They are emailing me weekly about my kid to call them to get recruiting started...
They are emailing me weekly about my kid to call them to get recruiting started...
It's not a scam but does nothing for runners.
The basic free account is all a runner needs. The stopwatch does not lie. You will be contacted by college coaches if your athlete's times on NCSA meet their needs. As a high school coach, I think every runner that I have seen use the site gets at least some interest.
FWIW I’m an assistant coach at a small d3 school. The head women’s coach uses that a lot to contact athletes that we normally wouldn’t go after but they have indicated interest in going to a school like ours. Our head men’s coach does not use it at all because they find little ROI.
If you know what type of school he is interested in, have him reach out to the coaches. If he’s any good, plenty of other coaches will reach out to him without it too.
I have 2 sons who ran 9:0x and only received form letters from a few D3 schools. The only D1 contact they had was due to quite a bit of initiative on their parts so dont believe people who tell you that coaches will find you.
My daughter got about 10 coaches emailing her and she ran a 62.0 and 2:30.
She used their free service
No contacter wrote:
I have 2 sons who ran 9:0x and only received form letters from a few D3 schools. The only D1 contact they had was due to quite a bit of initiative on their parts so dont believe people who tell you that coaches will find you.
Because every kid and their grandma thinks they're D1 talent. Every small school state champ thinks they have what it takes to go D1, so D1 schools don't have to recruit all that hard in-state. They get so many of these kids who have already decided by their junior year that they're going D1 that they simply don't need to contact every kid that breaks 9:15. So in short, the reason D1 coaches don't recruit as hard is because they don't need to. You'll come to them.
Eetyiikvc wrote:
My daughter got about 10 coaches emailing her and she ran a 62.0 and 2:30.
She used their free service
Title IV is the reason.
Guys have very few options when compared to girls.
Guys have to run really fast to get recruited.
Outside of the top programs, Girls get recruited to fill scholarship slots.
Scamm wrote:
They are emailing me weekly about my kid to call them to get recruiting started...
NCSA is not a scam, but it's as close to a scam as you can be without being one. They do nothing to help with runners that you can't easily and more efficiently do yourself. Go read some reviews online about them. Not very good at all.
To the guy with two kids who ran 9:0x who got no contact from anyone, that seems very odd to me. Maybe they were punks and everyone knew it. My kid ran a little slower than that as a junior and he was inundated with D1 recruitment letters both directly to our home and to his coach. By the end we kept all the letters in a large garbage bag there were so many, and this was after throwing out all the DIII, NAIA and DII contacts.
Gonna deal with DI, DII, and DIII only below.
If your kid has a junior-year PR of over 10:20, then it's DIII for him or some DII schools with likely no scholarship money.
If your kid is under 10:20, more DII schools might be interested.
If your kid is barely under 10:00, some crappy D1 colleges will be interested. These will be ones that either don't give scholarship money to distance runners or they just suck hard or your kid has a full-ride academically and they don't mind just taking him on.
If your kid is between 9:30-9:50, some middle of the road D1 colleges will be interested either with zero or little money.
If your kid is under 9:30, more D1 colleges will be interested.
If your kid is under 9:20, more colleges with more money will be interested.
Super studs are under 9:00.
What do you do?
Find the schools you want to go to.
Check the roster to see if you fit in timewise.
If you do, fill out the recruitment form and e-mail the coach.
Someone who knows: thanks for this. Obviously this is "your experience" but this is great info about making the grade.
Would love to see this level of directness available in all sports.
Thanks
Think title IV wrote:
Eetyiikvc wrote:
My daughter got about 10 coaches emailing her and she ran a 62.0 and 2:30.
She used their free service
Title IV is the reason.
Guys have very few options when compared to girls.
Guys have to run really fast to get recruited.
Outside of the top programs, Girls get recruited to fill scholarship slots.
I don't think Title IV is the reason. Is that the one that requires the teaching of Roman numerals?
