Foreign.
Speaker AThe Hoop Heads Podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball.
Speaker BGoing to play D3 basketball is not the end goal.
Speaker BIt is a launch pad for the rest of your life.
Speaker BAnd I really think truly that the alumni network that you get from being a part of that team, the life experiences, the leadership, all the academic, all the internship, job experience stuff that comes with it sets you up better than any other level.
Speaker ACarl Barkley is the founder of D3 Direct, which exists to share the stories of NCAA Division 3 student athletes and explore their journeys from recruit to the real world.
Speaker AD3 direct is the go to source for info and advice on D3 recruiting, admissions and post grad ventures.
Speaker ACarl speaks directly to D3 student athletes and coaches to learn about their college experiences and share those takeaways through the D3 direct platform.
Speaker ACarl played his collegiate basketball at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania where he was a team captain for two seasons.
Speaker AAre you or an athlete you know Planning to go D3?
Speaker ACheck out the D3 recruiting playbook from D3 Direct.
Speaker ATheir playbook gives you a clear step by step roadmap to the recruiting process, what coaches value, key milestones from early high school through application season, and how to build a targeted list of schools that fit your needs.
Speaker AThe playbook demystifies researching D3 programs and how to stand out without chasing every camp or showcase.
Speaker AThe modules cover things like writing emails to coaches, building an effective highlight tape, using social media well planning camps and visits, and navigating application strategy.
Speaker AYou'll get templates, checklists and an outreach plan to communicate confidently.
Speaker ALearn how to compare financial packages and avoid common missteps.
Speaker ABy the end, you'll have a prioritized school list and a decision framework you can use to land your best fit opportunity.
Speaker AClick on the link in the Show Notes to get your D3 recruiting playbook from D3 direct.
Speaker BHi, this is coach Dan Decrane from.
Speaker AGilmore Academy and you're listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast.
Speaker AGive with Hoops is the first platform turning basketball analytics into fundraising impact.
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Speaker AVisit givewith hoops.com hoop-heads-podcast to learn more and take your fundraising to the next level.
Speaker AGive with Hoops Take some notes as you listen to this episode With Carl Barkley, founder of D3 Direct.
Speaker AHello and welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast.
Speaker AIt's Mike Lindsing here without my co host, Jason Sunkel, tonight.
Speaker ABut I am pleased to welcome back to the Hoop Heads pod for his second appearance, Carl Barkley from D3 Direct.
Speaker ACarl, welcome back.
Speaker BYeah, Mike, honored to be back on and excited for the conversation.
Speaker AAbsolutely thrilled to have you on.
Speaker ALooking forward to diving into all the things that you've been able to do with D3 direct and trying to have an impact on the world of college basketball, high school basketball, and just give people a blueprint for how they can better manage their college decisions.
Speaker ASo why don't we start there with the D3 recruiting playbook that you put together and just give us an idea of what that's all about, Kind of the genesis of where the idea came from and what the process was like for putting it together?
Speaker BYeah, well, I think it came about because, you know, whenever it was 15 years ago or so, when I went through the recruiting process and I had to figure out all these things on my own, you know, I was reflecting, you know, where we are at the current moment, and there's still really not any kind of cohesive guidance for families.
Speaker BWe're running a big survey right now.
Speaker BWe would encourage any listeners here that are coaches, families, recruits, or parents to get in there and answer that.
Speaker BBut we're trying to figure out what people do when they encounter recruiting problem.
Speaker BAnd it seems like the majority, again, still this lack of cohesive information out there, are going to Google and now AI to try to solve their problems.
Speaker BBut we figured we'd try to plug that hole specifically for D3 recruits.
Speaker BIt's very different process, as you know, your son just went through it to land at Ohio Wesleyan.
Speaker BAnd I would love to get into that a little bit just because recent experience is the best to talk, to talk about.
Speaker BBut, yeah, we really want to just plug that hole and try to provide clear, affordable information to families in one spot so they knew where to look and they don't feel like they have to run around and try to solve all of these answers, Reinvent the wheel when so many people have done it before and we've just tried to package together that collective information and share with.
Speaker AFamilies what are some of the key areas without diving specifically into all the details, but what are some of the key areas that you focus on that you think people just in your conversations struggle with the most in the process of trying to figure out, hey, what level of player am I?
Speaker AHey, what Schools do I want to go to?
Speaker AWhat are my opportunities?
Speaker AWhere are the areas that people are struggling in your experience?
Speaker BI think all of those, for sure.
Speaker BThe other question, too, that comes up all the time is just when should I start?
Speaker BLike, you know, right now, 2027s are getting recruited this summer.
Speaker B2026 Class is mostly locked up and signed and admitted into schools.
Speaker BBut, you know, we have 2028 and 2029s reaching out and saying, hey, you know, what camp should I go to to get exposure this summer?
Speaker BAnd I'm like, you don't.
Speaker BThat is not your concern.
Speaker BYou don't need to worry about that at the moment.
Speaker BGo out, get better, have fun, be a kid.
Speaker BYou know, if you're a 2029 right now, just enjoy being a kid in your hometown.
Speaker BAnd the time for that kind of focus.
Speaker BNext step comes later.
Speaker BAnd we kind of detail all of that in the playbook we have.
Speaker BWe interviewed college coaches to say, okay, freshman year, sophomore year, junior and senior, here's exactly what you should be doing.
Speaker BHere's how you should be conducting outreach, trying to include things like templates for emails so that you don't have to dream up.
Speaker BExactly.
Speaker BYou know, there's so much pressure to come up with exactly the right message.
Speaker BOftentimes simple is better.
Speaker BAnd we.
Speaker BWe have a couple templates in there to show kids how to do that.
Speaker BSo those would be two things, kind of the timing and then the structure of messages, how to.
Speaker BHow to do that.
Speaker AI think the big thing that I've experienced, and this is not necessarily specific to my son and I, but this is, I think, just in general, people really have no idea what.
Speaker AThey don't know, if that makes any sense, in that they're out there and they know that either they themselves, as a player, want to play college basketball, or frequently we're thinking about parents, right, Helping the kids to be able to navigate this situation.
Speaker AAnd parents don't really know exactly what they should be doing, how they should be doing it.
Speaker AAnd oftentimes those players also don't necessarily have a resource in.
Speaker AMaybe their high school coach hasn't had somebody recruited, maybe their AAU program or their AAU coach doesn't have the right connections to be able to help them to get in front of some of the different college coaches.
