5 Things NCAA Needs From Players
1. Honesty
Please always choose to be honest when dealing with the NCAA. All the information you provide to NCAA has to be accurate, validated and easily able to be proved. If you are not honest and aware of the consequences, please be advised that your college playing career may come to an end before it even starts. I have personally seen talented players loosing their full athletic scholarships due to their lack of responsibility and incompetence of simply being honest. It is amazing how many facts you can quickly find about someone with a simple online search. Those players have lost over $200.000 in scholarship and the right to ever play at the college level. That’s why is very important to know what can you do to qualify and be a great fit.
2. Good Academic Grades
Keep up with all your high school grades and get good test scores on all your tests such as: SAT, PSAT and TOEFL (only for international students). A high GPA of your core classes combined with a good SAT score will make the admission process easier and it will increase your chances of obtaining an academic scholarship.
As you all know by now, you need good grades and test scores to play sports in college. NCAA has a specific sliding scale of what makes the grade and what doesn’t, and a list of classes that every student athlete must have taken in order to compete. Make sure to check out the NCAA Eligibility Center for the latest academic requirements. So don’t be left out on the bench and familiarize yourself with the new academic standards. Also, cheek out NCAA’s new opportunity page which I found it very helpful.
3. Amateurism Importance
What’s amateurism? Basically, it means you’ve never gotten paid to play sports, so you’re qualified to play in college. You have to prove you really are a “student-athlete.” Here’s the NCAA list of things that can potentially disqualify you from competing at the D1 and D2 college level:
- Contracts with a professional team
- Salary for participating in athletics
- Prize money
- Playing with professionals
- Trying out, practicing or competing with a professional team
- Receiving benefits from an agent or prospective agent
- Agreeing to be represented by an agent
- Delaying initial full-time collegiate enrollment to participate in organized sports competition
- Getting financial assistance based on athletics skills or participationIf you want to be a college athlete, don’t do any of this, is the bottom line.
4. Abide by the Rules, Regulations and By-laws
Besides grades and amateurism, there’s a whole list of rules the NCAA Eligibility Center has for student-athletes. And all the rules need to be explained to the smallest detail so there’s no confusion. You can easily find all this information in one place on the NCAA website: The Guide for the College-Bound Student Athlete. It’s a must-read if you want to play sports in college.
5. Register With NCAA
This is the easy part. You actually have to contact the NCAA Eligibility Center and register so they can verify your eligibility. As of 2015, the registration fee was $70 for U.S. student-athletes and $120 for international student-athletes. Register with NCAA on your junior year in high school.
If you have any further questions about playing sports in college and the eligibility center there are a number of ways to reach NCAA:
Online: www.NCAA.org www.eligibilitycenter.org
By phone: (877) – 262 1492 (if you live in the United States). (317) – 223 0700 (if you don’t live in the United States).
By mail: NCAA Eligibility Center Certifications Processing P.O. Box 7136 Indianapolis, IN 46207-7136 Source: NCAA.org