Student-Athlete Showcase (SAS)

Lesson of the Day: 

Interest Breeds Interest.

As long as we have been helping families navigate the college recruiting process, we estimate that 8 of 10 kids come to us with set preferences in mind and then end up going to a school completely counter to those preferences.

Bottom line, we do everything in our power to encourage our kids to keep an open mind from the onset. For one, most teenagers change their minds often and so schools they think they like at the start are typically not schools they end up liking two years down  the road. Also, it's not uncommon for teenagers "preferences" to be inspired by what they hear from others, as opposed to what they actually experienced for themselves, and so their preferences are often based upon things that don't carry any real credibility towards their own personal decisions. It's been my overwhelming experience that many kids really have no clue what they want or what really offers them the best "fit" for the next 4-5 years in college, and indirectly, for the next 50-70 years of their life without having drawn from their own personal experiences.

The fact is, the more coaches kids can talk to, the more perspective they can personally gain towards making the right decision. They will learn not only about the process, but about themselves as well. Also, so much of recruiting is perception-based, and schools will often recruit kids they haven't even seen simply b/c other schools in their conference are showing strong interest in them. Therefore, the more interest kids can get from more schools in general, the more leverage they'll ultimately have.

So in our experience, getting interest from schools in different parts of the country is often the best way to gain interest from schools in your backyard. Interest breeds interest and the more you have, the more bonafide prospect you become and the more options you stand to gain. It's really the classic “blinders” approach that many parents/ athletes take into the recruiting process. It’s fine if an athlete wants to stay relatively close to home, but it's actually counterproductive to initiate communication with coaches in such a confined area. By expanding your options, you expand your ability to generate maximum recruiting interest and that can directly improve your total number of options.