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After helping his oldest son land at an NCAA Division-III college football program, today’s guest Jeff Howell uses his knowledge of the college sports recruitment process to help other student-athletes and their families navigate the process.
The landscape can be complex and hard-to-understand, so it’s quite valuable to hear from Jeff. Our conversation covers:
- How Jeff developed his knowledge of the recruitment process and what he learned
- Differences across different sports
- When to begin researching types of programs (NCAA, NAIA, Juco, etc.), specific schools, and scholarships
- Using social media and other online tools to get coaches’ attention
- The responsibilities of the student-athlete, parents, and high school coaches
- What are college programs looking for?
- Red flags to look out for during recruitment
- Making up for lost time
- Additional resources: http://jeffhowell.me
Subscribe to Sideline Sessions to hear the rest of our fall-winter season. We’ll continue to bring you insights from diverse coaches across the sporting landscape. Subscribe here: https://sidelinesessions.transistor.fm/subscribe
Learn more from Jeff Howell:
- http://jeffhowell.me
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffhowell76
- https://www.facebook.com/jeffhowell76
- https://twitter.com/jeffhowell76
About the host:
Ross Romano is co-founder of the Be Podcast Network and also hosts The Authority Podcast. He began his career in the pro sports industry before becoming a leading communications, marketing, and management expert working with education companies. He is founder and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success. He also works directly with professionals at all levels, in all industries, coaching them in their pursuit of success.
Are you a professional looking for insights to reach the next level, find a fulfilling new career, or achieve peak performance? You may be a candidate for performance coaching. Schedule an introductory chat here.
Creators & Guests
What is Sideline Sessions?
Designed for coaches, parents and other stakeholders in the world of youth, scholastic, and amateur sports, this show brings you interviews with leaders at the highest levels of their respective sports.
Hear from coaches and performance experts with experience in the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Olympics, and NCAA Division-I, plus those who run elite youth programs, successful high school teams, and more. Hear about their motivations, philosophies, and strategies for success, and take away actionable insights to support the athletes in your life.
Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome in everybody to another episode of Sideline Sessions here on the Bee Podcast Network. Really pleased to have you here to discuss a new and important topic today, something that [00:01:00] is unique in this season of the show, but something that I think we'll be talking a lot about in the future. It's so valuable to student athletes in particular, and to parents and coaches.
Our topic today is about college recruiting. And my guest Jeff Howell has spent a lot of time working on this often complex and hard to access process. It's evolving a lot in the past decade or so. So there's really a lot to get to know. And after helping his oldest son land a Division III college football out of the Division III college football program, Jeff uses his knowledge of the college sports recruitment process to help other student athletes and their families navigate the process.
So Jeff, really great to have you here on Sideline Sessions.
Jeff Howell: Hey, thank you Ross. I'm glad to be here.
Ross Romano: I gave a little bit of that intro there about how kind of got involved with it through your son, but we'd love to give you have you give a little more of an overview of what kind of got you into the process that you're in now, where you've done a ton of research, put together a lot of resources and really dug into [00:02:00] this process,
Jeff Howell: We kind of jumped into the process somewhat late in the game only because We had transferred schools from one program to another here in mid, Michigan And at the previous program there just wasn't a lot of opportunity, I guess is the way to say it for Joe to really show, showcase his skill set.
So we went to a a competing school, kind of still within the conference it's a private Catholic school, and they just, it was immediate, the change in Joe and his willingness to kind of put in the work. So, it wasn't until his junior year, about halfway through his junior year, we started to, like, really consider hey maybe let's see if we can get college paid for through some athletics, and he already, well, Already was a super smart kid, already had a great GPA, so that wasn't gonna be an issue, but he wanted to be able to play post high school sports.
And he legitimately could have also played basketball too, but it was football was the sport that he chose. the genesis of this whole [00:03:00] consulting that I do really came down to I was doing a lot of research and I was, finding that there wasn't one place where all this information was held.
You can genuinely go to like NCSA or some other program like that where you can pay and have somebody help you with the process and that's all well and good and there's nothing wrong with that process if you're a parent and you just don't have the time and you have the means to be able to afford it.
but I felt. That it was important for us, for Joe and I, to go through this process together because we're big on relationships, and I really feel as though that if you start the process and you start building chips and a relationship with the coaches and the recruiters of those programs, then the relationship becomes that much more valuable.
