[papagrit]

First of all, I've been through to recent recruiting process with my two boys who graduated in 2012 and the other will graduate this year. Both have not been superstars, but have been sound football players (linemen) with some local, regional and state recognition for their careers. The first kid I took on a weeklong tour of campuses because the requests and offers for looks came in hot and steady from several Ivy League schools in the Northeast. We toured six of the eight Ivies including Cornell, Brown, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth and Penn. We met with most all of the head coaches on the visits and when things shook out, he decided he liked Dartmouth and Brown the most. We continued contact with them and Darmouth was his favorite. Some things happened where Dartmouth all of the sudden showed lack of interest and where he had centered all of his attention there, he suddenly swung back to Brown who had filled their boards and were no longer interested. We then backed up and started to look at DIII upper level academic places and received tons of attentiion again. Dartmouth came out of the woodwork the day after Christmas wanting him again and requesting he come up for a visit, but, the kids pride told him that he was no longer interested in Dartmouth. The schools of Carnegie Mellon, University of Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis. and Case Western Reserve in Cleveland came to the front. There was still interest by local schools that knew he wasn't interested in going small school Kentucky because he wanted an engineering degree that the small schools around here don't offer without going 3+2 which means five and half years to obtain a four year degree. Small school coaches like to throw around the words "liberal degree with a rounder education than technical schools" a lot in recruiting. We knew what the boy wanted and remember, that KEYS money is just good for 4 to 5 years. Who pays for that last semester or year and half? Anyway, with an ACT score of 33 he found a home after visiting two of the four schools mentioned. It is within driving distance in half a day to catch games, it is fourteenth ranked in the nation academically and it has experienced some success in football with only one losing record in twenty five years.
Through that entire story the advice I learned was this, don't let your kid get the blinders on for ONE school. Use the shotgun approach and keep at least four schools that interest him on the line. I had told the Brown coach how much he loved Dartmouth and it turned him off. Keep your cards close to you about who you like best and just let them know what they need to know....that your kid has a real interest in them.
Secondly, don't believe a damn word that ANY coach tells you about your kid. Take their compliments graciously and realize that this is a business for them and they are telling ALL kids the same story and what they do is put all of the players on lists of needs and take the top players they have hooked and then they don't call back showing disinterest. I'm satisfied that whoever was above my son pulled out for greener pastures and they were hung up at that spot and called him back at Dartmouth. By the way, the head coach at Dartmouth spent two hours with us telling our son that he was their "NUMBER ONE PICK, PERIOD!"......"WE LOVE HIM!" "WE WANT HIM HERE AND WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO GET HIM HERE???" That was in June...he had us all eating out of his hand. By October and with a phone call or two we finally got after requesting the truth," Dartmouth will not be sponsoring your son to come here to play football". End of story.
We thanked them for the final honesty and moved on and then he got that call to come up for a visit the day after Christmas, and we moved on. That is why you don't believe a damn word that comes out of any coaches mouth. Same stuff happens in the NAIA...I've heard the stories.
Our older son settled in with the Washington team in St. Louis and is doing well. He didn't start as a freshman, but, came in occasionally which was a huge adjustment for him. He is very happy and Washington has won it's conference the last two year for the first time since 2004. He started guard this year, got University Athletic Association of the week honors in October for a game the line blocked a 325 yard rushing attack and 175 yards passing attack in a close win. It was the most yards the twenty five year long head coach had ever rushed in a game.
What we learned form his recruitment?
1. Don't ever believe a coach and his shpeel about a university or his love for you. It's all business and his job is on the line. They are piling up options/players to pick from the best. They want to keep your interest in them until they get all of their cards on a table. Learn from them about the ins and outs of the recruiting process, just don't buy into the excess love. They are used car salesmen and they are finding out about your trade in.
2. On real face to face visits, you can take film and info including ACT scores which they will look at. Invariably, the first question from a coaches mouth after first meeting is "How are his grades?" and "How are his test scores?" The interest may start waning right there. We went to MIT in Boston after visiting Harvard and the head coach there asked about the ACT scores and he had a 31 ACT score at the time and the coach said he had to pull it up some and his interest started sliding right there. Also, they might look at your film DVD you bring them and they might not...but they WILL take it.
3. Division III coaches don't have the same shpeel that the upper division coaches have because they DON'T offer scholarships in Division III. They will usually lay it out flat and blunt. You have these scores and grades and that will make you eligible for some financial aid. "Meet our financial aid officer and he will see what kind of help you will get in a package built from your parents financial records." Division III upper echelon schools are VERY expensive. Don't be afraid of the cost if you are from around here. A family that makes 60K or less, getting a kid accepted will have to pay nearly nothing and the entire cost can be covered by academic aid. I found this amazing. Washington U. in St. Louis has a similiar policy. Now most of what you make over 60K will be considered and then it steepens up. Currently my older son is taking out government subsidized loans for what we can't cover. We give him 5K a year and he has to cover the rest with loans and his money. School costs there for tuition, room and board are 60+K a year. He gets about 50K a year scholarship money. That's 10K annually, or 5K a semester that he/we pay. Consider that to go to UK is probably much higher than that. So he's in a good school, good scholarship and playing football six hours drive away. Also, beware of the scholarships from schools like UK and UL which drop if a student goes below 3.7GPA. They are lost and never get them back. They have a much different policy at Washington U.
4. Beware the NCSA and places that want 500 dollars or more up front to sell your kid to college recruiters. I've heard they will sell some, but, the kids that aren't quite as talented still don't get the attention that they expect to get as parents who pay that kind of money. Gobigrecruiting will cost about one hundred bucks for the first 15 teams or so and then the price drops to 5 bucks for each team after. You can SEE if they team reviews your film and other teams will request your information based on the basic informatiion you post, so, it is much less expensive. We got interest from some big teams for my younger son through gobigrecruiting including, Florida State, Duke, Kansas,Virginia and Maryland. We shot them the link and paid for it, but, nothing came from it. Nice to hear from them though.
Good luck on your child's recruiting, your part starts with getting a good junior highlight film together and then put some full games together and send them the senior year to interested schools. Go to a camp of an interested school, but, do this wisely to prevent wasting money. Some camps use your money to put on the camp for the kids they are REALLY interested in. We got that from Louisville with the younger and UK with the older. They never showed any interest in them and put the bigs together to get a good idea on them.