Speaker AAnd so therefore, people are, again, as your survey shows, right?
Speaker AThey're kind of flying blind, just randomly reaching out for information.
Speaker AAnd I always feel like if you could kind of put together the playbook that you've put together and get that out to people and educate them about, hey, here's what you don't know.
Speaker AThat's what they first have to understand.
Speaker AAnd then once they know what they don't know, all right, then let's help them to know that.
Speaker AAnd so I think it's a two step process where you've got to recognize that I don't have all the information I need.
Speaker AAnd then the next question is, where can I go to get that information?
Speaker AI think that's sort of the niche where you, me, people who are kind of in this space trying to help people, are trying to figure out how do we get to the people who need this information and then put it in such a package that it could be beneficial to them.
Speaker ASo I think that's where, I think that's where we are, Carl.
Speaker BYeah, absolutely.
Speaker BI always say, I always say defined problem is way less scarier or way less scary than an undefined and unknown problem.
Speaker BLike you said, if you don't know what to look for, you're going to feel a lot of anxiety about the process.
Speaker BAnd I feel like if there's anything D3 direct was built to try to do is just take the anxiety and that stress off of kids.
Speaker BBecause, you know, again, I went through this process, I lived it.
Speaker BI've now helped, you know, hundreds of families, one on one and thousands off social media, navigate the process.
Speaker BAnd I feel like we already put way too much on kids, whether it's test prep, whether it's, you know, these college decisions, whether it's, you know, internships, like if we can ratchet it down one degree, you know, to work against that tide.
Speaker BI think that's the goal.
Speaker ATell me a little bit about the experience that you shared with me when we were talking on the phone before the podcast a couple days ago about your experience going to a camp where you quickly realized, hey, there's a bunch of guys that are at a level maybe above where I'm capable of playing.
Speaker ABecause to me, that really rang true in terms of I think it's difficult sometimes for people to have a good understanding, a self awareness of where is it that my best fit is going to be.
Speaker AAnd that's not to say I always feel like I have a hard time if a kid is being recruited by mostly division threes and then they have one Division 2 offer or maybe they have a Division 1 offer somewhere that I have a really hard time telling the kid, hey, don't bet on yourself and don't go give it a shot because that's Kind of what I did, and it worked out for me.
Speaker ABut yet, at the same time, I think there's a lot of people out there that are completely unrealistic about where they fit or they just, again, don't understand how good the varying levels of college basketball are.
Speaker AI don't care who you are, whether it's Division 3, NAI, Division 2, whatever, how good you have to be at to play at those levels.
Speaker AJust relay that story that you shared with me, because I. I thought I. I found that for me to be.
Speaker AI found it to ring true.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BWell, just for background, for those that aren't familiar, I grew up in Davidson, North Carolina.
Speaker BSo the, you know, we're famous for helping to produce Steph Given, like, sending him to the NBA.
Speaker BBut I grew up going to this.
Speaker BTo Bob McKill's basketball camp.
Speaker BSo every summer, you know, that was what I did.
Speaker BI'd play in the backyard.
Speaker BI'd go to Bob McKill's basketball camp.
Speaker BAnd that was kind of what I did in terms of a structured, organized camp experience.
Speaker BFlash forward to high school.
Speaker BI played at North Mecklenburg High School in.
Speaker BIn Huntersville, North Carolina, which is really good.
Speaker BHad a long history when I was there, you know, we had multiple D1 guys in the varsity team.
Speaker BI was lucky to make the JV team.
Speaker BI was actually.
Speaker BI was the last guy to get handed to jersey.
Speaker BThe night before the season was supposed to start, there was the 15th and 16th guys, me and this other kid.
Speaker BAnd the JV coach handed me the jersey and said, you're on the team.
Speaker BWhich was a.
Speaker BWhich was a pretty brutal way to find out that you didn't make it.
Speaker BFor the other guy.
Speaker BI was lucky.
Speaker BI was not very good.
Speaker BAnd they really gave me a chance, I think, because of how hard I worked in the tryout.
Speaker BAnd so, you know, I played one season on jv, didn't get a lot of time, Played sophomore year, started playing more, getting better.
Speaker BAnd it was that summer after sophomore year that my.
Speaker BThat varsity coach took me and a bunch of guys up to this camp that you mentioned.
Speaker BSo we all pile into a passenger van from, you know, Charlotte, North Carolina, we drive up to Pennsylvania, and the camp is not for me.
Speaker BLike, I am.
Speaker BI am going on this trip, but I am not the intended audience for this.
Speaker BThe coaches that are there for the, you know, the level of talent.
Speaker BAnd you were trying to.
Speaker BYou were.
Speaker BYou were mentioning, like, how do we help kids find out, you know, what their level is?
Speaker BFor me, this was, like, how I learned what My level was and how I got context there because I was matching up against guys that were just way better than me.
Speaker BI had played against good ones in high school.
Speaker BGood, good, had great teammates.
Speaker BNorth was awesome.
Speaker BWe had a good conference.
Speaker BBut like this was the top of the top and it just, you know, there was something about being in those drills and being like, wow, I just got beat baseline and the guy dunked.
Speaker BAll right, maybe I'm not the Duke or Michigan State level recruit that, that the coaches are watching for on the sideline but I will say with that camp, what I loved was that it was the first time where I really just had like I see these camps as just an endless opportunity to get better.
Speaker BAnd I don't know if they still do this but at this camp they did a 6am workout.
Speaker BSo before the day got going the drills and stations started at like 8 but you could get in there early before breakfast and a college coach was there and would run you through drills and I thought that was the most incredible thing.
Speaker BSo every day I got up early and I went to this 6:00am workout and you know, nowadays if I try to do that and then go through the whole whatever eight hour day, I would, I would be exhausted.
Speaker BBut as a 16 year old high school kid I was able to do it and so I think, you know, I just soaked it in and but again to your original question, like I just really got humbled and any kind of expectations about, you know, growing up in the state of North Carolina and maybe playing for Chapel Hill or Duke someday where were pretty fairly squashed after that week.
Speaker AAnd I do think that the way that things are today, and I've told this story about my own recruiting back now we're talking a long, long time ago.
Speaker AI graduated from high school in 1988.
Speaker ASo my stories are in no way relevant, but I was someone who had no idea exactly what the process looked like.
Speaker AMy high school coach had never had anyone that was recruited so he didn't really know.
Speaker AMy parents didn't really know.
Speaker AI really had no idea.
Speaker AAnd so going into hey, I knew I wanted to play college basketball.
