Chances of an Athletic Scholarship?

Obviously work to become the best player you can be. Get as much exposure as your family can afford thru showcases/camps. Have a solid g.p.a. and ACT/SAT scores.
If you're on the fringe of being a scholarship athlete be very proactive with mail, emails, and calls to schools you realistically can play at.

woodly, That's interesting. Do you have a link to that information? I would have thought it was higher than 2% of all athletes nationwide.
Fungo

I posted in another thread about a story in Baseball America ...

Baseball might move to full scholarships (and more - enough for the whole team) in the future, so (assuming it passes all of the votes and Title IX stuff) I would expect similar changes for other sports.

It does shed some light on how misguided some parents/athletes are when they think investing thousands of dollars will pay off at scholarship time.

Best advice for a high school athlete?

STUDY

Too, you should take the ACT and new SAT, early and often. Start taking them both in your freshman year.

My freshman is taking his on the 3rd and 10th of June, 2006.

While having your student become familiar with the tests is good, be advised that college admissions offices get ALL scores from tests, even if the tests are not averaged, and you only report the best one.

Ratboy, Is there a timeline for the vote to give baseball full scholarships?

No matter how good you are at baseball or any other sport for that matter, YOU need to get an education to get anywhere in this world. If you think the #'s for athletic scholarships is low, you are correct. But, you know the number of kids that get some money who go pro in that sport????? about 1/100th of those 2%. So, keep your dreams alive but by all means be a good student and they will find you. And be a GOOD person in the community. It really does come into play. These coaches have a huge network of people they talk with. You will be surprised to hear some things they know about you. They might never give you a chance if someone says your not a good character kid. Good Luck and keep the DREAMS alive.

the most important things:
- Grades
- Work Ethic
- Attitude
- Staying out of Trouble
- It also does not hurt to be preemptive. Initiate contact with a college or coach through letters (handwritten) or e-mails.

Bottom line, if you are working as hard as you can, they should find you.

Sweaty,

I agree that the network is unbelievably big. Here's an example, my son went to a summer league team work out, had a few scouts there and the next week one of the DI schools sending him letters, writes a note that the scout sent to him from the summer league work out...amazingly within one week!

Don't hold your breath for baseball to go to full scholarships. Unless Title IX is repealed, I can't see that happening.

and of those 2% most of the money goes to pitchers and catchers and the occasional burner. More $ from grades and you can't beat that because that is why you go to school....right?

There wasn't a timeline and it seemed that the coaches weren't even in agreement on a "plan", but some of the issues raised were:

* some schools cost less, so a full-ride at Texas A&M is worth less than the same at Baylor (which shouldn't really matter, should it?). On the flip side, private schools have more money to use under the current system since their tuition is higher, while state schools don't have to offer as much to get the student a lower tuition.
* coaches were concerned about losing players to schools with "better offers", but were also concerned about losing guys to transfer or the draft and not being able to reallocate the funds.
* it eliminates the disparity amongst teammates, too - since they would all be getting similar packages.

I would suspect that it would probably (if it ever passed through everything, and Title IX would be a BIG hurdle) take effect with kids that are currently in middle school - considering the delay for the uniform start date to take effect as an aggressive example.

quote:

Originally posted by sweaty:
No matter how good you are at baseball or any other sport for that matter, YOU need to get an education to get anywhere in this world. If you think the #'s for athletic scholarships is low, you are correct. But, you know the number of kids that get some money who go pro in that sport????? about 1/100th of those 2%. So, keep your dreams alive but by all means be a good student and they will find you. And be a GOOD person in the community. It really does come into play. These coaches have a huge network of people they talk with. You will be surprised to hear some things they know about you. They might never give you a chance if someone says your not a good character kid. Good Luck and keep the DREAMS alive.

this quote is VERY TRUE...majority of the coaches take recommendations from scouts..the network is HUGE... but another thing that should be pointed out....a College recruiter and a PRO SCOUT also take into consideration the parents attitude........

quote:

Originally posted by BeenthereIL:
Best advice for a high school athlete?

STUDY

Too, you should take the ACT and new SAT, early and often. Start taking them both in your freshman year.

My freshman is taking his on the 3rd and 10th of June, 2006.

BEENTHEREIL = GREAT ADVICE!

