(Photo: Playced)
There is an old saying in baseball, “A $300 bat isn’t going to fix your 50 cent swing.” The same applies to the college recruiting process. Paying for a professional video or hiring a recruiting service isn’t going to make you Marcus Mariota.
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High school athletes need to understand that participating in intercollegiate sports is an incredible accomplishment at any level. If you are a standout high school athlete and colleges are interested in you, embrace it. Certainly you want to maximize your level of competition and your scholarship money, but you have to be realistic about your abilities and pursue colleges that make sense for you. Finally, you also have to realize that the primary reason to go to college is to get an education. The experience of college athletics and the life lessons learned will help you pursue a career in medicine, engineering, law, education and many other fields.
Here is a dose of reality on playing at the D-I level. These are the percentages of high school seniors that will go on to play their sport at the Division I level:
- Football: 2.4%
- Men’s Basketball: 1.0%
- Women’s Basketball: 1.3%
- Baseball: 2.1%
- Softball: 1.6%
- Men’s Soccer: 1.4%
- Women’s Soccer: 2.4%
- Volleyball: 1.2%
The message here is not to give up your dream, but just to make sure you have an education as a backup plan.