Speaker AI was playing with and against guys who eventually all played well, I shouldn't say all, but a lot of guys that I played with and against played Division 1 basketball and guys played at other levels too.
Speaker AAnd so I always used to, again, just like you, right, you measure yourself against the guys that you have an opportunity to play with and against.
Speaker AAnd so at the time I felt like, hey, I'm a Division 1 basketball player.
Speaker AAnd so I was being recruited by Kent, I believe it was my.
Speaker AProbably at the end, toward the end of my junior year.
Speaker AAnd things happened, I guess, slower back then.
Speaker AYou weren't being recruited quite as early for Division 1 as you might be today.
Speaker ABut I remember Ken called me up that spring or summer and said, hey, you want to come down for a visit?
Speaker AAnd I'm like, I don't know.
Speaker AYou know, at that time you only got five official visits.
Speaker AAnd I'm like, you know, I got to save one for Carolina, I got to save one for Ohio State.
Speaker AAnd I had no, I had no idea.
Speaker ALike that's honestly what I thought following my junior year.
Speaker AThat was the, that was just.
Speaker AThat was where I felt like I was at.
Speaker AAnd then from that point on, when I decided I was going to go down and take an unofficial visit, I still remember my mom and I eating lunch at Wendy's, you know, paying for our own food.
Speaker AAnd then after that, after that, they stopped recruiting me.
Speaker AAnd then I had to re recruit myself back almost at the end of my senior year.
Speaker AAnd I only got lucky because the kid transferred and I was the seventh freshman in a seven freshman class.
Speaker AAnd I just ended up getting lucky.
Speaker ABut I had been recruited by a bunch of Division 3 schools throughout the course of my senior year.
Speaker AAnd I just felt like, hey, I'm a. I feel like I'm a Division 1 player based on the guys who I played with and against and.
Speaker ABut I didn't know anything.
Speaker AI made some bad decisions that if I had probably had somebody that could have helped me or I could have had a recruiting playbook would have said, hey, Mike, if this school is interested in you, this is probably about as high as you're going to be able to shoot.
Speaker BSo let's just go ahead and show.
Speaker AThem some real interest so maybe this can actually happen.
Speaker AAnd obviously now, today, with social media and all the things now, you're not just comparing yourself to the people in your own little geographic area that you might know now you can compare yourself to, hey, this kid who's across the state or this kid who's all over the place, or this kid's signing with this school or whatever.
Speaker AAnd so there's almost more information, but it's almost information overload where there's so much noise that I'm not sure it's even.
Speaker AI'm not sure it's any better having too much information than it was having too little.
Speaker BYeah, I think there are definitely challenges there because it's, you know, Especially once commitments start getting posted on social media, it's like, it's very easy to get caught up in that and ask why I'm not getting that.
Speaker BYou know, even when, you know you're working hard and you're, maybe you're talking to some coaches, but you're not quite there with a commitment.
Speaker BUm, yeah, I mean, I think it is tough.
Speaker BI, I, I feel like what we try to, we at d3direct try to counsel recruits on is, like, get into a community of recruits, try to reach out to other guys.
Speaker BYou know, gals, if you're playing women's hoops and, like, just connect with them, learn what they are doing, what, what worked for them, especially if they, you know, got an offer, maybe, you know, staying in the same geographic area.
Speaker BIf there's someone a year or two years above you in your area who did something well, got a commitment, like, reach out and learn from them.
Speaker BMost times people are willing to talk.
Speaker BAnd so, again, try to, like, ratchet down the pressure of, like, it's me against everyone else out there and make it a little more collective.
Speaker BLike, yeah, at some point, if you were the seventh freshman, like, there is a guy that didn't make it the 8th guy, when in my situation there was the 16th guy for JV who did not make.
Speaker BLike, there is a, it is competitive at some point, but, like, not everything has to be me against the world for recruits.
Speaker BSo I think use social media and, like, build your own network of recruits that you can talk to and learn from.
Speaker AI couldn't agree more.
Speaker AThat if you have that connection with people that it allows you to just bounce ideas off of them, and it allows you to compare notes with, hey, what are you doing that's working?
Speaker AWhy are you doing it this way?
Speaker AHere's what I'm doing.
Speaker AAnd maybe we collectively can learn from one another.
Speaker AAnd I think that is super important.
Speaker AIf you have a good AAU team and a good AAU program, I think that the best programs, the best coaches help to facilitate that with the idea that they're helping not just their own program by being able to post commitments and, hey, we've got this many players going to this many schools or whatever, but when they're doing it and they're in it for the right reasons and they're really trying to help the kids that are part of their program, I think that's when you really get something going that can be helpful to the players who are participating on a particular AAU team.
Speaker AAnd I'll give you a story from my son's recruitment, it goes back to something that you talked about earlier when you said, hey, right now, okay, we're talking about it's March of 2026.
Speaker ASo most of the 2026 graduating class has already made their decisions.
Speaker AThere may be a few random spots out there or a kid that still is going to find a place, but for the most part, that recruiting was done last spring and summer, and now we're looking at 2,027.
Speaker AAnd what I found with my son's experience is the year, the summer before his junior year.
Speaker ASo after his sophomore year, which would have been his second to last AAU season that year, we got together with a group that ended up being our same group for two years.
Speaker AAnd that group heading into their junior year, we went 37 3, and we had five.
Speaker ALet's see what's.
Speaker AI think we ended up with four or five of our kids that played college basketball.
Speaker AOne was D2.
Speaker AWe had a couple D3s.
Speaker ANai.
Speaker AOur team was not filled with Division 1 super athletes, but we were all.
Speaker AIt was 10 kids that I just loved to watch them play.
Speaker AThey all played hard, they played together.
Speaker AJust a great team.
Speaker AAnd we played high level competition.
Speaker AWe went to good tournaments.
Speaker AWe lost three times all year.
Speaker AAnd nobody watched us play when we were at big tournaments.
Speaker ANobody.
Speaker AI mean, there might have been a coach, you know, that strolled through and was in between games and sat down on the baseline for five minutes right there, but nobody was actively seeking out to watch our team play.
Speaker AAnd again, we were a good team.
Speaker AWe had good players that eventually ended up playing college basketball.
Speaker ASo what I tell people is, look, if you're a high level Division 1 player, people have already identified you when you're in ninth, 10th grade.
Speaker AAnd if they show up at your games, they're not necessarily scouting you.
Speaker AThey're just there to make sure that you know that they're there because they want you to.