We have been very fortunate and many if not most of our kids that graduate get to go on and play college baseball. Most of our Seniors last year did as well as the year before. What was the one criteria that made this possible? GRADES.

FYI, I am working this week, on a packet for my kids and preparing for the ACT. Our school district just brought in one of the top advisors in the United States on preparing for standardized tests. He gave his presentation on Friday. He has a website and I'll get the url for that and post it sometime this week. Some things to consider, your counselor's office should have computer disks that either students or parents can check out for taking the ACT. My baseball players, as soon as we pick the team, will come in before school and during their homerooms to begin studying. They will have to do that in groups since I only have 2 student computers in my classroom. We/baseball own a couple of disk. See if your head coach is willing to purchase a couple for his players to use. Those ACT books are fine but complicated. Tutorials are of great benefit on computers since they enable the student to get an idea of the use of graphs etc. on the exam.

No question grades are important but marketing your son is critical. I found out way to late as my son led the state last year with 21 home runs and 72 RBI's whil batting 475 and only striking out 3 times all year. He was a scholar also with a 31 ACT and was a honarable mention all state catcher, first team all conference, area athlete of the year, etc. but he was convinced he would only go to a school that offered Chemical Engineering. There are 3 in the state and U of I wanted him as a recruited walk on so he is at a junior college playing his freshman year instead of being redshirted. He did not get much attention from any school until he was close to breaking both state records later in the season and when coaches started recruiting him in earnest, the other teams were not pitching to him at all.

Did not not take him to exposure camps and thought his junior year, batted 420 with 38 RBI's and 10 home runs would get some attention but in hindsight we should of taken him to more exposure camps but it's tough for a 3 sport high school student, live and learn....

The best part now is he is not sure Chem Engineering is what he wants to do??????

Grades are critical. Marketing your son is important. How many ML Players are there? How many are from outside the US? How many new players are there in the ML each year? How many players actually make it a career?

From the movie Field of Dreams there was an exchange between Kevin Costner's character and Moonlight Graham. Costner said it was something like tragic that Graham was only able to taste his dream and then have it slip away. Graham then said something like
"No it would have been tragic if I had never become a Doctor for all these years."

Let your son chase the dream of playing ball on higher levels...let him continue to open doors until they no longer will. But our jobs...as parents....as coaches.... is to make sure that these kids have options beyond baseball, and the work ethic they need to achieve at school and the opportunities made available to them because of it, and that baseball will end some day....most likely sooner than later, and that make academics critical.

quote:

Originally posted by FastballDad:
Grades are critical. Marketing your son is important. How many ML Players are there? How many are from outside the US? How many new players are there in the ML each year? How many players actually make it a career?

From the movie Field of Dreams there was an exchange between Kevin Costner's character and Moonlight Graham. Costner said it was something like tragic that Graham was only able to taste his dream and then have it slip away. Graham then said something like
"No it would have been tragic if I had never become a Doctor for all these years."

Let your son chase the dream of playing ball on higher levels...let him continue to open doors until they no longer will. But our jobs...as parents....as coaches.... is to make sure that these kids have options beyond baseball, and the work ethic they need to achieve at school and the opportunities made available to them because of it, and that baseball will end some day....most likely sooner than later, and that make academics critical.

FastballDad,



Mike F

Agreed 100%. I guess my son is a little more mature than I was at that age. One of his uncles alma maters was showing strong interest in him. His uncle asked why he would not consider that school. My son told his uncle he did not want to go to a school that you could get into with a 16 ACT.

Love to play ball but would not go to a school JUST to play ball. My wife and I must have done something right?

He is at Kishwaukke Junior College. He played at Streator Township which plays in the NCIC coference. Played some smaller schools but NCIC has mostly AA schools. Streator actually is a very tough conference and Streator won it for the first ever last year.

They start their season in Mississippi in March. Had some cartlidge taken out of his shoulder over Christmas so he will just be DH when the season starts and the coach said he may move him to first and is unsure if he will let him catch this year? I guess everything happens for a reason but some other kids from Streator went the JC route in the past and one ended up playing at Nebraska, and is AAA now with the Giants, and the kids who's records he broke just graduated from Texas A+M. He believed he would get better if he played so he elected to go the JC route. From a cost standpoint I sure did not argue.