To Land an Athletic Scholarship, Teachers and Counselors Are the Best Resources to Use

For most student athletes, there are many more factors involved in finding and securing athletic scholarships than just the ability to play a particular sport. For the very best high school players, of course, the process is reversed – the colleges (and even the professional teams) come looking for you. But how can you, a capable but not nationally known athlete, use such resources as your high school teachers and counselors to land an athletic scholarship?

An important point to remember, and one that is often overlooked, is that you can use as many sources to pay for college as you can get. You do not need to have the proverbial “full scholarship” to defray your tuition and living expenses. You can put together a package of smaller scholarships and awards. This is where your teachers and counselors can be of tremendous help.

The Internet and the colleges you are interested in will provide a lot of information, but one thing they do not (and cannot) supply is the personal touch. That is, your high school teachers and guidance counselors have many personal and professional relationships to call upon for both assistance and “inside information.” With a referral to a college sports program, it is much easier to get the real lowdown on athletic scholarships. When you have the facts, you will soon be able to estimate your chances of getting a full scholarship, versus a lesser amount that requires you to get additional funding sources.

Guidance counselors, in particular, stay abreast of scholarship information, and can also put you in touch with admissions and sports program personnel at the colleges of your choice. The resources that you use in your efforts to land an athletic scholarship - teachers, counselors and others - can also be of assistance in supplementing any partial athletic scholarship with funding from academic scholarships, financial aid or a combination of these alternative sources.

It has been reported that athletes “are getting much less financial aid than they’re entitled to” because they only think about athletic scholarships and, consequently, miss the big financial aid picture. Fee-based services have even gone into business to help athletes penetrate both the athletic and other pools of money to get their college educations paid for.

Yet there is nothing that such services can offer that motivated, informed and focused students couldn’t do for themselves. An important point to remember is that athletes who have done well in school - getting good grades and participating in other extracurricular activities besides sports - actually have an advantage in vying for scholarships. They can pursue not only athletic scholarships, but academic ones as well, increasing their chances of getting all of their tuition, books and living expenses paid for by others.

High school teachers and counselors are arguably the best resources a student-athlete can use to land an athletic scholarship, and they’re close at hand. They know the education field and, better yet, they know other people working in it, all around the country, in all kinds of colleges and universities. It is their job to help, and for the best among them it is more like a mission or calling. They love helping young people who are getting ready, through hard work and serious study, to lead a positive, productive life in American society.

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