Article by Astrid Huang

The Case Study of Mountain View High’s Student Athletes The Journey of Recruitment for High School Athletes

By Astrid Huang

A

fter a long Tuesday, you sit down and put your feet up. Your hand reaches for the remote to turn on the television. With a flash, a news report comes on: “College Admissions Scandals.” 50 people have been involved in this alleged criminal conspiracy including parents, teachers, coaches, and test proctors; the majority came from California and targeted well-known universities like California’s Stanford, USC, and UCLA to Ivy leagues like Yale and Harvard. The news report shares more about how the big name colleges were involved with parents paying for their children’s SAT answers to be changed or listed as college recruits without no real record of them ever playing the sport. It all started with a man who goes by the name of William Rick Singer, now known as the “college admission fraudster,” who used his organization, Key Worldwide Foundation, The Edge College & Career Network, to run his lucrative scheme. Parents of the college applicants have been accused of wiring more than $25 million between 2011 and 2018 to Singer to help their children gain admission to distinguished competitive colleges. Shock

was the only expression on your face.

The college recruiting process has always been a tough one, so getting a head start is what the Americans with college degrees who have studied next to athletes often advise especially with it being so competitive. From world outside of the college recruited athlete application process, news articles, reporters, and “professionals” write about the process and how easy it just is. According to the NCAA, 7,300,000 athletes take the chance to play in college, yet only 492,000 play. This shows the slim number of athletes that actually make it from high school to college. It shows the pressure, the chance that high schoolers will actually make it into a college as a recruitment, and the hard work that must go into being recruited to be part of that 492,000. The process isn’t easy.

Parents usually say it all starts with good grades. Academically, students have to be ready to still study in college despite also playing a sport. Next, it is essential to create a competitive resumé to showcase skills and accomplishments of the athlete.

Asking for help also is helpful because it’s tough going Above: Mountain View High School gym

through the arduous process for the first time. Be open minded and taking everything that colleges send the recruit. It really helps with the process because the athlete can take in all the knowledge and have more options. First, let’s uncover the college admission scandal then let’s take a look at the raw faces of recruitment and their journey to becoming the next college athlete and not let the people who have been scamming their way into college stop them from reaching their goal.

“Operation Varsity Blues” is what the admission scandal has been renamed after the 1999 comedy, drama, sports film. The scandal was the largest-ever college admission prosecution that the Justice Department has uncovered.

Starting in 2011, William “Rick” Singer and his business, “The Key”, started helping parents bribe elite colleges to help their children gain admission, taking a total of over $25 million in bribes in the process. They have been known to follow two schemes. One was the changing of standardized test scores. The second was faking sports resumés to be listed as sports recruits for colleges. The first scheme is where test proctors were paid to changed change students’ standardized test answers to better their scores. The test proctor was Mark Riddell, a pro tennis player and a Harvard graduate. He would fill in the answer bubbles on test for students or change a couple answers to correct ones. Riddell didn’t change all the answers to make it less obvious that someone was changing the answers.

With his previous experience of taking the tests and getting a near perfect score on his test, he knew what many of the answers on the test were suppose to be. The second, the Key bribed college coaches with large amounts of money to put students as prospective student athletes for the college which guaranteed admissions. In most cases, the students didn’t even play the sport. Employees of the Key fabricated athletic resumés like taking pictures of them on sports training equipment, photoshopping a child’s faces on top of photos of other athletes, and making up results from events or matches. In one case, a father asked them to Photoshop his son’s face on to another athlete playing water polo. He went as far as going out to buy water polo gear to stage the photo. Coaches would receive those resumés and send them to admissions people for admissions to list the students as recruits for the college.

setter had a miscommunication and the ball ended up landing on the floor of their side of the court. But the good memories always outshine the bad. This game, Ethan had blocked three balls in a row. Being middle blocker, he must try to block all the balls coming from the opposing team so the balls don’t end up on his side of the court. Despite his great playing this game, it came down to game point. The setter set Ethan the ball and bam! Ethan had hit the ball straight on to the other side. Ethan had scored the game winning point. A highlight he will always remember.

