can know that everyone is being held to the same high standard, and focus their energy on meeting it. A soft coach can be as toxic as a coach with an overactive temper.

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Before coming to Regis, Brady Bergeson took Western Oregon from the bottom of their conference to the NCAA tournament in just a few years. At Regis it took him only three seasons to accomplish what he wrote on the white board his first day on campus: win the first RMAC championship in school history. As the graduate assistant on that team as I worked toward a master’s degree, I learned what a championship program looks like.

The most obvious indication of a healthy program is its winning percentage over time. No team wins all the time, but there’s a threshold of success below which team experience inevitably becomes negative. At least occasionally, in order to make each game and practice meaningful, a program has to be in contention to win a championship, or make the conference playoffs, or pull off an upset. Programs don’t have to be powerhouses but shouldn’t be perennial bottom dwellers either.

As a high school senior the advice I’m giving now might have influenced me. In the four years before I arrived at Regis, their won-loss record was 26-80, and 12-70 in conference play. It shouldn’t have surprised me that when I arrived I found the players on the team mocking the coaching staff, ridiculing anybody who gave full effort, and caring more about partying than basketball. I joined the existing culture and suffered the consequences.

Other questions to ask when deciding where to play: How long has the coach been on the job? If not long, how much success has he or she enjoyed previously at other schools? Do players transfer out at a high rate? What’s the dropout rate at the school for all students? Answers to these questions create a more complete picture than the one you paint for yourself after a brief campus visit. 

Probably the best method for evaluating a program is contacting former players. They’ll likely answer questions honestly. Players currently in the program who have legitimate complaints wouldn’t dare be honest about it for fear of retribution.

Advice

It’s essential to be realistic about what level you should play at. 5’8” guards who average 11 points per game in high school won’t often receive attention from Duke University. Focus on an attainable goal, and then cast a very wide net and expect a lot of rejection. Unless you’re a phenom who’s already receiving a lot of attention, most schools that are contacted won’t be interested. Don’t believe that rejection reflects your potential as an athlete.  If you establish one successful connection with a school that’s a good fit, the process has been a success.