Update from The Coach

As many folks know, this can truly be the busiest time of the year in College Women's Volleyball - full team training, off-campus recruiting, hosting on campus Official and Unofficial Visits and the potential professional opportunities of accepting a new position.

I bring up these various examples because my website updates may be a bit sporadic for the next month or so. I encourage each reader to submit questions (remember, Juniors or older (and parents)) and I will do my best to publish them or reply directly with an answer.

In the mean time, keep up the communication with college coaches, start looking at unofficial visit dates if your daughter is comfortable with a few potential schools and have fun watching and playing volleyball - don't be in a rush to secure the future.

NY Times article on NCAA Scholarships

A question about a recent NY Times article on NCAA Scholarships:

Hi Coach,There is an article in the NY Times on sports scholarships. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/sports/10scholarships.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 Could you compare your scholarship experience with what is presented in the article? Thanks, Jen

I was not aware of this article until being notified by our readers. I took a moment to read through the piece, but not in too much of a detailed way. It is nice to see that a critical eye is being cast upon the NCAA scholarship arena, but before I move into answering Jen's question, my wish is that the author would have put a bit more pressure or responsibility upon the NCAA/Colleges-Universities to fund those illustrated sport programs better. I find it hard to swallow the assertion the parents and players are being foolish or naive to pursue limited scholarship support, when 3 other NCAA sports have a king's ransom in budget and salary allocations - A little mimicry of Robin Hood by schools could help a lot of Student-Athletes and families.

After reading the NY Times article, we should realize how fortunate we are to be one of the better funded NCAA sports. Division I Women's Volleyball is allowed to have 12 Full Scholarships and if a school chooses to fully fund the sport, then 12 'Heads' will be on a Full Scholarship - this is why DI Women's Volleyball is termed a Head Count Sport. Division I Men's Volleyball is allocated 4 Full Scholarships (last time I checked) and these 4 scholarships must be divided to support the players on the team - no matter how many players are on the roster, all the allocated scholarships must 'Equal' 4; this is why DI Men's Volleyball is termed an Equivalency Sport.

NCAA Division II Women's Volleyball is capped at 8 scholarships and is an Equivalency Sport. It is within this classification that we find the widest range of support among sponsoring schools. Many schools will fund up to a certain number, but will fall well below the NCAA allowed maximum of 8 scholarships. NCAA Division III is academically awarded, so this situation does not apply to the article.

The NY times segment focused on the Equivalency Sports by and large. In addition, by featuring such a school as Villanova, it was illustrating an expensive, private school located in a region of the country with a very high cost of living. When the author selected Field Hockey, Baseball and Soccer as examples, he/she illustrated sports that have high numbers of players per the make up of their sport; this means the scholarship support versus the cost of attendance difference would only be magnified.

The flip side of this example would be to pick a NCAA Division I Women's Tennis team located at a public school in the mid-west. In such an illustration, the players may only have to pay a couple of thousand dollars, if anything, to be a NCAA Student-Athlete. The same could be said for any number of sports, especially those with smaller roster needs.

A segment of the NY Times piece that was correct, is the high cost associated with playing elite level athletics. Club Soccer, AAU Basketball, Club Volleyball, Junior Golf, etc., are expensive to play. Parents can spend into the tens of thousands of dollars per year, but it is the price that must be paid. The days of the college coach coming to a high school event and finding the hidden jewel are long gone. There are the occasional athletes that gain substantial scholarships by only playing high school athletics, but these are mainly limited to football and basketball players. These three sports also enjoy the largest number of Head Count allocated scholarship totals.

With a Club Volleyball player that has played since the 7th grade, there is the very real chance that the family will spend more money on Club than the college scholarship that they may receive. This situation commonly occurs when factoring in the scholarship size offered by in-state public schools. From a pure dollars and sense observation, the better thing would be for the family to stay out of debt and put these funds into a low risk investment, then have 50K plus when it is time for their daughter's college.

What the numbers cannot reflect is the life lessons and skill improvement acquired along the journey. Just consider all the new places that a Prospective Student-Athlete experienced. What about the ability to make new friends and overcome challenging environments? The opportunity to develop their blessed volleyball ability to a very high level.

In today's world of cost versus benefit, things that have value cost money. Travel, education, athletics, relaxation - just about anything that is worthwhile is not free.

The challenge is to make good choices. For instance, if a family is not in a position to spend a lot of money on college expenses, after putting so much into Club Volleyball, then the PSA should consider a Junior College. Many, many JC's are fully funded and the PSA will gain valuable on-court volleyball experience, while completing two years of their education. Another option is to stay focused on in-state public schools which offer lower tuition and access to state education funds; you may not receive a full scholarship, but the extra costs to the family could be marginal.