Speaker AThey want you to know that they're.
Speaker AThat you're on their radar.
Speaker BAnd if you are a division brand association.
Speaker ACorrect, exactly.
Speaker AAnd if you're a Division 2 or Division 3 player, those coaches are focused on one year out, right?
Speaker ASo this, this spring, those coaches are focused on 2027s.
Speaker AAnd if you're a 20, 28, sure, again, somebody might stroll by your court and peek over at you, but they're not going to be sitting down actively scouting you.
Speaker AAnd then to build on the story, then the following year, with my son's team heading into their senior year, I would say almost every game that we played, there were multiple coaches there watching us play, either trying to identify people from our team or there were already people on our team that coaches had identified.
Speaker AAnd then they were there showing again that interest of, hey, we're interested in you.
Speaker AWe want to sit and watch you play.
Speaker ASo what I tell people all the time, Carl, is that you have to be very careful with a.
Speaker AHow much you travel prior to that last year.
Speaker BYep.
Speaker AYou're not traveling to try to get exposure when you're heading into your junior season because you're not being exposed to anything.
Speaker ANobody, nobody is trying to.
Speaker ANobody is actively trying to watch you the following year.
Speaker AThen you need to make sure that your AAU program, your AAU coach understands which tournaments are going to be ones that coaches who could potentially be recruiting you are going to be at.
Speaker AWhich goes to.
Speaker AI think another point that I'm sure that you've talked to people about is if I'm a Division 3 player in the state of Ohio, I do not need to travel to Las Vegas.
Speaker AI do not need to travel to Charleston, South Carolina.
Speaker AI don't need to go to Florida to play AAU tournaments because the schools that are going to be recruiting me if I'm a Division 2 or Division 3 player are going to be in Ohio or they are going to be in a state that is contiguous to Ohio.
Speaker ASo you have to, again, be intelligent as you put together what you're doing from an AAU standpoint.
Speaker ASo I'm sure that you've talked to people that are in that same sort of experience.
Speaker BYeah, I know it's hard.
Speaker BAgain, it's like the keeping up with.
Speaker BWith your.
Speaker BWith the, the next door neighbor, the Joneses.
Speaker BLike, when you see your friend or your, you know, another person in your area going to Vegas or going to Florida, like you mentioned, for these tournaments, you got to ask yourself, like, why.
Speaker BWhy are they doing it?
Speaker BWhat is the point?
Speaker BAnd if, and if it is, you know, if they're playing on some shoe circuit and that and they.
Speaker BTheir goal is just to play the best competition possible, then great.
Speaker BLike, that's awesome.
Speaker BBut yeah, to your point, like, no one is really, unless you are in that top 1 to 2% of recruits, no college coach is just randomly going to be at your game.
Speaker BAnd I think you got to get yourself in the right gems.
Speaker BLike, similar to what I was talking, like when, when I went to that camp.
Speaker BIs it.
Speaker BAfter my 10th grade year, I was not in the right gym.
Speaker BFor me, I was getting better and like, if you want to put yourself in that to face some adversity and play really good competition, do it and you'll get better and you'll learn about what you need to improve on.
Speaker BAll right.
Speaker BIf you don't have a left hand, that's going to get found out very quickly.
Speaker BIf you're playing better competition and you'll learn that you need to adjust or you need to learn how to finish in a different way.
Speaker BBut I think, you know, there are gyms that are, are right for different levels.
Speaker BYou know, they're for, for high academic D3s, there are camps that filter by GPA.
Speaker BSo you have to have a 3.0 GPA.
Speaker BSo everyone in there is getting it done in the classroom.
Speaker BLike you mentioned, if you're from Ohio and you want to play in the NCAC or, you know, another, like, contiguous state around Ohio, there are elite camps where Division 3 schools are bringing all of their recruits to one place and you can compete in front of that head coach.
Speaker BSo it's just about finding the right gems because I completely agree.
Speaker BI, I saw some post the other day that a, a family had spent, I think it was 35, 000 over four years to play AAU play travel basketball.
Speaker BAnd the, they didn't, they, they're going to play in college now, but they didn't actually get offers until the their senior year or like junior after junior summer because they went to like two or three camps.
Speaker BBut all the rest of it, like 27, $28,000 was just for ego and glamour, you know?
Speaker AYeah, I do think that, look, there is some fun right, in the travel experience.
Speaker AAnd so if you're on a younger team and your team's going and you're traveling out of town for a tournament because it's a fun bonding experience for the kids, the parents, the coaching staff.
Speaker AIt's just, it's a group that you like and people want it, great, do it.
Speaker AYou just have to understand, again, what is your motivation for doing that?
Speaker AIf your motivation is, my kid's in seventh grade and we need to travel to a city that's four hours away to play in a tournament because there might be some coaches there.
Speaker AWell, there might be coaches there if it's a tournament that is for grades six through 11.
Speaker ABut the coaches that are there are not there to watch your seventh grader play again.
Speaker AThey're there to watch the kids that they're actually going to be recruiting.
Speaker AThere's plenty of time for your seventh grader to get that exposure And I think, again, I keep coming back to the same theme when it comes to the recruiting process, the decision making in terms of what school do I want to go to?
Speaker AAnd it's just educating people on what they need to look for, what they don't know.
Speaker AAnd I think that starts really, honestly back in third, fourth grade as kids begin to get into travel, basketball, AAU basketball, understanding what it is that you're trying to get out of it.
Speaker ALike, you made a great point about the camps, right?
Speaker AYou can get something out of a camp, the old school camps from 20, 30 years ago, where it's the fundamental camp and you go to a college campus and that coach would be there and running a camp.
Speaker AAnd it wasn't about trying to get recruited by that school.
Speaker AIt was just, you're going to the camp to get better.
Speaker AAnd I think so many people now don't look at it in that same way.
Speaker AThey look at it as I'm going there to get myself exposed to these college coaches.
Speaker AAnd again, there are certain camps and certain places as you described, that you can go where that does take place.
Speaker AAnd yet at the same time, you can be in those environments and it can be about more than just being exposed.
Speaker AIt can be, hey, there are college coaches here who are running the stations and they're showing me things that I can work on.
Speaker ASo let me take that.
Speaker AI'm playing in games with lots of other players who have aspirations of playing college basketball, probably at all different levels, again, depending upon where you're at.
Speaker ASo you have an opportunity, clearly, to utilize those to get better.
Speaker AI think part of it is just, again, the mindset of going into it with an understanding of why am I here, what am I trying to get out of it?
