Verbal scholarship offer versus a written scholarship offer and what they mean during the athletic recruiting process

If you have been following recruiting at all on the Internet at Scout, Rivals, or ESPN, there is no doubt that you have heard an athlete quoted saying something about how he received a scholarship offer.  And while some may think they are the same, in reality, they are not.

What normally happens at this time in the process for an athlete is the verbal offer then the written offer.  There are certain exceptions but that is the order they normally come in because the college coaches want to tell the athlete over the phone (or in person) that a scholarship is on the way for him.

Because a college coach cannot legally call a junior football prospect today and tell them that they want to verbally offer them a scholarship, they need to take the long way around.  What the college coach will do normally is call the high school coach.  They will tell them that they want to offer their player a scholarship but they want to do it over the phone themselves.  Some high school coaches will take the kid out of class to call back the college coach or they will do it when the athlete has a break.  It really just depends.

Another way that seems to happen less often is the college coach could email the athlete and tell them to give him a call.  In basically 95% of the situations, the coach wants to be the first one to let the athlete know that a scholarship is on the table.  Doing it verbally is something that they strongly prefer because they can then get a feel for how the athlete really feels about their school.

The college coaches would likely have gone over the evaluation process a few times with this athlete before extending an offer.  Because they know it is coming, they would likely work up the paperwork so that the written scholarship offer would be coming in the mail over the next week or so.

What families do need to realize is that regardless if it is written or verbal, if the coaches want to take away the offer 24 hours after it was extended, they can.  They are guaranteeing nothing at all and even taking them to court won’t get you a scholarship offer at that school (it has unfortunately been tried before too).

So is a verbal offer really a scholarship?  I guess that strongly depends.  I know a lot of college coaches who use different phrases and are careful with their words.  An athlete may come away thinking that they offered when they actually didn’t.  They may say something about how much they want you at their school but until they tell you that we have a scholarship offer waiting for you, it doesn’t mean a damn thing.

There are some families who actually don’t believe that they have an offer until they receive it as a written scholarship.  Honestly, if you want to play it safe, then I would follow this theory.  The reason is because I have heard many stories about athletes being told by coaches that they have offers but then they never received a written scholarship.

My guess is that 80 to 85% of the scholarships that are offered verbally do eventually become written scholarships.  But that means there is a wide percentage of coaches who are throwing out verbal offers with nothing behind it.  My feeling is that if they want you bad enough, they can do both the verbal and the written offer within a week.  It really isn’t that hard to do.

One interesting story I heard last year was from Florida State.  They came out of the blue and called a football recruit in the Midwest during the spring evaluation period.  The coach told the athlete he had an offer and that they really wanted him.  What was strange is that they had not been recruiting him and never sent the written offer.  Why were they wasting their time?  Was there something they heard in the phone call that turned them off?  I have no idea but this stuff happens all the time.  Don’t believe an offers is in the bag unless you see it written or if it came from the head coach in person.

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