College Athlete Graduation Rates on the Rise

The NCAA released its latest Graduation Success Rates and the news is outstanding!

• 79 percent of Division I freshmen student-athletes who entered college in 2002 earned their degrees, matching last year’s rate. The average Graduation Success Rate for the last four graduating classes is 79 percent, one percentage point higher than last year.   Both rates are the highest ever for Division I student-athletes, said NCAA Interim President Jim Isch.

• The single-year Graduation Success Rate for men’s basketball student-athletes rose from 65 percent for student-athletes entering college in 2001 to 66 percent for those who entered in 2002. Even more dramatic was the long-term improvement – up from 56 percent for the entering class of 1995 (the first year of data collection).

• Division II’s latest Academic Success Rate results show that graduation rates for Division II student-athletes continue to significantly exceed those of the general student body.  Student-athletes in the entering class of 2002 posted a six-year graduation rate of 71 percent as calculated by the Academic Success Rate, far above the 55 percent using the federal graduation-rate methodology that does not take transfers or nonscholarship athletes into account.  The 71 percent rate is steady from last year and up from 69 percent for the 1999 and 2000 classes. The four-year aggregate is at 70 percent – 80 percent for female student-athletes and 63 percent for males.

Hats off to the Student-Athletes, coaches, administrators, coaches and the NCAA for their progress!

November 19th, 2009 - by Brian Davidson

What is Fourth and Goal Ballers?

The concept of Fourth and Goal Ballers began in early 2009. There was a high school football player, whom I never met, from my home town that was a very good player and no colleges were recruiting him. I did a little research and discovered that his coaches were not trying to assist him in playing football at the next level. I was disgusted. Here is a kid that has come to practice for a coach for the last several years, and good enough to play football on the college level, and his high school coach can't even make a phone call and ask a college coach to come and evaluate the kid? I knew the talent level in the town, even though small, and I knew that I had to do something.  I knew that we had gotten off to a late start, because college coaches begin identifying college prospects as early as their freshman year of high school and here we are at the end of the kids senior year of high school. However, I believed this kid could play and just deserved an opportunity to play. So, my video team made him a highlight video and we sent it off to several hundred college coaches. When I began to hear back from the coaches, I knew I was on to something. Even though many of the schools were out of scholarship money, the coaches were impressed with the kid's athletic ability. Finally, after several weeks of emailing and calling college coaches, he got his first scholarship offer from a NAIA school in Oklahoma. They offered to pay for his out of state tuition and with the money he received from Pell Grant, he was getting all of his education covered! 

I had graduated from my high school in 1991 and went on to play football at a Division II school my freshman year. One of my teammates and myself were the first players to sign football scholarships in many years in our town. However, our talent level had never changed and it still has not. We always had talented players, the difference was we finally had a coach who was an advocate for his players. The thought of playing football in college never even crossed my mind until he approached me midway through my senior year. He made some calls to a few schools and my recruiting process started. The following year, our high school had 3 Division I prospects. The year after that, they had the best defensive back in the state and a finalist for Mr. Football in Alabama. This kind of talent was coming from a small town with 3 traffic lights! I had taken for granted having high school coach who was proactive in  getting his players recruited. The years after he left, the number of players signing scholarships steadily declined. Until now, they have 4 major college prospects and several small college prospects. The difference now, is that the players are getting their highlight videos done and sent off to college coaches earlier in the process.

I had grown tired of hearing of countless high school athletes who never got the opportunity to play sports at the college level. As I began researching athletic services, I discovered that there are companies that charge exorbitant amounts of money and may or may not be good at achieving results. I  realized there was a real need for a quality, cost effective service that helps student athletes market themselves for college scholarship opportunities. I have always possessed a passion for football and helping others. I knew that many high school coaches don't know where to begin themselves when it comes to recruiting. I knew that contacting colleges and coaches can be extremely cumbersome. I knew that football was some of these students only means of getting an education. I knew that many of these kids had come from disadvantaged backgrounds. I knew that these kids would need mentoring throughout their college careers. I knew that these kids would need assistance with preparation of admission packets and financial aid forms. I knew that most parents don't understand all the in's and out's of the recruiting process. I knew that many of these kids were left to fend for themselves after their high school coaches had used up their eligibility. In football terminology, I knew it was "FOURTH DOWN AND GOAL TO GO!"

