I was talking to a “college-age” athlete the other day at the gym who was doing some Box Drills.  He said he was working hard for a tryout with a semi-pro football team……hoping eventually to “go pro”, etc.  When I asked him where he played his college ball, he shrugged and said “he didn’t play college”.  After a little discussion, I found out that his grades were too poor to get into a 4 yr college program and he didn’t have the means to try and walk-on at any JUCO, so he is just taking a few community school courses and trying to skip the college phase……….

Gone are the days of the “dumb jock” getting into college just because they are great in their sport….Yeah, there are some documented cases of this still going on, but it is becoming less and less.  In the competitive world of high school recruiting for athletes, there is a huge pool of talent out there!  Now that there are so many really talented athletes and only so many slots for scholarships, where are recruiters going to draw the line?

So, you have 10 recruits, all with the same skill set.  Which one do you choose?  You look at the GPA and SAT / ACT scores, of course!  A coach is going to take the “skilled” athlete AND the better grades every time!  Not only can the better grades be a “tie breaker” for getting the scholarship, but it may also lend a hand in providing a “full-ride” scholarship for that individual athlete.

Today,  not every athlete that plays sports at the collegiate level can get 100% financial coverage on an athletics scholarship.  Depending on the program, the percentage of monies available could be as low as 10% and in some cases, there just isn’t “any” money from the athletic budget at all!  Of course, if the recruit happens to have a high GPA (3.0, although a 3.5 or better is ideal), now there are all kinds of possibilities!

Monies are allocated to a student for good academics and therefore, can be blended with limited monies from an athletic budget.  Bang, there’s your financial aid!  To a recruit (and their parents), they could care less “where” the money comes from within a collegiate program, as long as it is being provided.  So, where you had limited funds available or no funds for just your athletic skills, you now have full financial benefits!

By having a high level academic resume, you are much more attractive to more colleges across the United States.  Instead of targeting several schools that might have the financial means within their athletic department, you now can look at hundreds of schools and increase your opportunities for a scholarship!  The lesson here……work as hard, if not harder, in the classroom as you do in the gym and in athletic competition!  SAT / ACT testing is not just some stupid event that you have to “go through” when you’re in high school…..It means something! 

We had a couple of baseball players using ViewMySport.com to connect with college coaches last year.  One had a 3.7 GPA and the other a 2.9 GPA…….Although the one with the lower GPA was a bit better, statistically, the coach didn’t have the monies in the athletic budget to offer him an athletic scholarship.  Intead, he made the offer to the player with the 3.7 GPA and got his financial aid for academics.  It was that player’s dream to play baseball in college, but because his skill set was a bit low, he was not getting the attention from recruiters that he had hoped.  Thanks to his good grades, he gets to pursue his dream, work at getting better and who knows, maybe one day he’ll make it to the “Big Leagues”, instead of hanging out in a gym trying to hook up with a semi-pro team………..

– For more information on scholarships, financial aid and academic preparation, SAT / ACT practice tests, go to http://www.viewmysport.com/ and view the resources available on the lower portion of our home page –