Speaker AIs what I'm trying to get out of it realistic based on the circumstance?
Speaker AI think that's always the challenge, right?
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BI mean, especially on that point about coaches, like when don't take for granted the people who are running stations because or that are coaching your team.
Speaker BLike at almost all of these big exposure camps, you're going to have someone assigned to your team.
Speaker BAnd it might be a high school coach, it might be a D3 assistant.
Speaker BLike, I went to one, and the assistant of Vassar was there.
Speaker BHis name was Staunton Peck.
Speaker BAnd I didn't necessarily want to go to Vassar at this time.
Speaker BI didn't.
Speaker BI was from North Carolina.
Speaker BI was almost a little too far.
Speaker BBut he gave me such great feedback on my game and was a great guy and just helped Me out a ton and I think if you kind of lean into that relationship, it can be really beneficial.
Speaker BThere was another one at Davidson again, growing up, going to these camps at Davidson, guys like Ryan, me, who is now again the head coach, Amasser, Brendan McShay, who ended up becoming my assistant at Swarthmore College, my assistant coach, but at the time was at Allegheny, just again, a lot of guys you can learn from and you never know where they're going to go.
Speaker BSo just because someone is a high school coach at the time or at a school you're not really interested in, don't, don't dismiss them.
Speaker BDon't like, you know, blow them off or big time them because you think you're better or you don't want to go there because you never know where that person is going to end up.
Speaker BThe basketball coaching world is so small and, you know, it's just funny how those small connections can then lead to opportunities down the road.
Speaker AAbsolutely.
Speaker AGreat advice.
Speaker AAnd I think when, when Cal went to the camp at Yale and there was just coaches all over the place there and yeah, we went to the stations and he's there and trying to learn from every single coach that's running the station, trying to build, hey, a connection, talking to the people, the guys that coached his team, and you try to go and you do it and you try to play the right way.
Speaker AAnd I think that's another sort of misnomer that's out there, right, with players is I've got to score 25 points a game, I've got to do all this flashy stuff in order to get somebody to notice me.
Speaker AThis is another thing that you and I talked about on our call is people don't necessarily have an understanding of what a coach is looking for and why from the outside somebody might look and say, hey, this kid's averaging 23 points a game, this other kid's averaging six.
Speaker AWhy is the kid who's averaging six, the kid who's being recruited and has an opportunity to play college basketball versus this kid over here is scoring 23 points a game, but maybe just doing it in such a way or has the physical characteristics of a kid that it's just not going to translate in the same way.
Speaker AAnd I think that's something that people lose sight of, is you can impress somebody with your work ethic, with your ability to pay attention and focus and follow directions.
Speaker AAnd those things matter because when you're a coach, right, and you have a kid in your program, if that kid isn't Going to pay attention in drills.
Speaker AAnd you got to teach it to them seven times everything that you do before they finally get it.
Speaker AThat's a big difference before the.
Speaker ABetween the kid who you show something, they're locked in, they pick it up the first time.
Speaker AThat's a valuable skill that coaches want in their program that I think gets discounted a lot too.
Speaker AAnd people just want to see the flashy stuff.
Speaker AAnd you see kids that they're not scoring a ton of points, they're unhappy, but yet a lot of times it's those little intangible things and the things that the average person doesn't see and the average player might not think about, but they're the things that really drive winning.
Speaker AThat I think when you start talking about how should I be trying to play when I'm at one of these camps or how should I be trying to play with my AAU team?
Speaker AThere's all kinds of things you can focus on Besides scoring.
Speaker BYeah, 100%, I think.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BAgain, I mean, it's so many thoughts on that.
Speaker BBut like coaches, one can tell when you're trying to play outside of your game.
Speaker BSo I think to your point, like, do things that you have practiced at those camps, don't try to like level up at the recruiting camp because it is not going to work.
Speaker BAnd they will be able to see through that.
Speaker BSo the other thing too is like coaches are.
Speaker BThey all get these lists at most of these camps and they'll.
Speaker BYou'll have a jersey like number or bib number.
Speaker BAnd they have all your information on the.
Speaker BWith the bib number.
Speaker BAnd I've been at one of these camps and watched 2d3 coaches stand next to each other saying, like, I can't get this guy because his GPA is too low.
Speaker BBut like he should go here or you should check him out there.
Speaker BThere were slightly different levels of academics, academic schools, and they're.
Speaker BThey're trading information.
Speaker BThey're kind of trading that scout like you mentioned, maybe it was they.
Speaker BThey set a screen.
Speaker BWell, they're like, they ran back on defense and broke up a fast break for the, for the other team.
Speaker BBut whatever it was, they're scouting together, they're sharing information.
Speaker BAnd all those things are helpful to you getting recruited.
Speaker BThe other thing too, I would say is with your teammates.
Speaker BAnd this goes back to what I was saying about trying to not make it zero sum.
Speaker BLike it is not you against everyone else at this camp.
Speaker BYour teammates, just like in a bad real basketball game are.
Speaker BYou're playing together and so I would say take a second to get to know these people.
Speaker BLike, especially if you're at the event, there's a little bit of downtime, put your phone away, try to talk to them.
Speaker BThe least you can do is maybe you're.
Speaker BMaybe you're gonna make a friend.
Speaker BMaybe you learn a little bit about their process, something that informs you.
Speaker BMaybe they took a campus visit to a school you want to check out.
Speaker BBut at the end of the day, too, people play better.
Speaker BLike you were talking about this team you put together, no superstars, but you guys had a great winning percentage because the guys liked each other and they gelled.
Speaker BAnd I think the same thing applies to the recruiting camp.
Speaker BIf you can kind of foster that dynamic, everyone is going to play better and that team will collectively get more eyes on them throughout the course of the camp.
Speaker BVersus one guy trying to shoot every shot.
Speaker BOne guy, you know, everyone ball hogging.
Speaker BIt's like no coach is going to watch that.
Speaker AThat's such a great point.
Speaker AIf you befriend somebody, maybe they'll pass you the ball.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ALet's just simplify it and just say that.
Speaker BRight?
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AIf we just take it down to the bear, to the bare bones of the existence.
Speaker AIt's funny that you say that, because I know that when Cal was back going to different camps, he would always say to me, he's like, good guards always like to play with me because I just keep setting screens for him.
Speaker AAnd so then they always want to come off screens with, with me setting them because I'm willing to, you know, in a, in a, in a pickup game.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AType environment, which a lot of times that's what you have at a camp.