And so it necessarily isn't just about the program that you're a part of, but it's the relationship with the coaches that you have that also can be part of the catalyst for making your [00:04:00] decision of what program to, to go to. I do, I did a ton of research finding out what to do, started following, some other people that were in the similar space that I'm in with trying to help parents navigate this process.
And there were three things that I found that needed to happen immediately. the first thing was identifying what level Joe wanted to be able to play at, or what level Joe could play at. he certainly was getting a little bit of attention from some D1 programs, but not very many, a couple of D2 and a lot of D3.
and so we had to be kind of honest with ourself about look, every parent wants their kid to go play for Alabama or Georgia or someplace in the SEC or Big Ten or one of the the Power Five Conference is great. Yeah, it's good to have those goals, but. The the truth is that isn't realistic for everybody, and so we kind of just had to be honest about what kind of level do you think Joe could play at.
so we said that, [00:05:00] okay, probably some D2 schools and definitely D3. And NAIA, don't sleep on them, they're a good program too. Good good college athletic program, really good competition in some conferences. So what I found was the first thing to do was to identify the program, and Get those recruiting questionnaires done.
It's the first thing to do. Get your name out there, get your huddle reel out there, get your stats out there, just get your name on these lists of these coaches so they can go out and do some of their own due diligence and kind of do some research about you. The second thing almost concurrently, so like 1A is recruiting questionnaires.
1B is getting a solid X profile. And. Concurrently with that would be also getting a profile on NCSA. Now you don't have to pay for it and you are going to get a lot of phone calls from agents trying to sell you on their service, which is fine. I mean, they just can either [00:06:00] not answer or just sort of ignore them.
But the cool thing about NCSA, at least their online profile is that it, it's another avenue that coaches can identify you as a potential athlete. So you need to have that fully completed, all your stats. What you're looking for, a personal statement With a photograph, and your huddle reel links, and all that kind of stuff.
So you want to have that profile completed, as well as an ex profile, Which will have your stats on there, in your Twitter bio, your ex bio, a link to your huddle highlight reel, And then in a pin post make sure you put your most recent That doesn't have to be game film, but put your most recent set of highlights together, and that's also super important because there are some parents who think that you gotta have something super polished, high production value with a lot of graphics and embellishments, but that is not true.
Most coaches don't care about that. All they want is, they want your player highlighted at the start of the play, let the play run, and then [00:07:00] stop, go to the next play. That works for basketball, baseball, volleyball, Any sport where you've got a specific play that they can follow the player around, you don't need to have music, you don't need to have graphics, just let the play run so they can follow you.
And so you can showcase your skills. So all of that has to be within your online profile. And then then once you get your recruitment questionnaires going and you have a bunch, you've got solid social profiles on NCSA and X then you just start following the heck out of coaches. It doesn't matter if you think that you're going to be a part of their program.
It doesn't matter if you want to move to California. And you start following California coaches, it doesn't matter. The reason why you wanna follow as many as possible is because the more activity that X sees that you're doing, the more likely it is that they might put your profile in a recommended to follow section.
And recruiters look for that. They'll start following people, then they go to that recommended section, and then [00:08:00] they start seeing. Hey, I need an offensive lineman that's six foot five and in this weight. So here's one here. Let me click on his profile, take a look at his highlight reel, and if it's somebody that I'm interested in, I'm going to follow them, right?
And then also make sure your DMs are open too. So you may you can have security settings on your profile. That's great, but make sure your DMs are open so coaches can easily send you a message if they want to. So those are the things that we did. Immediately were those three things and in the middle of all that trying to keep up with our highlight reels and trying to keep up with his good grades you know, we mentioned we were talking about this a little bit offline about sort of, the grades that students sometimes have, and sometimes they're not the greatest.
But what we found is that because the process has made it easy for athletes and parents to navigate, not easy put the responsibility of the process back onto the parents and the [00:09:00] students mostly, coaches can be a little bit more particular especially with D3 programs since they don't have athletic money that they can provide.
If they are going to do any scholarship money, they have to be academic. So, specifically within the D3 ranks, they're looking for high GPA, high quality athletes that may not have the dreams of playing professionally, but they still want to play post high school. Those are great programs to go after.
