I am a junior in the football recruiting process with interest and no scholarship offers. What should I be doing in December (Part Two)?

This is the second of a two part article.  Click here for part one now!

Once you have done your talks with the family, now you can use that information to start looking into some programs that could interest you.  If you said that you want to major in Engineering, than picking out schools that offer an Engineering major would be vital.

I want to stress the importance of picking a school that offers majors in the areas that interest you most.  If you end up going to a smaller school that does not have an Engineering degree, you will either have to transfer (and likely lose some credits along the way, which is both time and money for you) or pick a secondary field that may not interest you as much.

In the eyes of a high school athlete, sports is the most important thing.  I played at a Division III school and I can say for whatever crazy reason, I had sports and getting an opportunity to compete athletically at the top of my wish list.  I was able to get a good education that has benefited me but that is now what you should be looking for in a college.

The majority of athletes who play college sports will continue on for at most five years.  You may redshirt for one year and then play the following four seasons.  You will likely finish up your college career somewhere around the age of 23 or so.  If you made your college decision based strictly on athletics, then you will have done it for the short term.  If you received a poor education that won’t help you get a job in a field you are interested in, then you will likely have to go back to school for more time and even more money.

If you instead based it around academics and then athletics second, you will be setting yourself up for life.  If you live a normal life and are able to retire at the age of 65, you now have 42 years to work.  I have said this before but picking a school and a major based on athletics will set your post college life up poorly.  That is why you need to think about the fields you are interested and use that in your research.

Take this information and apply it to the second step of The Five Steps to a Scholarship Offer.  This research will help give you a base of schools to contact as well as continue to talk to the ones that are recruiting you.  I would say not to limit your options at this point, even if they don’t have a major you are interested in, but don’t market yourself to them.  If they are recruiting you, that is great.  If not, move on and research other programs.

I would say that it wouldn’t hurt to start marketing yourself to these schools but remember it may take them more time to respond with the holidays.  Coaches may also be spending part of the month traveling and worrying about other things outside of recruiting.  As I have said in the past, log your emails that you send to college coaches.  If they don’t respond after a week, try again.  If you still don’t hear from them after another week or two, try another coaches (note: don’t get impatient and start firing off email after email to coaches.  That is extremely annoying).

Once you have that done, now is also a good time to make 100% sure you are happy with your recruiting highlight video.  It should be completed and available for coaches to view online.  Expect some to request the DVD so have some available but getting it online is a great way to get it out in front of college coaches early and often (see www.highlight-videos.com if you need a professional video done inexpensively).

If you are getting it professionally done, I want to stress to readers that you need to get it done by someone who knows what they are doing.  There are hundreds and thousands of videographers who do weddings as well as highlight videos.  But when it comes down to it, you need someone who knows what college coaches are looking for.  And I hate to say it but at least 99% of the wedding videographers likely have no clue.  So keep looking.

The next few months will be important in the football recruiting process because if you are a top athlete, then you are likely going to get invited to Junior Days and spring practices.  But doing this prep work will help put you in the best situation possible to be evaluated over the next six months.

And my last tip that I talked about the other day.  Don’t even think about your summer college camp schedule.  Unless a school has offered you a scholarship, you have no clue what colleges are really interested in you.  Wait at least a few months before even mapping things out.

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