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Sunday, June 1, 2008
Aiming for Scholarship
Greater Louisville, KY
By: Rick Redding
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Photo(s) By: submitted
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Athletes hoping for a college scholarship must be not only talented but visible to college coaches. The hard work pays off, however, with funds for college and a chance to play at the next level.
It wasn’t top of her mind at age 12, but that’s when Morgan Springer set out on her path to earn a college athletic scholarship as a volleyball player at the University of Mississippi. According to her mom, Cindy, Morgan began playing on teams in KIVA (Kentucky Indiana Volleyball Academy) when she was 11.
“We never thought about college until she got to high school,” says Cindy, who estimates the costs of Morgan’s volleyball pursuits at more than $3,000 annually. “We went to a lot of camps and did a lot of traveling, and got to know college coaches.”
Morgan is a senior at Mercy Academy who’s been playing her sport at the highest level for several years. Whether it’s practice, working out or just spending time in the gym, she spends time every day working on her skills as a defensive specialist.
Her older sister, Molly Alvey, 29, took a similar path during her high school years in Louisville, and now she’s the associate head coach at Ole Miss. She recruited Morgan, who chose to play at Ole Miss for her sister over an offer from Tennessee.
“She loves the challenge, and always has wanted to compete at the highest level,” Cindy says.
Up until her sophomore year, Morgan competed in multiple sports, but after an injury, Morgan decided to focus on volleyball, and made it a year-round commitment.
In volleyball, that means the KIVA competition starts in the fall with tryouts, then time spent on a traveling team from January through July. High school practice starts then, with the competitive season running through October.
Increasingly, high school athletes who aspire to compete on the Division I level, no matter what the sport, have to do a lot more than show up for practice and games. Many require individual instruction in their sport and separate workout programs to gain speed, strength and agility. Multiple-sport athletes have become a rarity, as almost every sport requires year-round training and practice.
One of those training programs is The Edge Sports Conditioning, operated by Tony Duckwall, a certified sports trainer who works with the Louisville Fire arena football team. He employs 8 to 10 trainers now in the business he started 10 years ago. Today, The Edge has as many as 300 athletes in the program at any one time.
“There are a lot of factors involved in whether a young athlete earns an athletic scholarship,” says Duckwall. “Their sports skills have to develop, there’s academics and athletes have a God-given set of skills. If we can help an athlete run faster and improve strength, it helps everything else.”
Prominent trainers, including Fire coach Tommy Johnson and former University of Louisville football player Craig Swabek, are among the members of The Edge’s training staff. There’s also a nutrition specialist and a yoga instructor. Duckwall adds that The Edge often helps injured players get back to action more quickly.
This kind of off-season training, especially, is becoming more popular as entire schools have begun enrolling their athletes in training. Duckwall said all of the athletes at Ballard High School are in his program. He says dozens of athletes who train with him have earned college scholarships.
Johnson, the Fire coach, says that athletes as young as 10 years old come to The Edge for help, all the way up to professionals playing for the Fire. Sessions generally cost between $250-$350 for 10 training sessions.
“We can help kids get faster, quicker and stronger in general, which prepares them for all different sports,” Johnson says. “A lot of them get a little something to get them over the edge and get that scholarship offer. They’re self-motivated kids.”
Johnson says the young people he works with are rarely pushed into the program by parents, but instead motivated by a desire to get better.
Of course, the changing landscape and competition for academic scholarships has led some to turn in another direction for help.
A year ago, Ernest Kobiska was seeking a way to get his son, a Seneca sophomore baseball player, noticed by college coaches. He found a national organization called The Recruit Network (CHECK NAME-I thought it was Recruit Sports) that works with young athletes and their families to market themselves to college coaches.
Kobiska became a regional representative for the company. Today he’s working with more than a dozen athletes, exposing them to college coaches via letters, videotapes and phone calls.
“I know exposure is the best way to get an offer,” he says. “I chose to contact the company to help my son, and obtained the Indiana and Kentucky areas for the national company.”
Kobiska spends a lot of time these days scouting high school athletic events, offering his services to promising young people who know it may take some marketing effort to land a scholarship offer.
“Our goal is to get exposure for our kids and a college scholarship offer,” says Kobiska. “95 percent of the kids we work with get offers.”
That means, of course, that Kobiska must be careful when choosing his clients. He says he works with kids whom he’s personally seen play, or those who are recommended by their coaches or athletic directors. Kobiska sends the athlete a letter, though his school’s athletic director, to set up an initial meeting.
Families pay a one-time enrollment fee to get in the program, and Kobiska produces a profile that is sent to thousands of college coaches. He often includes a videotape that is available to coaches online. Athletes can get a profile for as little as $100, though Kobiska says a typical family will spend $1,000 or more for various services.
Once Kobiska gets his athletes noticed by a college coach, his work is done. He doesn’t get involved in school visits and offers, though the RecruitZone.com website offers young athletes loads of advice in areas such as college visits, academic requirements and NCAA guidelines.
The question asked in an extensive series of articles in the New York Times this spring was this: Is it worth it? Is it worth all the expense–the travel, the weekend tournaments, the thousands of dollars spent on coaching and training? For the Morgan Springers of the world, is it worth the hours required of a Division I athlete to get a supposedly free college education? The Times article profiled athletes whose college careers were so focused on sports that they missed out on important aspects of college life. Some said playing a sport was more like a job than a game.
Most high school athletes would tell you the resounding answer is that the college scholarship is worth every drop of perspiration. That’s because most of those good enough to earn a scholarship enjoy playing the game, are motivated and relentless when it comes to preparation, and can’t imagine life without the required year-round, daily devotion to their sport.
Bio: Rick Redding is a Louisville freelance writer and he runs the website The 'Ville Voice (http://thevillevoice.com).
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