So, in my son's instance, he had a 3. 89 GPA. A lot of schools were going after him because they liked his athletic ability plus his academics. And the program that we ended up settling on wasn't quite a full ride, but it was a lot. And it was great because not only is it a great program and very competitive program and it's in a large city, which is what he wanted it's also he's getting a great education because of the work that he put in.
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Jeff Howell: I always encourage [00:10:00] parents and student athletes, like, look, if you're not the greatest student, find a way to get tutored. Find a way to increase your GPA, because that's gonna make the net wider for you. There are a lot of D1 programs that don't necessarily care as much about the GPA as they do about the the athletic prowess.
But even then, the point I was going to get to before is that at all levels of college athletics. Coaches are being a lot more picky on the GPA than they used to be. Because it, one, it isn't quite as easy to hide the GPA anymore like it used to be. But there are a lot of metrics that, that institutions are gauged on based on their student body cumulative GPA.
And they don't want to risk the potential of maybe losing out on funding or losing out on booster money. because the cumulative GPA has been dragged down because of a couple athletes that couldn't hack it. So they're, so having your [00:11:00] grades at a high level is really important as well.
Ross Romano: Yeah how different is the process? in different sports, I mean, for example, in division one, you have your quote unquote, right. Revenue generating versus non revenue generating sports. You have individual versus team sports some of which even I might imagine, particularly in that process of ascertaining what level could you realistically compete at and what's the best fit and all that.
And a sport like say swimming it may be a little more straightforward because if you have the times that match up and you versus a sport like football that's so team dependent it might be harder to get a read on. Okay. Well, where am I going to best fit in? But how does that process really differ?
And particularly part of it, of course, being Sports that have more scholarship money available than others, but there's also a variety [00:12:00] of other factors.
Jeff Howell: Sure. Sure. That's a great question. And has been asked of me a few times. And so my experience primarily is in football and basketball. Okay. But what I have found just sort of digging into this with other coaches and talking to other coaches the process of finding coaches and sharing information hasn't changed.
Like swimming as an example. Yeah. You may or may not find a bunch of rec swimming coaches on X, okay? But you're gonna find their email on the athletic website, okay? And to your point about individual statistics, you're gonna catalog those no matter what, right? Those statistics are going to be available to share at every meet.
Okay, and the same with these high school coaches, they're going to record film, right? If they're not, then they have a problem in their program that they need to fix, but if for some reason a coach is not[00:13:00] capturing film of your athlete, then use your phone. You know, there, there are so many the cameras on phones nowadays are so good.
And also, you just get a simple, like a simple gyroscope handle to kind of keep it steady. And use something like iMovie, that's a native app on your iPhone, and just smash some clips together, okay? It isn't that difficult to do. Or or find somebody who can help you with that. Either way, if your coach isn't capturing film, you can do it yourself pretty easily.
But the film plus statistics an email that you can get from the College Athletic website of whatever program you're interested in. Again, low barrier to entry, okay? Now, I don't necessarily know how many you know, tennis or swimming coaches are out there on Twitter, or X looking for athletes, but again, they're going to find them anyway, somehow, whether it be going [00:14:00] to different tournaments, camps but also, if you can't find that coach that you want to go after on, on social media, you're going to find their email pretty quickly, and then you just Connect with them that way, okay?
There's always a way to connect with a coach. And, again, if you're in a sport that is more individually based, tennis, swimming track and field, your video and your stats are still valuable. And they can still be shared. You just gotta find the right avenue.
Ross Romano: Is there general kind of rule of thumb for how early student athletes and parents should start this process depending of course. I think we find that in certain high profile cases the recruiting is beginning earlier and earlier kids, but you know, for most it's not necessarily that early, but are we talking kind of freshman year, sophomore, junior?
What [00:15:00] do you think?
Jeff Howell: I guess it depends on skill set and ability, right? So there, there's a, well last year he was a freshman on my son's varsity basketball team really good and he was going to, to camps as early as he could, so, the summer between his 8th and 9th grade year, he was going to some basketball camps to get some exposure, and just to get some ideas of what coaches are looking for so he can work on his game.
This past summer, Is kind of when he started to you know, start sending out some information to coaches. I think that's a good time to start. So, what I tell parents who ask this question no matter what sport it is Between your freshman year and your sophomore year find some camps.
