1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - All parents don't know how the recruiting process works: May 26th, 10:30am

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

Knowing how much work needs to be put in is not known by every parent with athletic childrenAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You're listening to One-on-One with DP. Sponsored by Beatrice Bakery on 93-7 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Welcome back, one-on-one. Barry Thompson, brought to you by Ambris and Electric. Barry, so as we help parents and athletes understand this process, and I were just talking about it on the break, that a lot of this is new news. the assumption is that parents know how all of this stuff works.

And it's just not true. Like I know that my mom didn't know how to process me through, how to get me through the process. Like she didn't say, she's like, well, where are you going this weekend? Oh, I'm going to Richmond. Why are you going there? I want to play baseball there. Well, why don't you go there and play football?

That's not how that works, Mom. Can't really go through it, right? When the reclassification people show up, right? the reclassification people show up and say, hey, listen, mom, we think if he, you know, because it's just two days, so they'll give him a pass. He could play and he could graduate in the class of 81. Well, Barry can tell you, if I had played in a class of 81, it's an entirely different world. It's an entirely different world. But what I did instead was, I spent three months at a juco.

And the juco said, you're not going to be here long. you're going to end up at the big house because of the work you've put in here. Right. And my body changed and otherwise, and then I explained to Rico, yeah, but if I had stayed, if I had reclassified or if I stayed, the 20 pounds of muscle that I put on that summer would have took me to Virginia Tech to play wide receiver instead of playing center field. Like all of it changes.

So if we talk about the Juko route. So let's say it's a high school junior. And they really want to do it and the parents want to be supportive in it. They have opportunities. Again, they can reclassify for whatever way, right, in whatever space you can. If you can't do that, the next option is prep school, right? The additional year where there's that. And then there's the other option of getting in, as you said, getting in the club,

getting in the club and then doing work once you're inside the club. Right. I'm not an expert in this, but just to tell you, when you leave the prep school zone and you cross over to the Jukos side, that is a different world. And just as you have to be very collective and understanding what you're getting yourself into, not all Jukors will build the same. No. There's fans out there who have probably are familiar with the show Last Chance You.

There's a reason why they came up with that name from a football perspective. And I can tell you, and if people remember back to year one where there was a fight on the sideline with Mississippi Delta, Guy Myers was on that sideline. It turned out the Mississippi Delta wasn't what he wanted. You know, he moved on to Neo. Right. And when you enter that Jucco world from football perspective, one of the things that you have to understand is that it's not just you at any moment,

what they call a drop in. A guy from Clemson might be having great problems, or he's find out he's too stacked up behind guys. And to get some experience, they drop him down to Juko, he drops in. All of a sudden, that guy is going to play, right? And so how do you handle that stuff? money and how money is allocated. They have different ways that they can allocate money for out-of-state people or in-state people.

And those coaches aren't shy about threatening to take your money away if they don't think they're getting out of you what they need to get out of it. So the Juko Road is not for everyone. But if that's what it's come down to, all I can say is be really selective about where you're going. and you better, which F word you say earlier, you better be focused. You better be focused

because there's likely to be a few barriers that are in your way. Some Jukos stories, you're like they don't even have a real access to real practice facility or they do. They have to practice at 11 o'clock at night sometimes

because it's a shared space with a high school and that's the only time they can get on there. So that is not an easy route. The guys who make it from that route, so however, are extremely proud of what they did to get to where they need to be. So that's the Ducco route. I think in some respects, you want to try to avoid it.

And in other respects, like it was in your case, it might be, might be the stepping stone for you. But the percentages kind of go down as to how that's worked. But either case, you better be focused. You step into the J-Go program. Because you're only there for one reason. That is to get to another level. That's the only reason you're there. Well, I mean, as I said, it's you getting in the club, right?

I mean, I had guys, you know, our high school program was elite. And there were guys who were being drafted high in the Major League draft. There were guys who were all going Division I. As a matter of fact, all eight of the position players, seven of the eight of position players had D1 offers. And when people talk about the six percent, Well, we took a huge chunk of that for the state of Virginia. Like, we took a huge chunk, and we were sending guys to every major program. The difference was, for me, I needed the three months to focus.

Yeah. I needed the summer months to focus and to hear different voices, and then to see, one, to get in a space where I was playing in July against college seniors, I needed that. I needed to know how much harder I had to work. I needed to know how much they cared. I needed to know what the differences were, and not everybody gets that opportunity.

I needed that. And it's not for everybody. We have a question, if a kid forfeits playing his senior year of high school, what routes can they take to still get recruited for college? I'm going to give that one to you because I think, Well, because the first thing I want to say is remove the phrase never say forfeits a year of play. Yeah, let me answer that. I'm going to go back a little bit about just recruiting in general and maybe help some of the listeners that are going to this process that may not understand it.

