Posted by Jon Fugler on Thu, Feb 04, 2010 @ 10:40 AM
Once again, National Signing Day hit like a hurricane yesterday. Here are some of the sites worth visiting that give you the lay of the land for football:
Huffington Post Blog
ESPNU 150 (Top 150 Football)
Sporting News
Posted by Ron Johnston on Fri, Nov 13, 2009 @ 09:51 AM
Wow. 10 Clovis West High School athletes signed Letters of Intent at an on-campus ceremony on National Signing Day (Wednesday Nov 11). And 8 of the 10 were female athletes in volleyball, basketball and golf - a testament to the success of Title IX opening up opportunities for women in sports.
Watch the video below, and you'll see the girls and their proud athletic director talking about this being the culmination of a lot of hard work that's paying off by paying for college.
This is only the Early Signing Period. Let's see who else from Clovis West (near Fresno, CA) gets added to the list during the regular signing period.
Posted by Jon Fugler on Tue, Oct 20, 2009 @ 05:23 PM
With the Early Signing Period coming up for most sports in less than a month (November 11-18), it's time to for a refresher on what this is all about and what it means to prospects.
The National Signing Dates are those periods of time when college coaches can sign high school seniors to a National Letter of Intent, which is explained by the NCAA:
"By signing a National Letter of Intent, a prospective student-athlete agrees to attend the designated college or university for one academic year. Pursuant to the terms of the National Letter of Intent program, participating institutions agree to provide athletics financial aid for one academic year to the student-athlete, provided he/she is admitted to the institution and is eligible for financial aid under NCAA rules."
The Early Signing Period next month includes basketball and most other sports. Excluded are Football, Field Hockey, Soccer, Track and Field, Cross Country and Men's Water Polo.
Once the Early Signing Period is over, coaches can continue to recruit but may not sign an athlete to a National Letter of Intent until the Regular Period, which varies depending on the sport. You can see the complete schedule for this year on the NCAA site.
What does it mean if you are not signed during the Early Period? Well, it probably just indicates you are not a blue-chip athlete, but by no means are your scholarship hopes dashed. There will be many more scholarships handed out during the Regular Period.
Continue to contact coaches and get on their radar. And, if you are already on their radar, build the relationships and pursue your scholarship dream.
Posted by Ron Johnston on Sun, Sep 27, 2009 @ 07:47 PM
You can get a rare peek at D-I football recruiting from an article in Boulder's Daily Camera. CU-Boulder's head coach Dan Hawkins revealed that he's playing this 2009 season with only 78 scholarship players - but not because he chose to. Nine of last year's scholarship players - plus a handful of walk-ons - didn't return this season.
His coaching staff is working hard to recruit up to the full NCAA limit of 85 scholarship players for next season, and Hawkins hopes his program is fully-loaded by February's signing day.
Posted by Ron Johnston on Mon, Feb 09, 2009 @ 05:24 PM
This year, as every year, there was lots of hoopla around National Signing Day - the first day an athlete can sign his or her National Letter of Intent. It fell on February 4 this year for football and five other sports, and there was an amazing amount of hype.
In fact, many colleges even scheduled press conferences to announce who they'd added to next year's roster. With all this press coverage, you'd have thought it was the NFL draft, not high school athletes committing to play at the college level.
One funny, but not-so-funny National Signing Day story. Kevin Hart, a small-town high school football player, called a school assembly/press conference to announce his choice of colleges and athletic scholarships. He showed an Oregon Ducks cap and a Cal Bears cap, and with much drama, finally put on a Cal Bears cap to indicate his choice. The whole school was so proud that one of their own had been recruited to a major D-I college.
Turns out it was all a fraud. He'd not been recruited by ANY college, and had just made it all up. Sad, because, though he may not have been D-I material, he was probably good enough to get legitimately recruited if he'd done the right things to get coaches looking at him and keep them interested. But that's another story; he's cooked his own goose now.
So what exactly is a National Letter of Intent?
It's every prospective student-athlete's dream - a letter they sign committing to play their sport for a year at a specific NCAA institution in exchange for an athletic scholarship and/or financial aid.
By signing, they take themselves off the market and all other coaches must then cease recruiting them. Since 610 of 622 NCAA D-I and D-II institutions participate in the National Letter of Intent, that pretty much covers all the schools that offer athletic scholarships. You can see more details on the National Letter of Intent and National Signing Day dates here.