There's tennis camps, basketball camps, football camps. bowling camps, those are out there. They may be few and far between, but they're out there. I've seen them. Just go to some of [00:16:00] those camps and as, and then really as many as you can either comfortably afford financially or afford time time wise and try and find some camps that have the maximum amount of colleges there.
Specifically for basketball and football, you'll have maybe one school or even a high school in some cases that will host You know, half a dozen to a dozen college football, basketball programs. And those programs will kind of help facilitate. You know, they'll do they'll do some drills, like a combine kind of thing.
They might do some individual you know, indie drills, depending on position. And then they'll just kind of do some 1v1s kind of thing. And just get some experience for your first set of camps between your freshman and sophomore year. Plus you'll also get coaches information. You'll get some coaches you can follow on X or social media.
And the parents can get on the field, too, after all of the camp is done, and just ask questions. Ask coaches what you're looking for. You know, how many times can I contact [00:17:00] you? If I have any questions, who can I go to? You know, you have, those camps are really good for parents too, because they, then parents have the chance to go out and ask some questions of coaches who are really doing this process.
But the more, the higher up in level you get so between sophomore and junior year, junior and senior year. You don't want to go to more camps, and you want to go to bigger camps with bigger schools, right? No matter which program that you're sort of thinking about, because you never know, you might get in front of a D1 coach and they're like, Oh dude, I wouldn't have found you if you hadn't come to this camp, right?
So, even though, and I said earlier about, it doesn't necessarily matter you know, what level, because all levels 1, 2, 3 at NAIA, a pretty good competition there's always that op, there's always that chance and you might want to, you want to give yourself that opportunity to get in front of a higher level coach, right?
There was a D1 program in Minnesota that we went to a camp to, [00:18:00] and I happen to have a connection with somebody who was friends with the head coach, but you know, we wouldn't have, had the opportunity to go to this camp and he wouldn't have got any D1 exposure from another school if he hadn't gone to this camp, right?
So you just never know. You want, and you want to try to give yourself as much opportunity to get in front of as many coaches as possible, but camps are the way you do that.
Ross Romano: Yeah, as far as the, right, the positioning of putting yourself in the right place to be not only seen and noticed, but appropriately evaluated, right? I mean, these camps are a big part of it and particularly because of the concentration of coaches that are there and who can see you at once, but also because of potentially the level of competition, right, and the talent that you're competing against.
Then if they. You know, again, going back to the difference between different sports, right?[00:19:00]
If it's track and field or swimming or there's, it doesn't. You could be the only one in the pool or on the track and your time is your time. Even other individual sports like tennis, you remember, don't you?
Like, well, who am I competing against? Right. Are they any good? We don't know this basketball, football baseball and so on. Right. A lot of times You may have this really elite talent athlete, but they're playing in a league or a program that's not known for having the highest level competition.
It's hard to evaluate. Part of it is one how essential are Those camp type opportunities to you also mentioned earlier about your son transferring high schools, right. And going into a better position for him, what kind of things opportunities like that are available for parents maybe to be evaluating and looking at okay.
If I have a couple of. school options available to me, whether it's a couple of different public or private charter, whatever. But looking at, okay, what's [00:20:00] their, what are their programs like, what's their track record with, student athletes matriculating to the next level or those kind of things where there may be some opportunity either entering high school or inside high school to say, look, we've determined that we, our goal is to play X4 at the college level and There's a better place to be better positioned to make that happen than where we are right now,
Jeff Howell: That, that's a great question. And our experience was Joe happened to take his sophomore year off of football, and that was also during COVID. And it turned out that if he had played, he would have had to sit out his junior year because of of Michigan athletic rules. So, so the first answer to your question is contact your state athletic association and find out what rules they have.
Different states will have different rules on how [00:21:00] you can handle transferring. For instance, We transferred from one school to the other within the same athletic conference during basketball season. And the rule was that because we were transferring a school outside of the district, but within the same conference, he could play immediately. weird, but that's, that was the rule. But it didn't translate to football. Because he would have, because if he had played sophomore year and transferred same school or same conference to a different school, he would have had to sit out. So, like I said, the first place to go is to your state school athletic association, ask those questions and find out what is, what's, what the possibilities are.