I put together a team of former college and profession players who shared my vision for seeing high school athletes continue playing at the next level and graduate from college.Our years of college and professional playing and coaching experience, knowledge of the recruiting process, and our personal and professional contacts with college coaches is what separates us from the other recruiting services. We take pride in working to hard to gain top sports scholarship offers for our student athletes. We don’t guarantee them scholarship offers. However, we ensure that hundreds of college coaches will view our athletes' profile and view their videos. As former college and professional athletes, we know exactly what coaches are looking for, and developed a database of every coach, in every sport, at the NCAA FBS and FCS Subdivisions, Division II, Division III, NCAAJC, and NAIA levels. We provide a full range of services that will guide our athletes throughout the entire recruiting process and maximize results. No other recruiting service in the country offers every thing we offer for the prices that we offer them. 

We are different from other sports recruiting services, in that, we are a non-profit organization. That means, when people use or support our service, they also help athletes who come from disadvantage backgrounds get to college and graduate from college. Our services will always be high quality, cost effective, and TAX DEDUCTIBLE. 

Division 3 Does Offer Scholarships, Just Not Athletic

NCAA Division III Athletics is the largest division consisting of 443 member institutions. Division III schools are not permitted per NCAA rules to give scholarships based on athletic ability, but that does not take away from the level of competition. Many D-3 programs offer tremendous environments for not only learning but also college athletics. For example, an ESPN poll ranks the rivalry between Hope College and Calvin College, both small liberal arts D3 schools in West Michigan, as the 4th best rivalry in all of college basketball. That says a lot about the environment those two teams compete in.

D-3 schools are typically small, private, Liberal Arts colleges. In many cases they are old schools with a storied history and beautiful little (secluded) campuses. While many have excellent academic curriculums, they are limited in their offerings - at least compared to the larger universities. If you are planning on a degree in restoration of historic churches, you probably don't want to go there.

On the other hand, if you are looking, for example, for a solid foundation for law or med school many of these schools have a lot to offer. Unfortunately, due to the fact these schools are private; they are forced to charge higher tuition. As mentioned above, these schools are forbidden by NCAA rules from offering athletic scholarships. On the other hand, they are perfectly capable of offering an academic scholarship to a high school athlete with a good GPA and/or a high ACT/SAT score. Because they are mostly private schools with rather high tuitions, these colleges recognize that they must offer some financial assistance to entice student interest. Many have this ability because they are older schools and are heavily endowed. In any case, if you are good student and a good, but not-necessarily-professional-caliber athlete, these schools may be just what you are looking for. Keep in mind that when these schools offer scholarship money for academics they also are looking for students who will give back to the school by participating in activities or playing a sport. As we said earlier on in this tutorial however, an athlete cannot make the decision in his or her senior year to go after aid based on academic achievement. This has to start with the freshman year in high school. One last interesting fact about D-3: by not offering college scholarships D-3 schools are able to offer more sports and teams. For example, a lot of D-3 schools will offer a JV team, which not only offers more athletes the option to play college sports, it also offers the ability to season yourself before making the jump to the Collegiate Varsity level.

If you think D3 might be the place for you it is important to examine all avenues to divert the cost. There are several services online that help students find money for school that they otherwise might not be aware of. For example, FastWeb Free Scholarship Search , a Monster company, offers a no cost searchable database with something like 600,000 searchable scholarships. It is certainly worth the time of signing up. The same goes for Scholarships Experts and many other free services that only require a couple minutes to sign up but could turn out to be worth a lot more.

Be Realistic: Everyone is NOT a Division 1 Player!

NCAA Division II Athletics consists of 285 member institutions. These schools, while recognizing the benefit of college athletics to the college community, typically do not put the emphasis on sports (read: do not spend the money on sports) that most Division 1 schools do. Their facilities are typically not on par with the D-1 institutions and often they do not have the student body participation that their more famous D-1 brother-institutions have. This is not to say that the playing experience will not be a worthwhile endeavor, but rather that there may not be a three hundred member marching band leading you out to the field for your first game in front of a hundred thousand rabid fans.

