[Football1]

We just went through the recruiting process. For two years I have sent film, highlights, emails, gone to camps, unofficial visits, and official visits. Without a doubt the best move we made his junior year was to sign up for NCSA. The site is http://www.ncsasports.org and it made all the difference for us. Its not magic wand. But it gives you the information and based on the athletes rating by their staff (ex-college coaches) you get access to contact the colleges you qualify for based on your academics and athletic ability and they get access to contact you as well. Colleges get boat loads of film mailed to them. Many told me it is impossible to look at all them. The process is going online for most colleges and NCSA gives you a way to orchestrate your communication and track the whole process. They teach classes and have college coaches get on calls and tell you what they are looking for and how their process works.

This is doubly important if you go to a school where you don't have a pipeline of athletes going to play college ball every year. One coach at Coastal Carolina told us something very revealing about the process for D1AA football "I know the first names of 25 head coaches that help us get their best athletes; 15 of those guys played for me". The relationship side of recruiting is bigger than you think. The only way to be the guy they recruit over the relationship with another high school is to be very good and then make sure they know who you are. NCSA did that for us. Codi ended up with offers from several schools that I had never heard of before we signed up.

One word about camps - don't waste your time at a schools camp unless you have a personal invite from a lead coach to attend. Unless you can run a 4.4 you will not raise an eyebrow. They have a list of kids they are looking at there. If you aren't on that list when you get there; you will not be when you leave. They will be happy to take your 200 bucks for the T-shirt though.