COLLEGE RECRUITING BY TED BENFORD

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Purpose of this Presentation•Share my experience of recruiting from the perspective of collegiate rowing coaches

•This is a survey discussion not a roadmap unfortunately – recruiting in rowing is not formulaic

•CRI will continue to engage our parent group with materials and information via presentations, web, coaches and others

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•Clubs: Three Rivers Rowing; Capital Rowing Club; CRI

•Collegiate Clubs: Boston College

•Division III: Duquesne University; Tufts

•Division I Lightweight: MIT

•Division I Heavyweight: Northeastern

•USRowing U23 Development Camp

•2007 & 2008 World Championships

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My Background

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I Talk

You Talk - bit.ly

I Talk

You Talkbreak out by class year for 15 mins

I Talk - discuss questions you want answered

You Talk - what didn’t you learn tonight that you’d like to learn more about

What I hope we Do Together Today

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A Quick Exercise•We want to learn what you want to know.

• Shoot us your questions to: Bit.ly/lecture1faqs

• Last 1/3 of the presentation will address these questions

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Recruiting Process

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What is a Boatlength - Intro

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•Men: It Looks Like this • Yale: 6:01.6• Wash: 6:04.3• Cal: 6:08.9

•Women: It Looks Like this• Cal: 6:14.9• Wash: 6:16.5• Texas: 6:17.8

2018 Men’s IRA Final – Winning time 6:01or 361 total racing seconds in the championship final

1 boat length in a race = approx 3 seconds (6:04)

Finishing 1 boatlength behind the winning time =

364 secs / 361 secs = .99175 or

about 1% Difference in Boatspeed

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What is a Boatlength - Thresholds

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•80% rule in Sports

•Collegiate Recruiting uses past results as a predictor for

future success of the recruit as

• A student - doing well academically matters

• An athlete

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College Recruiting is About Getting Faster

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Recruiting the “Body of Work” – how coaches generally understand recruits

•Athletic Capacity• 2K• 5K or 6K

•SAT / ACT

•GradesCRI

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What’s your Body of Work – the PME

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•Once basic thresholds are met, they move quickly into their future relationship with the recruit•Reliability•Honesty• Integrity•Good answers to hard questions

•Quick note about Social Media – They ALL check your SM

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What College Coaches Look for in Recruits

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•BeRecruited•NCSA•Questionnaires

o Be Complete and don’t skip the important trinity✓ Standardized Testing✓ GPA✓ Rowing Performance

•Other Bits – Show me your best, something greato They don’t recruit boatso Good Rowing Video helps and you should always get it.o Good news for Coxswains

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Where College Coaches Look for Recruits

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• Testing improvements and updates to Coaches

•How many times is enough to take Standardized Tests

•Grades say a ton about grit, commitment, thoroughness, and inform work ethic … off the water and on

• A few words about “reach” schools or stretching beyond your current capacity

•How much improvements increase chances for admission?

How Much to Focus on an Area of “Weakness”

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•Consider college consulting services

•Look at the National Championships for your schools

•Check the team website for race schedule and news, coach background.

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Get Familiar with

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Admissions Support

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• Academics – rowing is not more important, it’s just not less

• Your DNA – It’s gotta be a “match”

• “Playing and Practice Season”• Club Rowing• DIII• DII• DI

•What’s your BALANCE objective?CRI

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Primary Differences Between DI; DII; DIII and Club Rowing

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•Pre-reads•Likely Letters / Letters of Support•Coach Recommendation / Athletic flag•Early Decision support; Regular Decision Support

•Other• In most cases, coaches don’t “get you in”• Recruiting as validation for your search – being recruited is different than a

serious consideration of your college career

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Athletic Leverage for Admissions

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•Coaches have much greater leverage during early decision process• Demonstrated relationship• Helps balance classes• Applicant’s chances for admission are generally higher

• It’s helpful to apply Early but NOT REQUIRED

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Applying Early Decision or Regular

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• It’s Never too Late to find a great fit

• It can be too early to feedback from a collegeo If you’re young, the coaches might just not know what to sayo A word of caution to “future Olympians” – most likely you can’t make my

program faster

• Pushing the Rope – Do some basic checking about schools you’re talking tooo Speaking to CalTech; UVM and SUNY Manhattan tells a story o Know a quick bit about the school

✓ “So tell me about your program” … seriously? o Let your authenticity shine

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Application and Admission Process

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Financial Aid

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•Federal and State Aid (FAFSA)

•College / University Awards

•Local aid (rotary club; granting organizations, etc)

•Athletic Aid• Based solely on athletic performance. Not worthiness or effort

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Sources of Financial Aid for Athletes

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•State University

•Private University or College

• Ivy League

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Athletic Aid and Admissions

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• Combine aid so everyone has skin in the game:• Federal• University• Athletic• Parent• Loan

• This isn’t car shopping • If a coach makes an offer, he/she generally makes best offer first

• This is an important time to make a full family decision. • Parents welcome - seriously• A word of advice to family and recruit. Don’t stretch yourselves financially – erg testing

for scholarship is a recipe for disaster

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Most Scholarship University’s Build “packages”

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Let’s Connect

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•Arrange yourselves by age group or interest• Sophomore• Junior• Senior

•Aggregate your new questions about what you need to know

•We’ll reconvene in 15 minutes to review your top two or three questions

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Breakout! Let’s talk

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•Be patient

•Help them advocate for themselves

•NEVER call a college coach without your child on the line. (Better yet, let your kid place the call and add you on)

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How to Help Your Child

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•What didn’t we cover?

•Need more detail?

•Want more resources?

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Lots more out there, what’s next?

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