First of all, it's never not double negative, triple negative. It's not good if you skip a year of football. Right. It just, the way people look at it, I'm not saying it's right or wrong. maybe the year would be the best thing for you. But just understand that if that happens, you're going to have to answer some questions, right? And then there may be some people just automatically dismiss it.

It's not a thing that can't be overcome. But it's just a hole in the resume. If you think like a job, you know, you had a resume and all of a sudden there's a year where you don't work, that somebody's going to ask some questions. It's the same thing with sports. And so that's that. Let me say something about recruiting.

And this is specifically to the people that aren't being recruited. This whole conversation is about people who aren't being recruited. All right. So I think the first thing that you need to understand if you're not being recruited is that the recruiting marketplace is spectacularly inefficient. It's a complete opposite of DoorDash or Uber Eats or whatever you use, where you're hungry, you scroll through some pictures. There's all these people out there ready to make you food, and you hit a picture, you press the button, and suddenly that person will get the food to your house.

And generally, it looks like the picture and tastes like you think it would take. Recruiting is just the opposite. There's all these schools out there who don't know that you exist. Why? Because they don't have a mechanism or the resources to get to your area, explain who they are, and then, you know, overcome your top three choices, which were, you know, within, you know, within your area. Explain who they are. And then, you know, overcome your top three choices, which were, you know, you know, within 20 miles.

But they're there. So it does take work to kind of understand what is the sample side of the colleges that would be looking for me. And that involves a few keystrokes. Find out that height and weight and expand the sample size. You'll find that there's probably 200, right? 150 rosters out there that have a 510, 220 linemen out there. Not just one, but you know, 150. All right, start sending your stuff with this 150.

I guarantee you're going to get responsive. Not all they're going to respond. Some are. Now, just by doing that, now you've got something you can aim at. Right? Now, the next thing is, the next analogy is dating. They're over there. You're over here.

Who's going to make the first move, right? Yep. You've got to express to them that you have a sincere interest in their program. Just like dating, the pretty girl can be over there, And you're looking at her, and she's looking at you, but until somebody walks across the room and says, hey, my name is, ain't nothing going to happen. And so you got this universe, you found it.

Okay, let them know, here you are. You're interested in their program. They'll say, hey, we're interested in you. Right? And then it goes from there. It gets less confusing if you follow those simple steps. It really does. I think it's important to have those discussions.

Because right now, I mean, their parents were, looking for their sophomores and juniors and the rising seniors what to do and it's just an empty vacuum and you're hearing the stories of all recruiting not understanding it you have other ways you have other means you have other accesses and then it's focus yeah i'm sorry deepie you got me going so yeah if you're a sophomore or going into junior and you're not being recruited then I'm going to tell you you have no business or very little business going to an FBS program camp. Go to that camp if you want to and it's your dream and you're going to get a big kick out of it, but don't go to that camp expecting to be recruited.

What you need to do if you're not being recruited is to go find a program where your height and weight is on there, at your position. You need to go to those camps. You go to those camps, I guarantee your recruiting is going to start, right? So it doesn't mean you don't go to this through your dream school that's a big FBS program. You can do that. But if I'm going to allocate my resources and time during the summer, I'm going to heavily wait to the places where I know I'm going to most likely get

a feedback from a coach. And then I'll do some over here. My goal is to see you're recruited, not just brag about what camps I went to, then God, fly dog, open up your computer, put in D3.com, put in D3.com, put in D2XF, put in FCS, find it, find it, find it, right there, the information, every roster is right there, find your height and wait, starts in your stuff at school, you'll start learning. And the best thing about that, DECD, is when the kids do this, they start expanding and start thinking, how far away do I want to be from home?

hey do I like that place? Did they have my major? Hey, can I get into that school? How many girls are there? How many guys are there, right? Is this in the town? Is it in a city? I don't want to go out.

You know, I don't want to be out of the country. You know, you start doing those things that every college student should do, and you're really increasing the probability that you're going to land out of the place that you really like, no matter if you're playing football or not, which is what you ultimately need to do. Well, the other side of this thing, Barry, before we go to break. My grandmother said it, baby, I know you want the fancy car, but you don't have fancy car money. Sometimes you got to know what your bank account allows you to do,

and sometimes you've got to know where your bank account is wanted. We'll throw the break. When we come back, Barry, tell us, what do we eat? We'll do that next here on the ticket. Watch live on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitch. You're listening to One-on-One-on-One with DP on 93-7 The Ticket and The Ticketfm.com. I mean