Sometimes they'll be more lenient and sometimes they'll be more strict,
Ross Romano: and they can be you know, and they can be strange, right? If I recall correctly, and don't quote me on this list, but [00:22:00] I, if I remember, like, when I was in high school in New Jersey. The rule was that, and this was transferring between, at least between public schools, maybe between schools, that the student athlete had to sit out the first 30 days of the season of their first sport.
So if you played football in the fall and sat out 30 days and then played basketball, you didn't have to sit out the basketball season. And you know, there was stuff like that. That seems kind of arbitrary. Right.
Jeff Howell: right and also, but also depends on, especially with larger cities New York, New Jersey, for instance you have so many high schools that are put together, but there are different classes, right, so if you, or classes or divisions, so, so in Michigan, for instance, I know that this happened once where a kid that was in Grand Rapids, so he started out at a I think it was a Division 1 or Division 2, a big school, because he was going to a D4 outside of a [00:23:00] completely different conference, completely different division but still within the city limits, he could play. But if he went to a competing school within the same division, then he would have had to sit out a year. Like, it, just, those rules are, they seem arbitrary. And I don't know but anyway, the important thing is just check, check with your state athletic association.
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Ross Romano: Do you have a feeling about. You know, part of that process, of course, about where what programs are succeeding in this regard and not has to do with coaching staff and the administration and it could be the athletic department as a whole, the staffs of particular teams and the things that they're doing to inform and equip athletes and their families you know, help them with the process and relatedly, and this is something that I've noticed the variance in it, right?
How different it can be from program to program or even within a program between multiple coaching staffs, how successful they are at you know, [00:24:00] helping their student athletes. fine college placements, but cause it relates to me. I hadn't necessarily thought of it as much in this regard. And I don't know how often coaches talk about it in this way.
Although I'm sure some do the ones who are doing you know, when we talk about schools, right, what is the purpose of school? And the purpose of our schooling system is to prepare students to be successful. in the next phase of their life, whether that's college, career or other aspects of life, right?
It's not, the purpose is not. you know, just so they're successful in my class right now. It's so that they learn what they need to learn in my class so that in the future they can apply those skills to what they want to do. Now, in sports, of course, we often have a you know, a little more of a myopic view on that, and the coaches are meant to Sure teach fitness and sportsmanship and these kind of things, but they're trying to win, right?
And look at what do I need to do to [00:25:00] have my team succeed? And what are the academic requirements for my student athletes to be eligible to play on my team? Even if those requirements are a lower threshold than what would prepare them to go to the college and things like that. But do you have a, an opinion really?
I mean on the responsibility, but also the opportunity that high school coaches have to become better at this, right, to become more informed, involved and to be able to help their student athletes more directly, even though student athletes and their parents don't necessarily need the coach, right?
But some of them will, because they're not everybody's able to do it on their own.
Jeff Howell: I have kind of a mixed opinion on that because coaches are all going to have their biases no matter what level and what sport. So, I would almost prefer that the coaches sort of have a general idea of how the process works versus[00:26:00] really hand holding the athlete through the process. Because, you want to have the athlete pick their program that is right for them, not, because the coach, the high school coach of whatever sport it is, the varsity coach, is a trusted ally. You know, you, at least you'd hope so. And so when you have a coach saying hey, I've got a connection with XYZ University you could play there, right?
The student is going to inherently going to limit their opportunities because they're going to say, well, the coach can get me into XYZ University so I can play. Well, yeah, that could happen and you could play there and you could have a good time and it may be the right fit. But, conversely, if you're limiting your opportunity or your availability because you want to listen to your coach. [00:27:00] You may miss out on a program that could definitely use your skill set or miss out on a program that, that academically is a better fit or puts you in an environment where you can thrive more and another thing. So I almost don't want the varsity coach to be responsible for that responsibility.
It really still comes down to the parent and the athlete. Navigating this on their own or with some help like through a consultant like myself or through a service like NCSA Then it kind of takes some of the biases out of the process. That's just kind of my thought on it.
Ross Romano: yeah. Relatedly, and maybe this is an area that could fit into that purview, is there kind of a short like a basic checklist of things that the college programs are looking for? The obvious ones, of course, being size and stature and what they perceive your talent to be, but also there's a variety of other factors [00:28:00] that that student athletes need to be able to convey.
