Road to College Sports Is a Paper Chase

Joe Filson, a guidance counselor at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, thought he knew just about every registration form and trick of the trade to help students get into four-year colleges.

Then last spring, his son, John, a lineman for Anaheim Loara High’s football team, received offers to play college football. The Filsons quickly discovered they had a lot to learn.

Like so many student-athletes, parents and even school counselors who consider themselves well informed, the Filsons became aware that playing sports in college these days isn’t simply a case of showing up and strapping on the helmet.

The lengthy eligibility process can be a confusing labyrinth of NCAA regulations and individual college entry requirements that sometimes conflict with each other.

The process involves specific course requirements, core classes, qualifying test scores and, for those who desire to play Division I or II, registering with the Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse--which has the final, sometimes painful, word as to whether a student-athlete will play major college sports.

Slip up along the way and the chance of a lifetime may be lost.

“It was a time-consuming process,” Joe Filsob said. “There’s a real learning curve. If you’re a parent that has had two or three kids that, perhaps, have gone through this process already, you can gradually learn. But for a new parent, going through this can be bewildering.”

John Filson eventually chose Claremont-Mudd College, a Division III school, because he liked the idea of attending a small college, but not before he hired a professional service to help guide him through the paperwork. These services, which have cropped up in the last 10 years or so, typically charge $300-$1,500 to promote and guide prospective college athletes.

But what if you can’t afford that for a shot at your dream? Do your homework and don’t wait to get started, experts say.

“You have to start thinking about this no later than your sophomore year in high school,” said Jim Wachenheim, a former assistant football coach in charge of recruiting at the University of San Diego. He’s also a representative of the Online Scouting Network, a company that provides help to prospective college athletes.

“Way too many kids wait until the summer of their senior year [to plan for college].”

In a nutshell, to be eligible to play sports in college as a freshman, the NCAA requires the student be a high school graduate, have a grade-point average no lower than 2.0 on a 4.0 scale, a passing score on either the SAT or ACT, and passing grades in at least 13 “core” academic classes, such as math, science and English.

The score required on the SAT or ACT depends on the student’s grade-point average. Someone with the minimum 2.0 GPA needs a minimum score of 1,010 on the combined verbal and math sections of the SAT, or a minimum 86 combined score on the four-part ACT.

Someone with a 2.5 or better GPA would need an 820 on the SAT or a 68 on the ACT.

It is recommended that the tests be taken as early as possible after July 1 of what will be a student’s junior year, and he should continue to take the tests to improve his score, or at least until he gets a passing score, said John Dempsey, a regional director for College Prospects of America. His company, for a fee, will help a prospective athlete look for scholarships as well as obtain and process the necessary forms and applications.

According an NCAA student handbook, students can take the SAT as often as they want and submit their best score on each section--verbal and math--no matter when they achieved it.

Different colleges have different entry requirements, and students should learn what those are.

No later than the fall of their senior year in high school, students must register with the Clearinghouse if they intend to play at the Division I or II level. For a one-time fee of $18, the Clearinghouse is supposed to collect records of the students’ academic standing and forward that information to colleges where students have applied.

Started four years ago and operated by a private company contracted by the NCAA, the Clearinghouse has been criticized for slow and sometimes inept processing.

In perhaps its most famous case last spring, the Clearinghouse invalidated the SAT scores of former Santa Ana Mater Dei basketball player Schea Cotton, who planned to attend UCLA, ruling that Cotton improperly received special accommodations each of the three times he took the test. Cotton subsequently enrolled at St. Thomas More, a prep school in Oakdale, Conn.

According to Tustin High Athletic Director Al Rosmino, who has guided Times’ Glenn Davis Award-winning running back DeShaun Foster through recruiting paperwork, the definition and content of the 13 NCAA-required core classes isn’t specific.

“I don’t think the Clearinghouse has been as expedient as most at the NCAA thought it would be,” Rosmino said. “It’s a big hang-up for a lot of kids. Some colleges aren’t getting the right information and they eventually come back to the high school athletic director to get what they need to help a kid be eligible.”

Bob Oliver, NCAA director of membership services, said the NCAA is working with American College Testing of Iowa City, Iowa, which runs the Clearinghouse, to iron out the bugs.

“We grossly underestimated the amount of work involved in this process,” Oliver said. “The initial purpose was not to be reviewing courses, the purpose was to gather information and then render a decision [on eligibility]. It wasn’t supposed to be an agency that would have to review the courses that the high schools were submitting, but that is what it has become.”

Oliver said the NCAA is about to publish streamlined definitions of what the NCAA will count as a core class and will send it to 24,000 high schools. The NCAA has established a toll-free, automated telephone number (800-638-3731) for recruiting information.

Student-athletes should not expect coaches or high school counselors to know everything. Typically, coaches are just as ill-prepared as most parents to tackle NCAA rules and regulations. School counselors handle several hundred students, each with different needs.

Brande suggests students know their options and regularly visit their high school counselors. They may have information on additional scholarships available to athletes who plan to walk-on or are receiving partial scholarships, or what additional entrance requirements are needed at a particular school.

Division III and National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletic (NAIA) schools have their own rules, and many have more strict entrance requirements than many NCAA Division I and II institutions.

The NCAA publishes the Guide for the College-Bound Student-Athlete, which is free and usually available in high school guidance or counseling offices, or by contacting the NCAA in Overland Park, Kan. The guide provides information from core-class and grade-point average requirements to test-taking and rules about recruiting trips.

Wachenheim suggests prospective student athletes have a yearly planner to keep them on track so everything is completed on time during the sometimes hectic senior year.

Dempsey says ultimately prospective student athletes have the future in their hands.

“Bottom line, take care of yourself,” Dempsey said. “If you are capable of going to college, you should be able to figure all this out by yourself.”