NCAA rules / early signing?

I know there are always differences between D1 and D2, but Early Signing for D1 has come and gone.

Bottom line, the coach can make you an offer and your son can verbally accept. While "your word and your coaches word" is your bond, there is no legal contract yet.

So, are you telling us the coaches offer is somehow based on your son's ACT score and some $$$ being counted as academic vs. athletic $$ ???

If so, IMHO, he hasn't made your son a formal offer yet that he can accept or reject.

Does that help?

Yes, according to the ncaa rules for d2, all academic scholarship money will be counted as athletic unless you meet 1 of the following requirements. Combined ACT score of 100, top 20% of your class or a 3.5 cummulative gpa. My son falls just below on all 3: 98 combined ACT, top 25% and a 3.45 gpa. The amount of his academic scholarship is about 65% that is great but if it must be counted as athletic money that is all he will get. If he pulls out 2 more points, then the academic and athletic scholarships will stand apart and the total would be close to 90+%. I guess that all means we have to hope that the coach will stick with his word.

D2 and D1 early signing periods are the same.

jb is correct, you can verbal once an offer is made.

Son/you can announce his verbal commitment or keep it to yourselves. College coach cannot announce or comment on verbal until there is an NLI signed. A lot of people have the high school coach announce the verbal commitment to the newspaper. That is your decision.

But announcing it does not guarantee a deal with the coach as jb indicates, it is still your son's word and the coaches word.

Usually, when you announce your verbal, recruiting by other college coaches either slows or stops.

So, no NLI can be signed until next signing period?

That is correct.

All Other Sports (includes baseball)(Early Period) November 12, 2008 through November 19, 2008

All Other Sports (includes baseball) (Regular Period) April 8, 2009 through August 1, 2009

I wanted to add to my earlier post that from one catcher parent of a future D2 athlete to another potential D2 parent that I am excited for you and say that we are so happy with the decision our son made.

God bless.

Thank you for all the information. This is what I was afraid of. Hopefully, all parties invloved will be true to their words, no matter what that ends up being. We are excited by all this but a little worn out too.

Catcher25mom,
Don't be afraid. College coaches going back on a verbal committment are very, very rare.

Best of luck.

quote:

Originally posted by catcher25mom:
Yes, according to the ncaa rules for d2, all academic scholarship money will be counted as athletic unless you meet 1 of the following requirements. Combined ACT score of 100, top 20% of your class or a 3.5 cummulative gpa. My son falls just below on all 3: 98 combined ACT, top 25% and a 3.45 gpa. The amount of his academic scholarship is about 65% that is great but if it must be counted as athletic money that is all he will get. If he pulls out 2 more points, then the academic and athletic scholarships will stand apart and the total would be close to 90+%. I guess that all means we have to hope that the coach will stick with his word.

Ok, is the above true for D1 as well? Say you have a combined score of a 72 on your ACT, a GPA of 3.5 and your class rank is 17th. Does this person qualify for academic money because he meets two of the three requirements? 72 on ACT because he has never tested well. Taking all the right courses as well as AP classes and doing fine.

The rules for d1 are a little stricter, but my understanding is that they must meet 1 of these criteria

They are:

ranked in the upper 10 percent of the high school class

cumulative gpa of 3.5 out of 4.000)

a minimum ACT combined score of 105 or a minimum SAT score of 1200 (critical reading and math)

Just so you understand,

The cumulative GPA is for CORE COURSES only...i.e. Math, English, Science, etc, not including electives, PE, drivers ed, etc.

It also is unweighted, so there is no credit given for honors or AP courses.

Correct. So if he meets one of the three he can obtain an academic scholorship? Are the above mentioned for D1 correct? GPA=3.5% ACT=105 and class rank= top 10%.

quote:

Originally posted by BBfun:
Correct. So if he meets one of the three he can obtain an academic scholorship? Are the above mentioned for D1 correct? GPA=3.5% ACT=105 and class rank= top 10%.

Yes, they are correct and he only needs to meet one threshold of criteria to qualify for academic aid to not count against athletic budgeted aid.

While we are on the subject of the SAT and ACT, the last score colleges will accept is no later than December. A coach called my son, I took the call and mentioned son's SAT. He asked me if he was going to retake test and I said most likely not. That is when the coach informed me of this and recommended a retake. Son isn't interested in retaking test, would not prepare for it anyway. So if you have a low score, better hurray up and sign up now.

PUHD, even if your son doesn't prepare for the test, he might be able to raise his score 100 or more points merely by being more familiar with the format and timing. It might be worth a try!

I am having a difficult time with these requirements. My son has been waiting a month for this ACT score to post. Our understanding was this was all we were waiting for. Yesterday, he got a letter from a JUCO, that the coach from the school of choice had recommended him to. My son called because he thought this was odd. Coach told him, yes we still want you but we signed another catcher. I understand that the coach needs to fill his roster. I just wish we had known earlier. What I don't get for the life of me is why the NCAA takes a kid with a good ACT, a good GPA and says sorry not good enough. But he has been invited to compete for a full scholarship based on grades, but it is not good enought for the NCAA. Seems to me like they are holding kids back rather then helping them succeed. Who is winning here? The disappointment on his face was almost too much.

quote:

The disappointment on his face was almost too much.

I can certainly empathise with the hurt feelings.

I don't see the NCAA or their rules as being the issue here. It seems the coach has been hedging his bets - holding your son off while recruiting others. It seems he wants to get your son to go there but with as little of a financial committment on his part as possible. I can understand that view as well. He could have made a conditional offer to your son to make him feel wanted. For instance:

He could have said "We will offer you this much athletic money on condition he does not get the test score everyone is hoping for." If the test score comes back favorably, he could reduce the athletic amount in favor of the academic amount.

Whatever the case, there was nothing holding the coach back from making some type of offer (including walk-on) imho. Now, by passing his name off to the juco, that seems to me to be a polite way of saying they are no longer interested.

Don't get discouraged!!! Follow-up with this juco coach and all others you have interest in or heard from in the past. Work it until you get an offer that you are happy with. Have him use this experience to show that d2 coach he made a mistake. Setbacks happen in baseball (join the club) and can work out for the VERY best if properly used to one's advantage.