FOREWORD BY: TOM LEMMING
ATHLETES
WANTED
CHRIS KRAUSE High School Edition
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FOREWORD by Tom Lemming
the process, teaches families how to realistically assess their child’s level of talent, and provides a roadmap for taking full advantage of the educational and life benefits that can be earned through sports. Chris founded the National Collegiate Scouting Association with a passion for turning dreams into realities and leveraging athletics to create amazing opportunities for education and life. Since its inception, NCSA has become the leader in matching college coaches with qualified high school student-athletes. The NCSA identifies talented athletes, verifies recruiting data, and provides enhanced highlight and skills streaming video to college coaches from more than eighteen hundred colleges and universities in twenty-five sports. Currently, more than ten thousand NCSA studentathletes are playing sports at a collegiate level, and more than ten thousand college coaches use recruiting information from NCSA’s verified scouting reports every month. The information gathered from these studentathletes, coaches, and their relationships with one another has become the cornerstone of the educational content featured at high school Recruiting Simplified talks, as well as at the nation’s top camps, clubs, and combines for prospective college athletes. Within the pages of this book, Chris reveals and expands on this information, providing a complete guidebook to winning academic scholarships and life opportunities through sports. Chris Krause knows from personal experience the value of successfully blending athletics with academics. As a kid, he spent summers on the swim team, autumns playing football, winters on the court, and springs playing Little League baseball. He watched neighbors win state championship games and scholarships for Division I college teams. Chris wanted this, and more. In the fourth grade, he set his sights on playing sports at the highest level possible. Boarding his first airplane in 1984, Chris had no idea that the recruiting trip to Nashville would result in something better than a professional athletic career: a full scholarship to Vanderbilt University, totaling more than $100,000 in education, board, books, and fees (the 2009 equivalent
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of more than $200,000). Chris chose Vanderbilt University over Northwestern, Iowa State, and the Air Force Academy because Vanderbilt offered him a full scholarship and an opportunity to play in the football-crazy Southeastern Conference. But while Chris had a big heart and a lot of ambition, he realized early that he would probably not go on to play professional football as he watched several stars of his team get drafted to the NFL only to be cut early in the season. Nonetheless, Chris knew that football was a vital part of his collegiate path. He also knew that it was the means to an end: a meaningful college degree through athletics. His football scholarship meant that Chris could receive an education from one of the top twenty-five academic universities in the nation. Sports took Chris from a blue-collar town to one of the world’s most prestigious universities, but this is not where Chris’s story ends. Chris owes much of his life to sports and the intangible traits that separate an athlete from the crowd. Because of baseball, track, swimming, basketball, and football, all sports he competed in as a child, he carries with him the brand of the student-athlete: work ethic, character, dedication to goal-setting, fair play, accountability, achievement, leadership, prioritization, time management, and teamwork. His experiences as an athlete guided him to find and build the nation’s largest collegiate scouting organization and start a non-profit educational foundation that helps high school coaches and student-athletes understand the recruiting process and empower student-athletes to continue in college, especially those from at-risk and underserved communities that lack recruiting educational resources. Chris has traveled the globe through his athletic affiliations. Sports have taken him around the world and to once-in-a-lifetime experiences that reflect the awesome power of the wanted athlete. His sports network has enabled him to attend post-game NBA championship celebrations, sit in an owner’s box at the Super Bowl, and receive a backstage, all-access pass with the Rolling Stones. Sports have enabled him to participate in flight training on the USS Ronald Reagan in the Pacific Ocean and to tour the Middle
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East watching one of his student-athletes from the Robert Taylor Homes of Chicago live out his dream of playing professional basketball. Perhaps more importantly, he graduated from college not a penny in debt. Because his parents saved the money they set aside for Chris’s college education, his parents were able to help fund his sister’s education. Chris was not an exceptional student, nor was he an exceptional athlete. Yet he has had exceptional experiences. He owes much of them to sports. His background as a student-athlete transferred into so much more than just a college education. Sports have been his personal backstage, all-access pass to foreign countries, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and powerful networks of people and opportunities. Chris was fortunate to learn the rules of recruiting so that he could play the game successfully. Many of his high school classmates, who were better students and athletes, were not so lucky, abandoning their dreams of athletic scholarships when college coaches failed to take notice. Each year, I log fifty-five thousand miles traveling to almost all fifty states in search of the nation’s top two thousand football players. For every one player I look at, thousands of others covet a spot on my All-American team. Some of them will never make the list simply because I have not heard of them. Others are good, but not good enough to be considered the best of the best. Unless they do their own recruiting, homework, and promotion, these other football players will likely never be offered a college scholarship. And this just considers football players. What about the athletes who play soccer, baseball, volleyball, basketball, tennis, golf, hockey, or lacrosse? What about the swimmers and the runners? Who will find them? Over eighteen hundred colleges and universities offer athletic programs. With fewer than 1 percent of high school athletes receiving full Division I athletic scholarships, one thing is certain: Student-athletes and their parents must be proactive and involved in the recruiting process if they hope to earn a spot on a college team. The good news is that 80 percent of all college athletic opportunities are outside of Division I programs. This
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book explains how to seize these opportunities and substantially increase a student-athlete’s chances of continuing an athletic career in college. This is the ultimate resource for athletes and their families. Part instruction, part inspiration, Athletes Wanted provides hope for maximizing athletic scholarship and life potential. Players cannot rely on luck—the chances are simply too slim with too much competition and too much at stake. An athlete must devote as much hard work and effort to the game of recruiting as he does to his sport. Athletes Wanted teaches parents, athletes, and high school and club coaches where to look for opportunities, how to initiate conversations with college coaches, and what everyone’s role is in the recruiting process. No doubt, this is a monumental task. To win the game of recruiting, student-athletes must know the ins and outs of college recruiting—no easy task, especially considering the process is constantly evolving. Within the pages of this book and corresponding website and interactive blog (www. athleteswanted.org), you will find invaluable up-to-date information, advice, and strategies for playing and winning the game of collegiate recruiting so that you are prepared and stay prepared for the journey ahead. Remember: This game of recruiting is more than a game. It is a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity. You cannot go back and redo this process. By reading this book and following these proven steps, you will never have to look back and wonder what if?
—Tom Lemming, author of Prep Football Report