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They all somehow flew below the radar of prominent college coaches and recruiters. In recent years, an online cottage industry has emerged to accommodate — or at least guide — such athletes.
“We can all dream about Rudy,” said Bobby Clark, Notre Dame’s men’s soccer coach. “But the reality is he played 20 seconds at the end of one game. He might’ve been better served somewhere else. Dreams are great. Backup dreams are smarter.”
The biggest player so far is BeRecruited.com, which was started in 2000 in the dorm room of Ryan Spoon, a swimmer for Duke.
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Recruiting Sites Give Students Scholarship Edge
Between the economic crisis and soaring college tuition bills, high school athletes are feeling more pressure than ever to land a scholarship.
But finding the right school and the right offer can be a daunting task for a high school student. Private consultants can help, but they can cost thousands of dollars, a high price to pay in these tough times.
A competitive swimmer, Zoe Guastella of Cambridge, always hoped her dedication in the pool would lead to a scholarship.
"I swim five days a week, three hours each time," she said.
But despite dozens of medals and trophies, Zoe is not an elite athlete. Did she have what it takes to get that all important offer?
To find out, she joined Berecruited.com.
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The Do-It Yourself Athletic Scholarship
By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN (Read this story at wsj.com)
Kirsten Bladek had a problem. Three weeks into her senior season on the Monarch High School volleyball team in Colorado, the 5-feet, 10-inch setter found herself warming the bench. Her dream of an athletic scholarship seemed dead -- especially since her family couldn't afford the $1,000 or so that many parents pay these days to hire a private athletic-recruiting counselor. But then in September, Ms. Bladek spent $39.99 to post her athletic résumé and pictures of her playing on the Web site beRecruited.com. The shots, combined with videos posted later, highlighted her ability to set the ball from in front of her forehead, with arms thrust out like Superman in flight. That display, combined with some telephone campaigning by Kirsten and her mother, got college coaches to start paying attention. "I've been getting so many calls from random numbers, half of them I'm scared to pick up," says Kirsten, who recently took an all-expenses-paid visit to New Mexico Highlands University, where she was offered a scholarship.
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Get Yourself RecruitedIn November 2008, beRecruited was featured on CNN.com in a segment called "Get Yourself Recruited." The company President, Jeff Cravens, talked about the service, growing user base, and how the current economic environment has made beRecruited more important and relevant than ever.
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Social networking sites let coaches, athletes strike a happy medium
By PAUL WILLIS (Read this story at rockymountainnews.com)
Call it the Facebook of recruiting.
With social-networking Web sites all the rage these days, it should come as no shocker that the process of recruiting high school athletes is tilting toward that medium.
Sites such as beRecruited.com are leading the shift.
The sites offer high school athletes the opportunity to upload videos, update their statistics and essentially make a pitch to colleges as to why they'd be a good fit for their program.
A growing number of athletes and coaches are gravitating toward the technological trend, which also has eased some of the economic strains of recruiting.
When national signing day arrives Wednesday, some local athletes will credit beRecruited.com for helping cultivate their college commitments.
"BeRecruited had a big role when I signed with Washington," said John Dalton, a swimmer from Arvada West High School who recently committed to the Huskies. "It helped me get to know the coach more and see what their meet schedule was like."
Dalton is one of about 1,200 in- state athletes from more than 70 schools with an account on the free site. Many student-athletes share similar stories.
Other recruiting sites such as ncsasports.org and takkle.com also specialize in matching potential recruits with coaches.
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Monroe's Nelson ready to play college football
By Danny Martin (Read this story at newsminer.com)
FAIRBANKS — Alex Nelson didn’t have to go to court to get an opportunity to play college football. He just had to sign a national letter of intent on Tuesday morning in a ceremony at Monroe Catholic High School.
The Monroe senior quarterback, running back and linebacker signed with Jamestown College of Jamestown, N.D., and a member of the NAIA Dakota Athletic Conference. Jamestown, 7-3 in 2008, was ranked 25th nationally in the final NAIA Football Coaches Poll of the season.
Nelson, 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, attracted interest from Jamestown after its head coach, Bud Etzold, saw his proflle on a Web site, berecruited.com.
“He e-mailed me and said we want you to look at our school. He said, too, that we’re interested in you and we’d like to get more film of you,” Nelson said Tuesday night in a telephone interview.
Nelson was allowed to play for Monroe last fall after receiving a preliminary injunction against the Alaska School Activities Association during a two-day hearing last August in Fairbanks Superior Court.
Nelson’s parents, Suzy and Ted Coronel, had filed for the injunction against the state’s governing body for high school athletics after they had applied for and were denied a transfer waiver for Nelson to transfer from West Valley High School to Monroe.
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Bemidji coach uses Internet recruiting
By Eric Stromgren (Read this story at fortmilltimes.com)
BEMIDJI, Minn. — For Collin Stoffel, Internet networking played a big role in picking the Bemidji State football team on national signing day.
Stoffel, a linebacker out of Willow Canyon High School in Surprise, Ariz., took a proactive approach to reach college football through the Web site beRecruited.com.
"For me, I was looking to outsource the information about me any way I could," Stoffel said. "It was a way that I could reach as many coaches as I possibly could."
Similar in Facebook's ability to be an Internet social networking tool, beRecruited.com is a bridge connecting high school athletes wishing to play a collegiate sport to recruiting collegiate coaches.
Each athlete on the site has their own personal page that showcases their abilities. Coaches can then search the site looking at the database of athletes without leaving the office.
Among the items viewable on Stoffel's beRecruited.com page is his biography, academic achievements, game photos, athletic testing information and football highlight video.
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As Erica Tassone recently learned, playing high school sports is not the only way to achieve one’s collegiate dream.
Not with the emphasis college coaches and recruiters place on club sports these days — and with the convenience of the Internet.
About three weeks ago the 2008 Truckee High grad received a call from Kurt Kohler, head volleyball coach at Barton County (Kan.) Community College. Searching for a talented setter to help lead his nationally ranked squad, Kohler scouted out Tassone from the Web site www.berecruited.com.
The fact that Tassone was cut from her varsity volleyball team her senior season was irrelevant. Kohler liked what he saw watching the five videos she posted on the recruiting site — clips taken from matches with her club volleyball team in Sacramento.
“I was impressed with her talent,” Kohler said. “She played at a very high level and had a lot of success. I saw her being a great leader on our floor.”
So the coach flew Tassone out to Great Bend, Kan., this past week for a three-day to visit the Barton County campus.
By Tuesday morning Tassone had signed her letter of intent, gladly accepting a guaranteed two-year scholarship that covers everything but room and board. It’s a moment she won’t soon forget.
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Local young athletes market themselves; High-schoolers hope recruiting websites will lead to a U.S. sport scholarship
By REBECCA PENTY (Read this story at thespec.com)
Melissa Loyzer has spoken to U.S. recruiters vying to get the Hamilton swimmer interested in attending their colleges.
And not one of them has ever seen her 100-metre butterfly from the pool deck.
Loyzer, who swims for the Hamilton Aquatic Club at the senior level, has her grades, stats and some personal information posted on her beRecruited.com profile.
The 17-year-old is part of a growing number of young athletes logging on to recruiting websites to get their names out to college coaches.
Loyzer attends Westdale Secondary School and is one of 34 Hamilton athletes from 11 local high schools with profiles on beRecruited, one of a slew of websites available to athletes.
Takkle.com, another recruiter website, has 15 students from Westdale interested in marketing their football, badminton and rugby skills to colleges and universities.
For the Canadian players, the promise of a free ticket to college makes the appeal of these sites that much sweeter.
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