There are things that you’re in control of and there are things that you aren’t in control of.
We tell all the athletes that are on our program and their families that we can never guarantee scholarship. It’s always up to the coach, but there are things that you’re in control of and there are things that you aren’t in control of.
You are not in control of the schools’ admission requirements. For example, there is nothing that you can do about the fact that Harvard’s entry requirements are astronomically high. Straight As from year nine through year twelve, almost a perfect SAT score, 4.0 GPA, being a part of Honor societies etc…
You cannot control that. There’s nothing that you can do about that, whether it’s Harvard, whether it’s any other school, you cannot control what a school requires for admission.
You cannot control the needs of a coach. If you’re a basketball player and you’re a point guard and a coach is not recruiting a point guard in any given year, then sorry, there’s no opportunity there for you, no matter how bad you want to go to that school. That is not in your control, you cannot control the needs of a coach.
“You cannot control a coach’s needs, you cannot control the total costs of an institution, You cannot control the scholarships that an institution chooses to award.”
If you’re a soccer player or a field hockey athlete and you’re a striker, and a coach is not recruiting a striker in any given year, sorry but that is not in your control, therefore they won’t be looking to scholarship a striker if they don’t need a striker.
You cannot control a coach’s needs, you cannot control the total costs of an institution. You cannot control the scholarships that an institution chooses to award.
So you can’t control costs, you can’t control, the types of scholarships and what a school offers. A school can add and take away scholarships from one year to another based on what the board of directors at that particular institution decide to do, so you cannot control their decisions, and what they want to award in scholarship and what they want to put their official cost as.
And probably the biggest thing that you cannot control, which is a hard one to accept sometimes is a coach’s opinion of you. If a coach doesn’t think that you’re a good fit for their program, there’s going to be another program that a coach does believe that you’re a good fit for.
“You aren’t going to get a scholarship from a school where a coach doesn’t believe that you’re going to be an asset”
But if you want to go to a school so bad but a coach does not believe that you are the right fit or believe that you were good enough, then I’m sorry, you can’t control that. You aren’t going to get a scholarship from a school where a coach doesn’t believe that you’re going to be an asset, and you can’t control that opinion. You might think you’re awesome, and you probably are to the right school. But you can’t control, a coach’s opinion of you.
Obviously the school’s admissions requirements, if you can’t get into the school, you need to look elsewhere, that’s out of your control. You can’t change a school’s entry requirements. The coach’s needs, if the coach isn’t looking for a point guard or a striker or a golfer with your particular handicap then sorry, you need to look elsewhere for an opportunity especially if you’re looking for a scholarship.
You can’t control the total cost of an institution and the scholarships that they have available. If for example you want or need an athletic scholarship for whatever reason, the NCAA Division Three are not going to just create the “John Smith” athletic scholarship in the NCAA Division Three.
“You can control your work ethic. You can control the amount of time that you spend working on your sport, improving your speed, strength, fitness.”
You cannot control the coach’s opinion of you. With most team sports things are subjective. You even see it sometimes with sports that everything is sort of quantifiable by number, track and field and at the end of the day it still comes down to the coach’s opinion of you.
What if a program just isn’t recruiting in one year? They’re returning all of their athletes that they’re very happy with so they’re not recruiting anybody else, you can’t control that.
But what can you do to ensure or guarantee that you do get a college scholarship?
You can control your work ethic. You can control the amount of time that you spend working on your sport, improving your speed, strength, fitness.
You can control the effort that you put in to improving as an athlete.
You can control your academics because you decide how much effort you put into studying, how many hours that you want to spend on taking pride in your academics and making good grades, ensuring that your assignments are turned in, ensuring that people are happy with your work, you control that.
You can control how much time and effort that you put in to studying for the SAT, or you can control whether or not you take or don’t take the SAT or ACT, either one.
“you have to decide that you’re going to commit to, if you want to improve.”
And most importantly, you are in control of where your information goes.
The amount of time and the amount of commitment that you put into bettering yourself in the sport that you participate in other than yourself. You are the only one that can control that. I can’t make you get up at 6:00 am to go to the gym. I can’t make you go on a run before school.
Those are things that you have to decide that you’re going to commit to, if you want to improve. And that’s your choice, I can’t make you stay at soccer training or basketball training for an extra hour to work some additional things that you need to improve on.
Whether it be just hitting the ball with your opposite foot. It’s something so simple but if you do it over a certain period of time it’s going to help you-I can’t make you juggle 1,000 in a row, only you can do that by the effort that you put in.