Speaker AThere's not many guys that are looking to set screens or do those kinds of things.
Speaker AAnd so he's like, I always try to find who the best guard is on our team and be the guy that's going to go out and set screens for him.
Speaker AAnd then I can roll the basket and maybe I get the ball, maybe I don't.
Speaker ABut I'm freeing up a guy who he's probably going to score because he's the best player on our team.
Speaker ASo somebody's going to be like, hey, how's this kid getting open?
Speaker AThen all of a sudden it's, you know, now you go to the second level of, well, here's the kid who's scoring all the points.
Speaker AWell, how's that kid getting open all the time?
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ASo here's the guy who's setting the screens Let me take a look at.
Speaker AAnd so I think there's all kinds of things that again, you have to kind of be aware of what good basketball is.
Speaker AAnd I know you can probably attest to this that a lot of times I'm amazed how many people don't understand what good basketball looks like and what good basketball is.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AIn terms of like you talked about just sharing the ball, getting along with guys where it's not just, hey, my turn.
Speaker AYour turn.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AWe're just taking turns coming up the floor.
Speaker AAnd this time I got the ball, so I'm going to go one on one.
Speaker AI'm going to shoot it.
Speaker AAnd the next time we're fighting to see who gets the imbalance pass so that that guy can just dribble up the floor.
Speaker AI know you've seen teams like that.
Speaker AI've seen plenty of teams where teams had a lot of talent, and they're not a team.
Speaker AThey're just five dudes out there trying to go one on one.
Speaker BAnd.
Speaker AAnd to your point, which I really liked, is nobody wants to watch that.
Speaker ALike, I can't tell you, Carl, the number of times that guys, coaches would come up to one of our kids on our team back when Cal was playing AAU and just say, we love watching your team play because you guys play like a real team.
Speaker ALike, you guys look like a real high school or a college team.
Speaker ALike, you're actually running things, you're actually cohesive on defense.
Speaker AYou're trying to do things and playing together.
Speaker AAnd again, that reflects well on every kid that's a part of that team.
Speaker ABecause now a coach can look at it and say, okay, I see this kid, how he fits into a team defensive scheme.
Speaker AI see how this kid is a guard who handles the ball, but he's not just looking to always get his own shot.
Speaker AI see how he's setting up the next guy, or I see how he comes off screens, or I see how he leads the fast breaker.
Speaker AI see how this kid on the wing sprints the floor.
Speaker AAll things that you need to have to be successful in a system.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AIn a college game, as opposed to just, hey, the kid who looks great in a pickup game could be completely different from a kid who fits well into a system at the college level.
Speaker AAnd I think that's always, again, a dilemma that maybe parents, players don't necessarily always understand what it is that a college coach is looking for.
Speaker AAnd I know you've talked to enough college coaches.
Speaker AYeah, right.
Speaker AWhat they want.
Speaker ASo let me ask you this when you talk to college coaches, what are the things that they tell you that, hey, this is what we want.
Speaker AWhat are the things that they're looking for?
Speaker AObviously, I always say there's a requisite level of talent that you have to.
Speaker AHave to be able to play at any level of college basketball.
Speaker ABut once you get beyond that, what are things that coaches are telling you that they're looking for?
Speaker BYeah, it's funny, I just asked this question to Justin, which is he's the head coach of Pacific University out in Oregon, Forest Grove, Oregon.
Speaker BAnd he said, I tried to just make sure that they love basketball.
Speaker BYou got to show me that you love the game before you're going to get recruited here.
Speaker BAnd I think another part of it.
Speaker BHe didn't say this directly, but I think you have to prove.
Speaker BDemonstrate your interest in the school as well.
Speaker BHe.
Speaker BHe mentioned that they don't let people commit unless they have visited, they've stepped foot on campus.
Speaker BAnd I think in combination, both of those things kind of show a coach, okay, this is more than just coming here to get an education.
Speaker BIt's.
Speaker BThey want to really commit, be a part of the team.
Speaker BAnd there are a lot of ways to demonstrate that.
Speaker BAnd then the second thing is you're serious about the school.
Speaker BThis is not just an only basketball endeavor.
Speaker BIt's gotta be both sides of that, especially at a school, you know, that's gonna challenge you academically.
Speaker BThere are tough, tough stretches of the season when you're deep in conference play and you're taking two trips a week, probably two to three hours away from campus, and you're not able to get your stuff done, you know, in normal times, like your homework and your.
Speaker BAny kind of social hang that you want to have.
Speaker BAnd like, those are the moments where that question and that answer from Coach Lunt comes through, which, do you really love basketball enough to take that road trip, get home at midnight on a Tuesday night, and then have to really grind with your schoolwork the rest of the week?
Speaker BAnd do you really want to be there just in case anything happens with your, you know, with your athletic career?
Speaker BIf you get hurt, you know, you're not getting the playing time you thought you deserved.
Speaker BYou have to.
Speaker BYou're having to work a little harder.
Speaker BLike, I think having both sides of that is the real.
Speaker BIs the formula that a lot of college coaches are looking for.
Speaker AIt's a great point, and I'm sure that you can speak to that point in terms of your own college career and guys that you played with who are A part of the program.
Speaker AYou see it, I think, on every level.
Speaker AIt doesn't matter what team I've ever been around.
Speaker AThere are some guys that love it.
Speaker AThere are some guys that like it.
Speaker AThere are some guys that are like, sometimes those guys have talent and that enables them to stay, even though they're just kind of like.
Speaker AThey're not necessarily.
Speaker AThey don't necessarily love the game.
Speaker ABut I do think it's a great point, right, that if you bring in a kid who loves the game to your program, those are the kids are going to put in work off the floor.
Speaker AThey're the kids who are going to put in work in the off season.
Speaker AThey're the kid who is going to go from being a freshman to being a senior.
Speaker AAnd you're going to see that learning curve and that growth curve just go in a positive direction.
Speaker AObviously, at the Division 3 level, that's, I don't want to say more important, but because there is no workouts in the off season, there is no team activities, there is no coaching, whereas Division two, Division one, you might not love basketball, but if you're going to be on the team, guess what?
Speaker AYou're in the gym.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AWhether you want to be or not, you're in the gym.
Speaker AWhereas Division 3, your season ends and you don't want to be in the gym until practice starts the next fall, guess what?
Speaker AYou don't have to be in the gym.
Speaker AThere's no coach mandating that you're there.
Speaker AYou're not working out with the coaching staff.