He started caring about scholarships around sophomore year, which he says is usually a little early. With the skills and talents that he had displayed in games, Ethan believed that he had the skills to play in college. He started going to volleyball practices where they would take videos of him and send them to volleyball coaches.

Ethan started by reaching out to colleges. He emailed colleges and reached out to them. In emails, athletes usually states their name, their age, and what team they are a part of. Then they list their accomplishments and skills and interests they have about the school.

That’s often how the first email goes to get their foot in the door. From there, the coach and athlete talk about the athlete’s ability and skills.

It all started with a bump, a set, and a pass. From across the hall, anyone can see him towering over others with his 6’6” frame, yet when you talk to him, he is both nice and sweet, not a typical tall, scary, big egoed teenager. Ethan Makishima, a 16 year old junior in high school, is a student athlete who would love to play volleyball in college. He started playing with his father. He had little interests in volleyball but after “getting to pass the ball and stuff”, he thought it was really interesting. Sports come with griefs and triumphs.

Ethan recalls a time when he made a mistake in a game. It happen to be the game point. There was a pass but he and the The team getting ready for the next point

Then it could be sending back and forth conversations about the sport and here and there the athlete may include a highlight video, showcasing the skills of themselves in games or events, until the coach offers an official visit.

According to the Next College Student Athlete Association, sending a simple email isn’t enough to get a coach’s attention. A clear concise email with an attention-grabbing subject title will hopefully grab the attention of the coach and make them more likely open the email. The NCSA suggest that your subject line include your graduation year, your position, state, and a piece of

information that is interesting about you.

Interesting information could include a dash time, to an impressive SAT score, to the team you play club for, or an attachment of your next tournament schedule. Similarly to what Ethan said, when emailing a coach NCSA breaks it down into four sections: your general information, academics, athletics, and contact information. Often people follow their emails up a few days later with a call, so let the coach that is being contacted know at the end. An insider tip that NCSA includes is to turn on the “read receipt” function so you can see if a coach opens your email. The NCSA also has sample emails for both academic-focused and athletic-focused emails on their website.

As of now, he is reaching out to college coaches that he is interested in and seeing if they feeling the same way back. A helpful service that Ethan has found is the NCSA, which is a recruiting service. It includes highlight videos, statistics from games, pictures, a biography, and grades. The athlete can see when coaches view the account and they can send their link to their website portfolio to coaches. Ethan tries to keep communication going to show his interest and commitment. While he does that, he also tries to balance a good academic standing with being a

committed volleyball player. With his sight set mostly on studying computer science in college, he reaches out specifically to colleges that provide a computer science program. Right now, he is more focusing on school “because sport is like your hobby; it’s what you do in the meantime – but academics is more your career and actually helps you succeed.”

She started out with a swing on the

greens with her family. Being dragged into the sport by her family, she has now fallen in love with golf. Katelyn Lee, a 16 year old junior in high school, is a student athlete who would love to play golf in college. Katelyn becoming interested in playing in golf in college summer after her sophomore year. Colleges had started reaching out to her. She has had an amazing golf year with an appearance in CCS league finals, representing her school team.

Katelyn started receiving emails from colleges which now has turned into emails and phone calls. In emails, she talks a little bit about herself before saying that she is looking for a school with a good challenge in golf but mainly academics and lastly attaching her golf resume. Katelyn made a golf resume that has her golf scores and accomplishments along with her academics profile because she want to target schools with good academic standings. Whereas in phone calls, Katelyn is more finding out the team dynamic. “A big part of college golf is their environment whether it be more competitive or relax”, as she puts it. She,

in talking to the coach, is trying to find whether the golf team fits her and what she would like to play in college.

The NCSA also has information regarding calling college coaches. Their research found that an average college coach receives seven phone calls from recruits each week. A small number, it is a great option to do to stand out amongst other athletes. With phone calls though, be careful because there are certain dates that coaches can’t answer or return calls like D1 coaches can’t answer or return calls until June 15th after the athlete’s sophomore year or September 1st of their junior year.

The NCSA advise that you should practice and be comfortable on the phone prior to the call. Also, doing

research about the school and the program so you are more prepared for what they are looking for or what type of questions they could ask you based on the school’s reputation.

Calling a coach between 6-9pm when they are in season seem to work best but asking the coach for the best time is always the best option.