I can’t improve your handles as a basketball player, that’s up to you. That’s a commitment that you need to make.Only you can make that commitment. If you’re working as hard as possible, then you can always improve.
“You can accomplish anything in life that you’re willing to work for, anything.”
Drew Brees for the New Orleans Saints, quarterback. He broke the all-time NFL passing record. The most passing yards of any quarterback ever in the National Football League which is a massive achievement. When it happened, he went over to the sideline, to his three little boys, and the first thing that he said …
It gives me chills think about this. He said, “You can accomplish anything in life that you’re willing to work for, anything.” But if you’re not willing to put in the work, then you can’t sit there and reap the rewards of something that you haven’t earned.
Everything in life is earned and being a college athlete scholarship is not just handed to you, scholarship is earned. Drew Brees broke one of the biggest records of all time and the first thing that he does is parent, be a great dad with great advice to his little boys, like really, really cool and resonates in my heart because I got two little boys.
This relates to not only, prior to leaving and departing for the US, the same work ethic needs to be applied in the US as well. Let’s say you don’t receive a scholarship in your first year, if you do it over there, it’ll probably eventuate in scholarship. That’s a commitment that you need to make but it’s something that can almost guarantee scholarship for your second, third year.
“you come in you earn an athletic scholarship, that’s not just going to be handed to you”
Many coaches will look at you as an international recruit and they’ll look at some of the other ways that you qualify for scholarship, they’ll see your athletic attributes and they’ll say, “Yeah, look I’m willing to give you a shot.” But you come in you earn an athletic scholarship, that’s not just going to be handed to you and that’s what I tell every student that goes overseas, “Make the most of every single day that you have because I promise you, it’ll be gone like that.” Four years you’ll blink your eyes and it’ll be done.
Take advantage of every day that you have because you don’t get to be a college athlete for the rest of your life. You don’t get multimillion dollar facilities at your fingertips every single day to push it and be there. And a lot of kids, they get over there and it’s just happy days and they’re taking things for granted and then when they look back it’s like, “Oh, I could have done so much more.”
Do more now to help better prepare you and put you in a better position to receive athletic scholarship awards. That is up to you, 100%.
Only you can control your work ethic. Work ethic and how much time you put into your academics.
It is exactly the same as the athletic component. I can’t make you study for a class that you may be struggling in. If you’re no good at maths, well there’s only one way to get better at maths and that’s to study.
Keep practicing, keep doing it. Get a tutor if you need. We have plenty of athletes-That get help from third parties, from tutors. Go above and beyond
Unless you don’t want to. That’s okay too.
You don’t have to be a super-Brainiac and unbelievable athlete, if you’re happy being who you are, that’s okay, but that’s a decision that you make. You can always be better, always, and it’s based on the amount of work that you put into it.
“The higher the academic that you are, the more places that you’re going to qualify for”
You can’t sit there and complain about the fact that you’re not getting this scholarship or that scholarship, because you deserve it, but in reality you’re happy to be just as good as you are and not push yourself beyond what you can already do.
The best thing about academic scholarship in the United States, it’s a direct reflection of your academics. The higher the academic that you are, the more places that you’re going to qualify for academic scholarship and the better academic scholarship that you’ll get, the better your grades are.
So the best thing about the US system is that majority of schools out there will have a scholarship matrix that will say, “Okay, with a GPA of this, and an SAT, an ACT Of this, equals this much money and you can qualify for these scholarships.” so there’s the bar.
The bar is set – if you want to get these scholarships at these schools then you need to raise the bar or better yet exceed that bar. You’re putting yourself in a position to get those scholarships unlike a coach’s opinion of you, which is subjective. Academics, they’re not subjective.
“Lift all of your grades to as high as you possibly can to put yourself in the best position”
So essentially what you’re looking at doing is working as hard you possibly can in each and every class everything is taken into consideration. All your classes, the subjects you’ve taken, all your grades in each class, focus on all your classes- Everything counts.
Lift all of your grades to as high as you possibly can to put yourself in the best position upon graduation for year 12. If you’ve lifted them as high as you possibly can, then chances are there’s something out there- In regards to academic scholarship.
You need to graduate from high school, that’s the one thing that you need to do to have options overseas. But if we’re talking about how you can- Guarantee yourself a scholarship … If you’re happy being minimalistic and just cruising by, then that’s fine. But you can’t sit there and complain at the end of the day and say, “Oh, I should’ve got a scholarship.” No, you were happy to be minimalistic. The kid that wanted to do extra, got that scholarship. It’s up to you, it’s in your control, your actions determine a lot of things, academics is one of them.
You just have to work hard, lift your grades and something will be available for you.