We also had stacks of contact letters from every school in the country. However, they were from the actual academic side of the house except for all of the D3 and NAIA programs. One of the boys scored 35 on the ACT which got him recruited academically by every school in the country but it did nothing to get him recruited athletically. Neither boy received one D1 contact other than in response to their own initiative. This is a state champ with a near 9 minute 3200 and 35 ACT. The boys received many offers from excited coaches but none of the coaches started the conversation.
Cluelessly wrote:
Someone who knows: thanks for this. Obviously this is "your experience" but this is great info about making the grade.
Would love to see this level of directness available in all sports.
Thanks
After having two kids heavily recruited, I have gained some knowledge.
There are exceptions to my basic rules of course. WashU is a Division III school, but they get kids who could easily run D1. Slow runners who could run on most DIII teams could not make the team there.
All very good advice. I've had 2 recruited D1 athletes, one in track and the other in football and can attest to much of this.
We used NCSA free profiles for each, didn't pay for their services although we received a LOT of sales pitches to do so. Regarding track we did get a lot of contacts from NAIA, D3 and JUCO schools from her NCSA profile. Made her follow up on each because you never know.
Track is interesting because the numbers are objective, not much subjectivity to talent. But there is plenty of subjectivity to the ability to continue to improve marks, work hard, accept coaching, etc. I think a lot of college coaches chase times and don't do a very good job learning about the kid they might want to recruit. Seen plenty of turds come into a college team with good marks - only to fail because they don't work hard, don't listen to coaches, don't become a good college student, etc.
We also saw that marks/times might make a college coach have an interest, but they probably aren't going to actively recruit a kid unless the kid expresses an interest in the program. So even a D1 caliber athlete needs to express interest to coaches in their school. My D heard from and received several D1 offers, but had a few that had curiously not contacted her. So she reached out and found they all had a lot of interest, each had reasons for not contacting her earlier - asst coaching changes, no reason to know she might be interested, etc. All started actively recruiting her and she signed with one that came into the process very late.
Bottom line, there is no single way coaches recruit. Each has their own methods and those often depend on the school and the kind of talent it historically draws and are impacted by regularly occurring circumstances. Don't read anything into the actions or lack of by a single college coach or program.
NCSA is a tool that you can effectively use, but I wouldn't pay for their service. I did find their college search engine (free) to be an effective tool to sort and classify programs by location, cost, academics, athletics, etc.
"Track is interesting because the numbers are objective, not much subjectivity to talent. But there is plenty of subjectivity to the ability to continue to improve marks, work hard, accept coaching, etc. I think a lot of college coaches chase times and don't do a very good job learning about the kid they might want to recruit. Seen plenty of turds come into a college team with good marks - only to fail because they don't work hard, don't listen to coaches, don't become a good college student, etc."
This is spot on. As a coach at an expensive D3 University that has average academics and no track, our staff simply cannot just chase times/marks. I use NCSA and have had some luck and recommend making a free profile, but the way I primarily recruit is by going to meets in person and basically generating leads by approaching coaches and asking if I can speak to certain athletes. In spite of the challenges and limitations our school has in being a good "sell" as far as recruiting, we have had some great successes in cross country and track, with multiple conference titles and some All-Americans in recent years. I absolutely look at the athlete holistically when recruiting and even if their times or marks are unimpressive there are athletes who I simply believe will blossom in college or at worst be a positive influence for team culture. It is also worth noting that many athletes are severely under-trained or have received wildly improper training, The number of high school distance runners I have met that never go on runs longer than 3 miles or just do repeat 200s every day is appalling. Many high school coaches I have talked to don't even know what lactate threshold is, which is a good sign that their athletes can improve a lot with some good training. Do not get me wrong I have met some very knowledgeable high school coaches, but they are a bit of an anomaly. If an athletes grades are poor I don't even bother recruiting them and if it is like pulling teeth to get them to apply or send letters of rec ect. I would rather spend my time on people who can follow directions. I understand that a huge part of coaching is providing direction but if people cannot take simple instruction before they are about to head off to college, they are a sunk cost imo. I have always said it is not the most talented athlete but the most mature one who will succeed in college, that is why you see many people blossom and others regress.
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