Speaker ASo I think that goes to one of the things that is a huge positive for Division 3, and you can probably speak to this better than I can, but the opportunity to play high level college athletics, but also to have that balance as a student and as an opportunity to integrate yourself into the campus and be able to maybe participate in some other things that I'm not sure at the Division 2 or certainly not the Division 1 level.
Speaker AThe way the rules are written today, with the amount of contact hours that coaches can have with players outside of the season, it's really, really difficult for a kid who's playing Division 1 basketball to maybe do some of the other things.
Speaker AIt's hard enough to get the class and do all the things just to get your degree, let alone to kind of take advantage of some of the other things that a college campus offers.
Speaker ASo maybe you can speak to what your experience was like at Swarthmore in terms of what you were able to do outside of the basketball program, that maybe you wouldn't have been able to do had you gone and played at a higher level, if that question makes sense.
Speaker BYeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker BI mean, I think the first thing that I think about is like, I have known players that have played at like Stanford, you know, walked on at North Carolina, gone D1 and, and I think there's one person at Boston University used to talk about how their summer was just basketball.
Speaker BThey just went back to campus and they just played, lifted, did everything and it was just this, you know, it was a full time job.
Speaker BAnd I think for me, my summers were about internships, they were about being home, you know, working out.
Speaker BGet.
Speaker BLike you mentioned, a lot of it was self determined.
Speaker BLike I was supposed to be in the gym four days a week lifting.
Speaker BDid I do that every week?
Speaker BNo, but you could tell when you got back to campus who had been in the gym and who had not because, you know, some people put on five to ten pounds and other people were right where they had been at the end of the previous season.
Speaker BSo I would say, you know, there was this element of it's a little more self determined in terms of how much you worked and how much time you put in.
Speaker BBut the other thing too was, yeah, you got this much more full experience of, of life.
Speaker BI think you got to go, like I said, get, go get an internship.
Speaker BI had teammates that were doing research in labs on campus over the summer, you know, studying different things, some chemistry, some bio, publishing papers.
Speaker BBy the time they were graduating, which I thought was really, you know, it was, it wasn't for me, but I thought it was pretty incredible that they could have their name attached to something like that and then still get it done on the court and have a great, you know, athletic career.
Speaker BSo I just feel like it's, it's a reason that we try to promote the D3 level.
Speaker BIt's not for everyone.
Speaker BAnd you know, there are cost challenges that we're aware of and we try to work to help people figure out.
Speaker BBut I think it just.
Speaker BWhen you go D3, Abe Waltislasi, who used to be the head coach at McAllister, now an assistant at Denver University, he used to say this, and I love it because he would say going to play college basketball, going to play D3 basketball is not the end goal.
Speaker BIt is a launch pad for the rest of your life.
Speaker BAnd I really think truly that the network, the alumni network that you get from being a part of that team, the life experiences, the leadership, and then again the collective, like all the academic, all the internship, the job experience, stuff that comes with it sets you up better than any other level at the moment.
Speaker BAnd I really think, especially in the NIL era, that that comparison and the value proposition that each offers has never been clearer.
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Speaker AYeah, it's so interesting just how college basketball itself has changed over the years.
Speaker AObviously, there's the huge change with NIL and the Portal and how that has impacted what's going on.
Speaker ABut I think about, and again, I'm an old guy, so I think about what my experience was like playing Division 1 basketball.
Speaker AAnd I honestly feel like my experience as a Division 1 athlete was probably closer to the current Division 3 experience than it is to the current Division 1 experience.
Speaker ABecause here's what happened, Carl.
Speaker ASo we would play our season and when our season would end, we'd have a postseason meeting.
Speaker AAnd then I would get like a two page Xerox document, hey, here's your workouts.
Speaker AWe'll see you back here in August.
Speaker AThere was no summer workouts with the coaches.
Speaker AThere was no we're lifting together as a team.
Speaker ANone of that.
Speaker AAnd so the day the season ended, the next day I was just in the gym playing pickup basketball with other guys in the team or whoever was there.
Speaker AAnd then in the summertime, I was working out on my own, I was shooting on my own, I was finding places to play on my own.
Speaker AAnd to be honest, like, I love that because it gave me, like you said, it gave me some control over what it was that I was doing.
Speaker AWhich is again, similar to what you have in Division 3 right now, right?
Speaker AYou have a postseason meeting, your coaches talk about, hey, here's what we think, here's where you are, here's what we think you need to do, here's some ideas of how you can do that, and hopefully we'll see you back here when this season starts next year and you'll have done those things.
Speaker AAnd now in Division 1, I mean, those guys are on campus, like 50 weeks out of the year.
Speaker AAnd I always say, I don't know if I would have wanted to listen to the same voice for four years straight year round.
Speaker AAnd I think, in all honesty, I think if you could inject truth serum into Division 1 coaches, that 75% of them would probably say that it's too much.
Speaker ANow, nobody's ever going to not utilize the time they have, because if you don't and you lose, you're going to lose your job, but you're getting axed.
Speaker ABut.
Speaker ABut I do think that in so many ways, it's.
Speaker AIt's a lot.
Speaker AIt's a lot for the kids, it's a lot for the coaches.
Speaker AAnd that's why, again, I love the idea of Division 3, which gives you, again, that freedom to make your own decisions and put your time in.
Speaker AAnd you can work as hard as you want to and you can be a Division 3 player and work harder than a guy who's playing Division 1 basketball.
Speaker AYou just have to organize that and do that for yourself.
Speaker AAnd yet it does afford you opportunities.
Speaker ALike, I'll give you a great example, Carl.
Speaker ASo at Ohio Wesleyan, they have a program where you can write a grant to go and travel and be part of an educational experience, let's just say.
Speaker ASo last summer, Cal wrote a grant.
Speaker AAnd not every student obviously takes advantage of this, but Cal wrote a grant to be able to go to Italy.
Speaker AAnd he worked with a group called We Rewilding Europe.
Speaker AEssentially, he was trying to look for and study Brown bears in Italy.
Speaker AWell, I had no idea that bears even lived in Italy, number one.
Speaker ABut secondly, he had the opportunity to go with another student entirely paid for by Ohio Wesleyan.
Speaker AThey were there in Italy for 13 days.
Speaker AAnd what an incredible experience for him to go and be able to manage that whole trip on his own.
Speaker AHe had to manage the budget, had to keep track of receipts, had to understand and make connections with all these groups in order to justify the triple.
Speaker AHe had to make connections with these different groups prior to going on the trip and then come back and make a presentation about the trip and what they did.