The decision of a University Board to make their school a D-2 school may lead from a perceived inability to compete at a higher level (as in the case of a new or growing institution) or from a conscious decision to downplay the importance of sports in the college environment. It is not directly correlated to the size of the university - there are many large D-2 schools (larger than many of the D-1 schools) and there are many small D-2 schools that could conceivably drop to D-3. Just as some private schools like Notre Dame, Stanford, and Duke choose to compete at the D-1 level with only a fraction of the student body of a large public university, so many small schools choose to stay at the D-2 level. Regarding the quality of the athletic teams the D-2 coaches have scholarships to offer, although not as many as the D-1 coaches. The problem of course is in the "pecking order" that accompanies the recruiting process. Typically, the D-2 coach recruits only after the major and the mid-level D-1 coaches. Top notch athletes, especially those with professional aspirations, will obviously look for scholarships from high profile universities with excellent facilities and a high degree of national exposure. You will see few of them at the D-2 level. The mid-level programs will pick up the borderline cases and athletes that they feel were underestimated by the major coaches. After this the D-2 coach goes to work. They have the same opportunity as the mid-level coach to pick up an over-looked or underestimated athlete, but in general his picks are obviously more limited than the D-1 coaches who preceded him. But it's not all doom and gloom. In some sports, certain positions are harder to fill than others and D-1 coaches have a distinct advantage. In basketball, for example, high quality big men are always at a premium. The D-1 coaches quickly tie up all the available talent, in some cases tracking the players all through their high school careers. On the other hand, there is probably an over abundance of good guards in any given recruiting year. Even after the D-1 coaches have filled their need there are still quality athletes available. The D-2 coach is perhaps not as hampered in this area. For this reason, one will find the difference between guard play at a D-1 and D-2 school to be less than the difference between post players. [Note that this also may mean that a big man with even mediocre talent probably has a better chance of making it than a small man with a higher degree of athletic ability.] But the D-2 coach also has another opportunity to add quality players to his team.

Looking through a successful Division II program's roster you will often find several players who have transferred from Division I schools for personal reasons, location reasons, or more playing time. These players may be very close in ability to those playing for the D-1 program. For some it may be a case of them simply giving up their dream of playing professionally and no longer wishing to devote the time in a major program. Going back to our reasons for playing college sports, they drop from category #1 to say, #2, #3, or #4. These players offer high quality performance to the D-2 fan while fulfilling their personal need for financial aid toward a college degree. A last source of recruits for the D-2 coach is the Junior Colleges. Just as was the case with the D-1 transfers he will look for players who have given up on their D-1 and /or professional dreams. A player who is having difficulty getting noticed shouldn't overlook this avenue to a four year college sport career. Adding them to the mix of other transfers and high school recruits provides a reasonably high level of play in many D-2 programs.

There is a stigma attached to Division II athletics, that being that they are inherently inferior to Div-I. While this may be true in the general case it is not always true. Many Division II schools compete against and even beat Division I schools. In fact some Div-1 schools avoid playing their D-2 counterparts to avoid the possibility of an embarrassing upset. Several years ago we happened to witness a basketball game between a mid-major and their cross town rival. The game was going bad for the D-1 school until they threw in a 30 foot desperation shot to win in the last seconds. The D-2 school had clearly outplayed their opponent and the D-1 coach said so after the game. Sure the D-2 team finished the season ranked in the top 10 nationally. However, the D-1 school also ended up winning their conference and tournament titles and playing in the Big Dance. There they upset one of the major basketball power-houses before bowing out. They were clearly not a patsy. But at least that year, the difference between them and the D-2 school was very little.

The bottom line is that Division 2 offers an excellent path to achieving that college degree so long as you are not intent on pursing a career in professional sports. [In fact, a few professional players do come out of D-2 programs including some very fine ones - Ben Wallace and Charles Oakley come quickly to mind.] And while most of the D-2 universities are not as well known as their D-1 brothers, it some cases it is simply because they do field impressive sports teams that the uninformed public views them as "inferior universities. In fact, in our home state the third ranked school in the state is a NCAA D-2 school even though there are 7 NCAA D-1 schools that could have grabbed the top spots (if the NCAA category had anything to do with quality of education). In terms of an education this is clearly a reasonable option.