Some parts of the NY Times article were absolutely correct, but Women's Volleyball, especially Division I, enjoys better scholarship support with smaller team numbers.

Volleyball Practice during College campus visi

Questions about practicing while visiting a college campus:

A few questions for you: On an unofficial visit, may a PSA participate in an organized practice (like during spring season, not the regular collegiate season)? Does this rule differ by D1, D2, D3, NAIA, etc? As a followup, what if it’s not a formal practice, but rather a group of players from the team in a pick up game w/o the coaching staff? Would your answer change if it was an Official Visit (probably not since it's just a matter of who's paying for the visit). Thanks in advance for your help! Regards, Dave.

These are some great questions about what a Prospective Student-Athlete may or may not do while visiting a college campus.

For Division I Volleyball a PSA on an Official or Unofficial Visit may not participate in an organized training session with a coach in attendance or observing (sometimes coaches like to just look in the window, but that is not allowed). There is no distinction between the Traditional or Non Traditional (spring) season. A PSA may engage in unorganized or 'pick-up' play with college players provided that a coach is not observing or attending. These 'pick-up' play sessions tend to be much more common in men's and women's basketball, because these college athletes are more or less mandated to be training/playing every day of the school year and almost all summer.

For Division II Volleyball, a PSA may participate in an organized training session provided that they present a physical examination, dated within the last six months to the college coach or trainer. This means that the PSA can jump in with the group of four training or the full team training, depending on the time of year. It does not matter if it is the Traditional or Non-Traditional season. This is a nice opportunity that DII coaches have to directly compare the talent level of a PSA to the current members of the team, along with allowing for some volleyball interaction between recruit and players. It also allows the PSA to get a feel for what it would be like to practice/play for a certain coach or program.

It is my understanding that Junior College and NAIA also allow such PSA training situations, but I am not sure of any needed paperwork. I am not too clear on the Division III rules, but I would lean toward these opportunities being allowed as part of a campus visit - but, please do not hold me to this rule; rather visit the NCAA website and look up on the rule under the Division III page.

By and large, the NCAA rules generally apply the same for an Official Visit and an Unofficial Visit. The biggest immediate difference is who pays for dinner (and hotel, and flight, and lunch, etc.). Another important difference is that the coaching staff may not travel off-campus to show you the community (they can travel off campus to show you a training or competition site) or to eat, even if the PSA pays for their own meal. Except for a couple of small things, all the other functions are the same and I believe this is one of the reasons that the Unofficial Visit is now the dominant on campus experience for a PSA and her family. The Official Visit is just a follow-up trip during the PSA's Senior year to hang out on campus with her new team (the exception being those programs that happen to be recruiting Seniors because of a late opening).

This was a great set of questions and hope the answer makes the practice opportunities during an Official or Unofficial visit a bit more clear!

Volleyball Recruiting Evaluation by College Coach

A question about player evaluations at tournaments from one of our readers:

I love your website and have learned a lot from it! My daughter is a junior and with the club schedule underway she has some coaches watching. What advice can you give when she doesn't play her best when someone is watching, when they have made a special trip to see her? She doesn't like to disappoint people so I feel she is still beating herself up about it. Second day of tournaments go much better and she tore it up! Will coaches just move on right away or should she call and talk to them? Thanks!

I have been party to this type of response many times in the recruiting process - it is common to hear that player did not think she played well. Some points to consider, based on your questions:

1. A majority of the time, how a recruit perceived her play versus how the college coach evaluated her talent are miles apart. Players are much tougher on themselves than they need be. A college coach is watching for many things - we are interested in technique, attitude, competitive ability, etc. I know at times I like to watch a situation where a player is playing poorly, so I can see how she responds to adversity; does she fold or does she fight?

2. Personally, I don't care if a player's team wins or loses. For the player, I hope her team wins, but for me, it does not matter. I am just interested in evaluating her skills and team ability.

3. College coaches may say they are coming to a tournament to see just your daughter, but I can promise you they have many, many other players they are evaluating. Unless it is a Power Conference school and your daughter is an very elite level recruit, the mass majority of programs cannot afford to spend the resources to attend a tournament just to see one player - it does not make budget sense.

4. The only person that she should be concerned about disappointing is herself - nobody else really matters. Tell her to just be concerned with having an enjoyable time and playing her best. Again, college coaches look at so many factors when evaluating talent. Recruiting is our job and we are volleyball smart enough to see talent that may be playing poorly, versus poor talent.

5. If she wants to visit with a college coach over the phone, this should be motivated by her desire to know more about the school and program, along with getting a feel for that coach as a person, rather than trying to make up for a poor match.

I really can't stress enough that college coaches, who are talented and build good programs, are complete in their evaluation abilities. We are looking for players that have good technical skills, a positive attitude, work hard and are team players. If someone is playing poorly, but has these characteristics, we will still evaluate them positively. If someone is playing poorly and also has poor skills and a poor attitude, then we will remove them from consideration.