“Because sport is like your hobby ; it’s what you do in the meantime-but academics is more your career and actually helps you succeed.”

left: Mountain View High School right: Three volleyball players against the net

Katelyn is keeping her options open, especially since she hasn’t figured out what she wants to study and do in the future. To stand out in academically-strong schools that have a golf team, she believes that it is also about being herself, in her words, “It’s really to me about being yourself. It’s not just you wanting to sell yourself. The coach always wants to sell themselves to you and being yourself and seeing if you will be a good fit for the team.”

Tony Nardelli, a 17 year old junior in high school, is a student athlete who would love to play water polo in college. He always thought he’d be in the water, especially with his father and grandfather’s love for the water.

He started caring about recruitment the end of his sophomore year when he began reaching out to some colleges through email. He since has been in contact with coaches, visited some colleges, and been on two official visits. Along with that, college coaches have watched him play when he is in their area. His dad told him, “don’t depend well on water polo as your way into college over school.” School is Tony’s priority which is why Tony wants to major in engineering but coaches have told him that it is difficult to juggle both in college.

As for key parts of getting recruited, standing out is important especially for a small sport like water polo.

Tony is usually a captain or leader on his water polo teams, making sure that everyone is well-behaved in the water and out. He says he’s “like the coach’s right hand man.” To grab the attention of colleges though, players have to not only be good at the sport and academically fit.

When narrowing down colleges to apply to, not every college has a team. It also depends on the style of water polo you’d like to play in the future or what division you plan on playing. Once again, building a resume with water polo achievements, and academic information like your GPA or SAT score is also helpful in recruiting. With email, Tony typically writes who he is, where he is from, a little bit of background information, what club he plays for, his grades, and classes that he is taking. In addition, his interest on the school, what other schools he’s are looking at, and asking whether he can visit the school in the future. On official visits, he is flown out or driven to the college where he stays with the water polo team at the school’s dorm for two nights. The visits seemed to be for both the team and Tony to see if they are a good match. Along with that, Tony is given a campus tour and has an one-on-one meeting with the coach. There are other little factors

that coaches look for like personality, good work ethic, and connecting with the team.

These three student-athletes hold many mixed opinions about “Operation Varsity Blues,” especially because they have been working hard to be recruited as part of their dream college’s class of 2024. Ethan, the volleyball player, believes that paying to gain admission into college is very unfair. Working hard, it is very unfair to him that people are just paying to get into colleges. He says, “I’m trying really hard to get into a school through sports, while other people have advantages and exploiting them to get into certain colleges that they shouldn’t be able to

get into” (Makishima). Schools are just taking people’s money, not people who are working really hard. Katelyn, the golfer, believes that it is frustrating, she says that golf is a small sport, similar to the crew. Katelyn says, “Golf is one of those sports that no one pays attention to and something like this could happen to the golf team” (Lee). Katelyn is also working so hard to get recruited.

She plays almost every day and practices really hard to be able to swing into the future with her golf skills. Tony, the water polo player, was actually getting recruited to USC himself but since then the USC water polo coach has been let go due to this scandal. Tony thinks that it happens a lot. He says, “You probably won’t find a school in the US that doesn’t offer bribes. It’s just whether or not they’re going to get caught or not but I personally don’t have an opinion.” Recruiting Confidential: A Father, a Son, and Big Time College Football, David Claerbaut says Gen Z has become “‘What can you do for me?’ Quick outcomes, a weaker work ethic. It’s part of the computer age. You punch in the keys and get the answer. It undermines the learning process” (136). Claerbaut’s thoughts seemed to have foreshadowed this whole scandal as the book was published in 2003. Hopefully, these parents have learned from their mistakes after the college admission scandal in history. Along with that, appreciate the time, hard work, and effort that student-athletes are putting in to be recruited to play in college.

MVHS pool

About the Author

Astrid Huang is a junior at Freestyle Academy and Mountain View High School. She is a 17 year old and has a passion for design and marketing.

She loves exploring cities and boba places, hanging out with her friends, working, and teaching Sunday school to her kindergarteners. In college, she hopes to study industrial design and marketing. In the future, she hopes to design an interactive museum and a roller coaster.