Fourth and Goal Ballers Inc "Offers One Stop Shop" for College Sports Scholarship Recruiting

SERVICES

Athletic Resume

Our college sports recruiting service can help you gain the scholarship you desire. More than 600 colleges offer sports scholarships at the intercollegiate level. Today's coaches do not have the time or money to find you; it is up to you to find the coaches. To get recruited, and win a college sports scholarships you MUST make yourself known to the college coaches. It does not matter how good you are if no one knows about you and your athletic ability. This comes by creating an athletic resume or profile. There are no "secrets" in the recruiting process. It is innovative marketing and plain hard work. We do for you exactly what you could do for yourself if you had the experience, expertise, and the time. We know what coaches are looking for and will build your resume accordingly.

We want to know all about you and your sporting ability before you make any commitment to our recruiting service. You can fill out our athletic questionnaire online from our Contact Page or you can download the forms and fax or email them to us. This information will help us build your scholarship resume.  We will talk to you about your dreams and aspirations, and work hard to make them become a reality. We believe that your success is our success. Most importantly, we will provide an objective evaluation of your athletic ability.

Once your resume is finished you will be given the opportunity to read and amend it before it is sent to the individual colleges. We will then individually send your personalized resume to several hundred college coaches in your sport, giving you every possible recruitment opportunity.

Personal Web Sites

Our mission is to promote high school athletes and assist them in gaining exposure to college coaches. We have endured the recruiting process first hand and we know how powerful a tool the internet can be in getting and athlete noticed. One key component of what we do is person web page creation. Your personal web page will be devoted to promoting the individual athlete while still making this service affordable.

We will use one of four website templates to upload both your academic and athletic information. Along with these, you may also upload numerous pictures and videos that will help establish an identity with college coaches. We decided to use High School Recruitment in response to the abundance of recruitment websites that require monthly service fees, few options to upload pictures and videos, and numerous advertisements that take away from the real objective of promoting the athlete. After we create your site, you can upload as many pictures as you like and you can update your stats as often as you like. You may become featured on the website’s homepage in order to help bring more attention to their profiles.

We also provide custom web design with flash media, digital effects, graphics, and music for those that desire this service.

Highlight Videos

In today’s age of recruiting, it is essential to have an excellent, well planned film to show college coaches. We have put together a video team of former coaches who know exactly what the college coaches want to see. Other services take little time to put together a film, thus hurting their prospects chances of a college coach watching more than a few plays. Our video team grades each play, its strengths and weaknesses, then finishes the film by putting it in a certain order designed to show different strengths and to minimize any weaknesses. We feel this process is unmatched and the results speak for themselves. 

Videos produced by our video team for the Class of 2009 spawned offers for each of the 21 players in which they promoted to colleges across the country. Most of which had little to no interest from college coaches before using their services. 

Once the evaluation is complete the final product will include many extras such as Zooming in to focus on the player’s ability and slow motion of certain parts of a play that is meant to show a college coach one of the little things that is so important to coaches (example- use of hands…..field vision…backpedal…etc).  The high quality video will individualize each player and show his or her strength in their most accomplished aspects of the game. Finally, when a college coach asks for a full game film. We have the ability to give it to them in minutes. 
 

Your high quality highlight video will be uploaded to YouTube for the world to see. We will upload your video to multiple recruiting web sites. Also, your video will be placed in our Locker Room, which is a site that can only be accessed for viewing by college coaches and recruiters.

Recruiting

After we create your resume and highlight video, we electronically send your athletic profile and video to over 100 colleges and 300 coaches. Next, we provide you the necessary tools to correspond with the college coaches of your choice. Then, we walk you through the recruiting process one step at a time by working with you with NCAA rules, recruiting rules, and letting you know the Do’s and Don’ts when communicating with college coaches to gain maximum results. At this time, we provide you with a recruiting handbook and a database of college coach emails for you to personally contact and update with your statistics and or achievements.

