Report

In today’s society student athletes in high school have a have very difficult and long journey to make their next step from a high school athlete to a college athlete. The questions to theses athletes’ future are not always easy to find. They ask; How do I get recruited, How do I contact coaches and when am I allowed to? The college application process is long for these athletes they begin their junior year in high school. They must abide by all of the NCAA rule and regulations otherwise they will be unable to participate at the college level. The first thing a student athlete should do is sign the NCAA Clearinghouse form in their junior year of high school.
The NCAA Clearinghouse form is signed to make sure that all student athletes follow the NCAA recruiting regulations. It ensures that all of these prospective students know the rules; therefore they can not say they did not know about a particular rule.
Firstly, an athlete usually must be recruited, but how is an athlete to do this? There are various ways in which people do this. They will travel all over the country in order to get recognized at something called “College Showcase Tournaments.” At these tournaments colleges from all over the nation send their scouts there to watch some games, now depending on your age and year in school depends on weather or not the scout can contact you person to person. If the scout sees that you are doing well they will probably follow up on some more of your games.
Another way in which, students have been getting recruited is by contacting the college coaches themselves. This can only be done at certain points in time and there are regulations on how often a prospective athlete can contact theses coaches. They may send a resume to the coaches, but a coach cannot really get a sense of how good a player is from a resume. The played in turn may higher a photographer to video tape their games. This highlight real may be sent to the coach and they can look at it and if they like what they see, it could lead to future contact with the coach.
If an athlete is being recruited there are various ways in which coaches, try to lure you to their school. One thing coaches will do is take them on a tour of the school with the athlete and their families. If the athlete and coach are both happy after their first encounter the coach may invite the athlete back for an official visit. An athlete can only have three official visits. On the official visit the athlete is taken around the school by a host athlete that is currently playing at that university. The coach may get the prospective athlete tickets to a sporting event that may be going on at that particular date in time. The prospective student is able to get a feel of what it is going to be like to be a college athlete at that university.
If a player intends to play college sports he/she must not be a professional athlete. The NCAA defines a professional athlete as this athlete must not ever have been paid and cannot receive gifts of any sort from outside family members.
The next step after a coach wants to get a player to come to their school by offering them a scholarship would be a player sign his/her national letter of intent. The national letter of intent is,

“The National Letter of Intent (NLI) is a binding agreement between a prospective student-athlete and an institution in which the institution agrees to provide a prospective student-athlete who is admitted to the institution and is eligible for financial aid under NCAA rules athletics aid for one academic year in exchange for the prospect's agreement to attend the institution for one academic year.” (NCAA.org)

If a player signs this letter they are committing to the college that they sign with. Although it said that if a player signs this letter they must college there are ways out of it.
• If the coach that you sign with leave you are able to opt out of your contract.
• If your not legally binded up until national signing day, because up until that point it is a verbal commitment and nothing more.
After the player finally gets thought the recruiting process and commits to the University depending on the season; depends when you will show up for the fall semester. The athlete then begins to practice. A typical college athlete has a workout routine on top of his/her regular team workout. They will usually have a certain time to be in the gym with the trainer. The trainer will guide them in what kind of workout they should have for their sport. The trainer will also assist with spotting and stretching.
When an athlete is not in season they typically workout for about four to five hours depending on the particular day with usually only one day in the week off. Each freshmen athlete is required to participate in study hall. This makes sure that all of them are not just concentrating on their particular sport, but on their studies as well. It allows them quality study time.
All in all there is a great step that student athletes must take from becoming a high school student athlete to becoming a collegiate athlete. They must go through the recruiting process while trying not to break an array of rules. Then way these students do get to college, they have a very difficult schedule with very little time to themselves. They must find the correct balance between work, sports, and fun.