Tell your daughter to just play volleyball. Sometimes as a player, the worst thing is when our mind gets in the way of our body. Have fun, relax and play volleyball!

Volleyball Recruiting Communication

Effective communication is central to the recruiting process. Not only the college coach communicating with the Prospective Student-Athlete (PSA), but also the PSA communicating with the coach. A common mistake is to have the parents shoulder the majority of the interaction with college coaches.

For better or worse, there are so many avenues of communication available for PSA's and colleges. Back in the good old days (which were actually rather good), recruits talked about having their mailboxes full of letters each day from colleges. When I first started as an assistant coach, I was responsible for a weekly mailing of over 200 letters and then almost 50 personal notes to recruits.

With the advent of cell phones, e-mail, Text and IM there is really no excuse for poor communication between a PSA and coach. I can understand the hesitancy for a high school kid to just call up a NCAA Volleyball coach, but with detached comfort zone of transmitted messages, each player should be communicating with their top college choices.

For me, and I would think other coaches, solely interacting with parents is a recruiting red flag. If a player is interested in my school, I want to hear this from the PSA, not from Mom or Dad. I have now reached the point as a coach, that if I am not communicating with the player after the initial contact, then I am done interacting at all.

I have adopted this stance because the parents are not going to play for me and this is not club volleyball. I need to talk to the PSA to get a feel for her personality, her confidence and her attitude. I get nervous just interacting with parents because I am not really learning what I need to know about a potential player. In Club Volleyball the parents write the check and are watching out for their high school daughter, thus they can manage the flow of communication. Yet, College is about growth and transition for the player, plus the check comes from the school.

Even though Mom and Dad may feel they are being a resource for their daughter or taking some of the pressure off of her by handling the interaction with coaches, they are actually hindering the process.

As I have written about in previous posts, parents should go on Unofficial and Official Visits, they should ask questions about things that their daughter may not be experienced enough to consider and they must be aware of the entire process.

But, what they cannot do is assume the task of interacting with college coaches - the PSA must do this. By e-mail, Text or telephone, recruits must be interacting with colleges. This interaction does not need to be done daily, but it should be constant with those schools that you are considering for your future. I would also suggest you take the time to update those programs that you are no longer interested in considering - it can be a short e-mail telling them you are looking at other schools and it will be appreciated by the coaches.

3 and 1 Volleyball Scholarship Question

A rather unique question about a scholarship:

My daughter has been offered a 3-1 volleyball scholarship at a Division I school. We will pay the difference between total college cost and merit scholarship money the first year and receive a full scholarship for the next three years. Is this common? Vicki

It is not common, but then again it is not unusual. How is that for an answer?

The typical way in which these type of scholarships are presented, is for a coach to tell the family that after they Walk-On the first year, that they will be given a volleyball scholarship for the next 3 years. The coach may be graduating three middle blockers next year, and realizes that the next recruiting class is not very deep for talented middle blockers. So, by having your daughter Walk-On for this year, the coach can secure a top flight middle now and only have to recruit two for next year.

Some good and not so good observations about the offer:

1. If your daughter is a Senior and likes the school/program, then this may be the best option.

2. If your daughter is Junior, then I think it is a bit too early to make a commitment of this nature - keep working through potential schools that fit your desires.

3. What is the cost that you would have to pay? Private schools usually cost much more than public schools, after adding up all merit or need scholarships. If a public school is offering this 3-1 scholarship and the family will only need to pay a few thousand dollars, then this could be great. If it is a private school and the out of pocket costs in year one are in the tens of thousands of dollars, I would have some concerns.

4. Has the coach talked about the 5th year? The majority of student-athletes take 5 years to graduate because of the athletic time demands. A 4-1 scholarship is much better than a 3-1 (which realistically is a 3-2).

5. There is no way to 'contract' such a thing - Walk-Ons do not sign the National Letter of Intent. If the coach leaves before the player gets there, or leaves before the scholarship would be signed (late Spring Semester in college) then the player is at the mercy of the new coach. A trend that is now coming into play with new volleyball coaches, is that they are not honoring verbal commitments and not renewing players on scholarship that don't fit their exact desires. The old days meant that a coach would graduate a player through to have them exit the program; now they just cut them.

All and all, these type of scholarship offers can be a bit dicey; there are some positives and some negatives. If your daughter is a Junior, I would not accept this offer right now, but keep exploring other schools. If your daughter is a Senior and really likes the school/program, then I would want specific information about 5th year funding and being protected if the coach vacates the school (don't be afraid to ask and do not accept the answer of "I am not going anywhere or I have a contract" - things happen).

Good luck!