Jeff Howell: Yeah for sure So we were told from the then head football coach at Grand Valley State at a camp that we went to that They look for character. So, this kind of ties into things that you post. You know, you don't want to post stupid stuff on your ex profile. Or your Instagram, if they have any interest in you as an athlete, the next thing that they do is they contact the school, they talk to your coach, they talk to teachers, they might talk to the principal or the headmaster or whatever, right?
Just to find out a little bit of information about, is this individual a good character individual? And how would they fit in our culture? That kind of thing. And so, so the intangibles are just as important as the the items [00:29:00] that have metrics, you know? So I guess that, I mean, there isn't necessarily a checklist.
There's your athletic prowess, which is easy to quantify, right? You know, any kinds of stats, numbers, metrics, those are easy to acquire and to produce. But it's those more intangible things that a lot of coaches really look for. And, like, when you go on to, like, an official visit, and you have a conversation with them.
They don't care. They don't necessarily, they're not sizing you up. They're not looking to see, well, how's he going to fit on our offensive line? Or how's he going to look in the low post? Or what's he going to be as a two guard, right? They're not looking at that.
They are looking at how you interact with your parents, how you interact with everybody else, eye contact, how you answer questions, how well spoken you are. You know, those types of things. Are just as important and to, to a coach and I know that they look for that. Whether or not they say it, [00:30:00] you know that they do.
Ross Romano: Yeah. And they and particularly as you move up the levels, right, you're getting into coaches whose focus and the metrics for their success and whether they get to continue to have their jobs are narrowed. It's around wins and losses. And no matter how talented you aren't much help to them if you're ineligible or suspended.
And also depending on the level, but certainly at these big programs these coaches, you know. They have an ego, right? And they believe that they you know, they can win with maybe an athlete that's slightly less talented, but that buys into their program. Things like that. They're always going to respect talent, but between somebody who I think is a little bit more personally talented, but who doesn't seem like they're going to really buy into what we're doing here.
I have character concerns about them and somebody else who I really think is going to be good in my locker room. They're looking at all that kind of stuff because they have their pick. [00:31:00] I only have so many spots, so many scholarships you know, so many jerseys, and you know, I can choose who I want.
Jeff Howell: we'll look at it this way. That is just, that's much more important now, in the more recent college athletics culture as it is. as it may have been in the past. I mean, look at Northwestern look at Texas A& M, look at some of these other high profile programs that have had issues with hazing.
And the coaches and the coaching staff have paid the price for it. I mean, figuratively with their job, I mean, they're getting paid, so they don't care, but they don't have a job anymore. And so you're right that there are some coaches who may have to be, may be at a high level that are Maybe taking a harder look at the integrity of their players maybe they're more willing to bring in somebody, to your point, as you said, who may not be quite You know, maybe their 40 time isn't quite as high, or maybe [00:32:00] they can't squat quite as much, but they're a high integrity guy, and they can play.
So I'd rather have them on my roster than the kid who might cause me a problem in the locker room, right? But he's a five star athlete, maybe I'll pass on that because I can't afford to have that that controversy on my hands. Um and I think that's something that isn't, well, one, isn't talked about a whole lot in college, in the college sports programs these days.
If they are, it's just about how awful it was at the coaches that it happened. But it isn't talked about as much that you've gotta be, have higher integrity if you're gonna play. And if you're gonna be a part of these programs, no matter what level. You've gotta, you've gotta be somebody who's gonna represent the team, the school and the institution well.
Ross Romano: And it's a great, it's a great lesson for young people to learn early on. Anyway, because I work with a lot of job seekers and through coaching and they're what they're looking to do and then how they're looking to [00:33:00] get hired. And this is a big thing that it's like, there's no company that's going to put this in writing but every single hiring manager.
If you're going to be part of their team, one of their determining factors is do I want to be around this person every day? Do I want this person to, do I want to spend eight plus hours a day around this person or do I not really like them? Right? And yeah, and when it comes down to especially those tiebreakers, there's a lot of talented people, a lot of people with ability.
I'm going to go for the one that's a better culture fit, that is going to make my life easier that I just makes my days better. These people, you're spending a lot of time together and it's all, it's a in a locker room, there's a lot of dynamics. So I do, I want to introduce some elements in that are going to bring everybody else up.
or bring them down. And it's just a good thing to get used to that the you're being looked at for this. And [00:34:00] ultimately, and truthfully, and I've seen this with direct experience, even at the professional level, there are ways to predict quite accurately. I'll give you for example, in, in baseball, right, with.