After the college coaches receive your resume and video, it will be up to them to contact you. You will receive emails, phone calls, and recruiting questionnaires through the mail. YOU WILL FEEL LIKE A SUPERSTAR with the amount of attention you will be getting but don't let it all go to your head. You must remain focused on your task. At that time, it will be your responsibility talk to the coaches personally and decide which school and program best suits your academic and athletic skill set. This is the time that leverage becomes important!

We take pride in walking our student athletes throughout the entire process. We make sure that you have every possible opportunity to play on the next level. We have an excellent working relationship with athletes, parents, and college coaches. We are very proud of the service we provide and enjoy getting to know talented athletes and their families everyday. Remember that we were once in your same shoes and can identify with your dreams of playing a college sport. As we said from the beginning, the best way to dramatically improve your chances of being offered sports scholarships is to become known to the people that count THE COACHES. If they don't know you, they can not recruit you. It’s that simple.

Personal Training

If it is your goal to play sports on the next level, you must train like they train on the next level. At Fourth and Goal Ballers, everyone trains like a professional. Whether you are a professional athlete seeking to perfect your game, a determined competitor looking for that extra edge, or an active student intent on achieving peak performance in any competitive or recreational sport, we can help. Our dedicated professional instructors can assist you in optimizing your athletic performance before, during, and after the season. We train everyone from an athletes to individuals who simply want to be in better physical condition. Fourth and Goal Ballers, Inc began with individual training. However, we welcome teams, groups, and individuals to join our training programs. We also encourage inquiries from coaches and trainers interested in off-site group programs and instructional seminars.  

Why Fourth and Goal Ballers Training?

Fourth and Goal Ballers training programs are designed not only to develop an athlete's physical potential, but to provide a fitness education that can empower an athlete for a lifetime. We start by maintaining a low instructor-to-student ratio in order to ensure the highest quality training for every athlete. Then, our instructors work with the  athletes both individually and as a group to develop and maintain the proper technique for every exercise. In this way, athletes not only build strength and confidence, but gain knowledge that helps create the foundation of athletic success.  

One of the unfortunate myths regarding the training of young athletes is the notion that  resistance training is either unsafe or unhealthy for younger adolescent and pre-adolescent athletes. Even though, medical and scientific studies  have proven that a properly managed resistance training program is safe and has no negative impact on epiphyseal (growth) plate development. In fact, young athletes who participate in a regular, well-supervised strength training program generally experience fewer and less severe injuries on the field than athletes who train improperly or not at all. 

The myths surrounding young athletes and strength training are usually based on reports of injuries incurred in the course of training.  However, such injuries are most often the result of poor technique. For this reason, Dr. Avery Faigenbaum, a leading researcher and practitioner in the field of youth fitness, states that "Unsupervised youth resistance training programs (at home or at school) are not recommended under any circumstance because of the potential for serious injury." Indeed, the real danger facing most athletes is improper training and a lack of physical preparation. 

A Fourth and Goal Ballers training session follows a unique and carefully structured lesson plan that is designed to provide balanced development while maximizing results.  Athletes work together yet progress at their own rate, gaining strength and knowledge that not only helps them achieve their full potential in the sport of their choice, but invests them with fitness tools that will benefit them for a lifetime. 

CALL US TODAY TO START YOUR TRAINING!

Mentorship

First, Fourth and Goal Ballers, Inc seeks to equip young men to become lifelong servant leaders in their communities and in the world. We partner with families to pursue and nurture excellence in the spiritual, academic, physical, and social growth of our students. We strive to transform an athlete’s heart as well as his or her head.

We will assist your child in realizing his or her dream of playing college sports by placing him in an NCAA or NAIA qualified school. Our goal is to encourage them commit to their education. Fourth and Goal Ballers dedicated staff work toward realizing your son’s dreams by stressing self-discipline, hard work, and dedication to their goals. The impact of Fourth and Goal Ballers, Inc on athletes can be life defining, and our students, in turn, will graduate from college ready to impact others.

We were once college athletes. We understand the difficulties that student athletes face in transitioning from high school to college. We are always here to provide a listening ear and solutions or suggestions when needed.