Players at the minor league level controlling for their talent and ability. But let's say you have a handful of players and they all have enough talent to make it to the major league level. You can predict with pretty good accuracy, who's going to have the longer careers.
Jeff Howell: Yeah.
Ross Romano: it has nothing to do with durability or anything like that.
It is, if there's a guy. that coaches want to have on their team and in their clubhouse, they're always going to get another chance, right? They'll get traded to the next team because they'll say, Oh, we want that guy over here. And you know, they're, and it [00:35:00] doesn't mean that they're the best player, but they're good enough to make positive contributions and.
Somebody always wants them around versus others who they just run out of chances, right? And it's just, okay, well, we when you're here and you're involved and you're performing great, but when you're in a slump, you're totally negative to the whole operation. You know, one other important question I wanted to ask is about red flags.
You know, parents, student athletes who are navigating this process, are there red flags? Look out for one maybe it's from some of these third party services that are going to say, oh, you need us and da, and maybe you don't, or things to look out for, be cautious of from the universities or things where for example, we've probably all heard horror stories of you know, a kid who thought that their scholarship was locked up with a certain school and it wasn't, if it got dropped, things like [00:36:00] that, that are really important to pay attention to and look out for,
Jeff Howell: Yeah, there's quite a few I'll just bring up money because that was the last point you brought up with scholarship money So when it comes to scholarship money And unless you have it on an official Piece of paper from the institution. It doesn't mean a damn thing Right? Coaches can say, Hey, you're going to get a full ride and it could even be in a letter or an email, Hey, you're going to get a full ride, but until you've got you've got a a piece of letterhead that's stamped from the financial office of financial aid from the institution, don't believe it.
The other thing, a red flag beat would look at the longevity of the staff at that institution whatever program it is. If you've got somebody that, that is, that's really recruiting you hard and seems like a great guy, great individual we'll just say you know, women's basketball, for instance, right?
Take a look at the coach's history. You know, if she's only been there maybe two or three years, nothing wrong with [00:37:00] that. But search for her and see how long she's been in other schools, right? If the school that she was at before there, before this one was one to two years, dig a little deeper. You know, maybe the school before that, she was there for 15.
Okay but if you've got a coach that's been, that's jumping around. That's a serious red flag because they're not necessarily in it to help the program or the students. They're just either looking for the paycheck or they're looking for that clout of the institution that they're trying to go up to.
So yeah longevity, big red flag look at how long, many winning seasons they've had no matter the coaching staff, but just kind of look at their record over time 10, you take a block of five or 10 years and kind of just look at their win loss record.
If you're looking at individuals sport with individual contributions swimming, track and field, whatever kind of just look at the stats and kind of see where individuals have ranked in certain certain events. You know, and see if any of them, and then maybe the top 10, top 20, are [00:38:00] individual contributors from that institution.
If they're not, then maybe it's not the greatest program. Look at, kind of, go to go to things like U. S. News, or what's the other one? Another one that ranks institutions every year but go to those they usually have them ranked by the top 200 or whatever, in, in a variety of different categories, and just kind of see where that school ranks, that that may not matter to you, it mattered to us, so like Lake Forest is ranked in the top 25 in a variety of metrics, and so that was important to Joe so that, that's another, that could potentially be another red flag And then another red flag would be how many majors and minors they might have, right?
So they could have if it's, especially if it's a smaller D3 program then it looks good, right? But if they don't have the, they don't have the major you want, then don't bother. And some other schools kind of switch [00:39:00] athletic, I mean, no, that's not a good example. There were a few like newer NAIA schools that were kind of coming into NAIA that we're looking at and we're just like, hasn't been, they haven't been around long enough.
And so that's something else to consider. But I guess another red flag would be if you're getting a lot of communication and they're kind of asking you to either provide a bunch of extra information, like when they ask for your transcript, that's okay, you gotta send that to them, because then they're going, they're taking that to their admissions group, doing a pre read on you, and to kind of gauge whether or not you'd be accepted if you applied.
And then also if they ask for financial information or your your EF, EFC number, which is your expected family contribution after you do the FAFSA you want to, you let them get, have them, give them that information so they can help you with the admissions process.
But if they ask for all that and then you don't hear from them. [00:40:00] Or if they ask you for all that, and then you don't get an offer to visit, or you don't get, like, the communication seems to drop off one of two things is going on, either there's lack of interest at that point, because maybe that's, maybe they don't think that you'd be able to be admitted, or two, maybe there's some upheaval in the coaching staff that you might want to try and follow up with that.
Communication dropping off isn't a bad thing sometimes because it'll happen, right, because sometimes coaches will get busy, they'll be in the middle of the football season, or whatever sports season it is, and then they're busy with whatever. But if it goes a little bit too long, and it's like, you're not hearing anything, then something's up.
Ross Romano: Yeah. And it's at the very least something to be aware of particularly in the middle of not only a. You know, a process that can be a little confusing and not always totally clear, but also a [00:41:00] time that's exciting, right? So you're excited, you're interested, you have your hopes up you're hoping for great outcomes and there might be a program you really like, but they decide at whatever point that they're not as interested in you you want to kind of pay attention to be aware of that so that you're not limiting your options or leaving yourself without an option you know, just due to excitement, right? Or due to yeah, I kind of had a couple of great initial interactions with them and then they didn't really get back to us.
And you know, we know how communications can be. Unfortunately, the reality is that a lot of times News isn't delivered in a timely fashion when it's we'll call it negative news, right? Whether it's you applied for a job that you didn't get or a coach decides they're no longer recruiting you or whatever and You know, just kind of staying on top of those things and continuing to follow up and stay engaged and evaluate your options and I'm sure particularly if there's for variants in the [00:42:00] different types of schools that you're Talking to you, maybe you're looking at schools at different levels, right, and you're still in the middle of trying to ascertain, okay, which level am I really a fit at, or where do I want to be, and those kind of things where it's a shifting landscape, right?
Jeff Howell: Well, that's one of the reasons why I say to keep up with it and to follow and interact with as many coaches as you possibly can because invariably when you have those down times, when you're not communicating with coaches that you really want to, and you're still getting attraction and interaction with other coaches that you may not even have any intention of going to their program, but yeah, it still feels good and can keep you motivated by at least still having those conversations.
You know, when a coach comes out, comes to you after maybe a few days of not having much Twitter DM activity and a coach will come up and say, Hey your highlights fire. Great. Interact with that. You know, just talk to them for a little bit to keep that, that, [00:43:00] those juices flowing and that, that motivation and that.
And that desire to, to go play alive because there's always a reason why a coach doesn't communicate. And if it's a couple of weeks, it's probably because they're busy with other things, and there's nothing wrong with that. But, again, that's why I say keep communicating with coaches regardless, because you want to keep that fire going.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Totally. So Jeff, it's been great to have you here on the show and we're going to put the links below to your website and your social media information. I know you have a variety of resources there. Are there a couple of things in mind that listeners can find if they go to your website and what can they check out there?
Jeff Howell: Sure. Yeah, on the I have a page under you know, Questions that parents ask. I have got an email template there that you can go grab that you can use and edit for your own when you go to use that connection email for like emails [00:44:00] or Twitter DMs, you can use the content from there.
There's a ton of information on my blog about a variety of things, not just the college athletic process, but just kind of even what it's like just being a college athlete in college. Got a lot of content there, and you know, I've got different ways you can get a hold of me, and a couple different ways that if you want some help.
With this process I have a service that you can utilize either like a self paced course or a partnership program that we can follow through and if you want some help with that, you can go to the site and kind of contact me there.
Ross Romano: Excellent listeners. So if you're a parent or a coach or student athlete and you are looking into this process of how do you get access to the college level, there's a wealth of resources there. So check those out. Like I said, we'll put all the links below. And if you found this episode in this topic.
Helpful. And you'd like more content like this. Send us a note, let us know. And as we plan future episodes and guests you know, I [00:45:00] sense that this is a critical topic that there's a lot to look into. So, please let us know about that. Please also do subscribe to Sideline Sessions to hear all of our episodes with coaches from the youth level to the pros, We'll just continue to bring you those insights from across the sporting landscape and all the things that are going to help you as a coach or as a parent, if you're involved in youth and high school and amateur sports, this is the place.
So please do that and visit bpodcast. network to learn about all of our shows. Everybody, thank you for listening. And Jeff, thanks so much for being on the show.
Jeff Howell: Thanks for having me.