Speaker AAnd so that's an experience that he could only get at the Division 3 level.
Speaker AIf you're at the Division 1 level, you don't.
Speaker AYou barely have 13 days off the whole.
Speaker AThe whole year.
Speaker AAnd again, that's not to say that Division 3 or Division 1 basketball wouldn't be great.
Speaker AAnd anybody who has an opportunity to go and do that and play at that level, by all means, go ahead and do that.
Speaker ABut we're just trying to point out again here the benefits of Division 3 basketball.
Speaker ASome of the things that people don't think about in terms of the entire package of what it is that you're getting.
Speaker AAnd then like, I got my shirt on, I got my shout out to Coach Reg.
Speaker AAnd the.
Speaker AWe are D3 guys.
Speaker ABut so those guys are.
Speaker AEvery guy that's, you know, on the shirt is playing professionally somewhere as a Division 3 player.
Speaker AAnd so people oftentimes have this misnomer, right.
Speaker AThat I can only get to the professional level if I'm playing in Division 1.
Speaker AWell, there's lots of different paths to be able to.
Speaker AIf that's what you want to do, it's been done.
Speaker AIt can be done.
Speaker AThere are ways to do it, no matter where you start out.
Speaker BAnd it's just.
Speaker AIt's the same journey of the best third grader isn't always the best high school varsity player.
Speaker BAnd.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker AThe best college player or the best, the most.
Speaker AThe player who gets to play professionally isn't always the guy who starts at whatever level.
Speaker AAnd so it's just.
Speaker AI think it still comes back to Carl.
Speaker AAnd this is.
Speaker AGoes to the whole theme of the conversation, right.
Speaker AIs.
Speaker AIs education, which is what you're really trying to do is to put information in front of people that's going to help them make decisions.
Speaker AAnd I want to go back to one of the things that you said in your last comment about helping people understand how to manage the financial part of Division 3, right.
Speaker ABecause that's another area where I think people aren't educated.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AThey think, oh, it's crazy expensive.
Speaker AThey see the sticker prices of some of these universities.
Speaker AAnd two of my kids go to schools that when I look at the sticker price, I'm like, yeah, I don't know that I could afford to pay the sticker price, but thankfully, I have two good students that were able to make it work and navigate.
Speaker ABut I know one of the things that you've done with D3 direct is put out your scholarship Sunday.
Speaker ASo talk a little bit about that piece of what you do and kind of how you put that together and what it is and how people could benefit from subscribing to the email newsletter and getting that information as you're starting to make decisions about colleges.
Speaker BYeah, yeah.
Speaker BI mean, first of all, I would just say I would agree with you.
Speaker BYou know, like college, some of these tuitions are.
Speaker BThe sticker price is 95, $98,000 a year, which is just Outrageous.
Speaker BYou know, on its face, it's.
Speaker BIt's not something that most families can afford.
Speaker BAnd, like, I don't blame recruits for seeing that or parents for seeing that and thinking, okay, this is not for me.
Speaker ARight?
Speaker BBut, you know, the scholarship Sunday newsletter came about because we were like, okay, there's got to be, you know, we kept getting this question or this encountering this thing, this myth, especially on Twitter, where people were like, oh, you know, D3 is great.
Speaker BYou know, we'd share a story, like, Sami Willoughby, like, on your T shirt, we are D3 plays.
Speaker BMarietta goes and plays pro.
Speaker BHank Morgan Hamilton plays D3.
Speaker BPlaying in the G League for the.
Speaker BFor the Celtics organization.
Speaker BRight now, those guys go to these schools that have high sticker prices.
Speaker BAnd then in the comments, inevitably someone would say, oh, yeah, but, you know, it's D3, so I can't afford it, so I'm not going to consider it.
Speaker BAnd so we just thought, how about every single week we.
Speaker BWe go online and we find one real scholarship?
Speaker BBecause if you've ever looked for scholarships online, you know, there's a lot of garbage out there.
Speaker BAnd there's these things that are like, you know, no essay scholarships.
Speaker BAnd I would just say to any recruit or parent listening, if it sounds too easy and too good to be true, then it is.
Speaker BAnd all those are.
Speaker BAre just sweepstakes, and you're entering your information to some loan company or something that is going to just serve you ads.
Speaker BSo steer clear of those.
Speaker BWe try to parse through all of it.
Speaker BAnd just every single Sunday, deliver one email with one scholarship or a couple scholarships.
Speaker BThere's four this weekend to families.
Speaker BSo you can find something that, you know, upcoming deadline that you can apply for, you can use to just lower the cost a little bit.
Speaker BSometimes they're $500.
Speaker BThis weekend, they're.
Speaker BThey're $65,000 awards.
Speaker BSo that one's a little bigger.
Speaker BBut, yeah, I think overall, just trying to show people that there's a.
Speaker BThere's an avenue to.
Speaker BTowards getting a more affordable tuition.
Speaker BAnd we're just trying to do that, I think, every weekend.
Speaker BAnd if people want to subscribe and hop in, we've gotten.
Speaker BWe've gotten responses from parents, which has been great, which is like, hey, I applied to a scholarship on your list, and I got it and saved me $5,000 a year.
Speaker BAnd again, that's not going to take down the entire 95k.
Speaker BBut as you mentioned, if you have good grades, maybe you get 60,000 off, maybe you get 40,000.
Speaker BAnd all of a sudden you just slowly chip away at that number and you end up with a much more affordable rate.
Speaker AAt the end of the day, stuff all adds up.
Speaker AI know that a lot of schools have you take a campus visit, that's a thousand.
Speaker AYou apply online, that's 500.
Speaker AThere's a bunch of little things that if you just take some steps, it adds up.
Speaker AAnd if you get enough of those little steps that you can add together, eventually you get down to the point where for both of my kids, both for Cal at Ohio Wesleyan, I have a daughter who's going to graduate from Denison this year.
Speaker AThat for both of them academically, just by applying for various scholarships and then also through the universities wanting them to come, they look for ways to be able to give them money, to be able to knock down those tuition prices.
Speaker AAnd so it's definitely feasible, it's definitely doable.
Speaker AObviously that leads to a key piece of advice or a key thing that you have to consider is the better your academics, the more opportunities you're going to have to go to school in different places.
Speaker AAnd if you are a 3.5, 4.0 student, you're going to have way more opportunities than somebody who is a 2.0 or 2.5 student or you're going to have cheaper opportunities to be able to go to schools.
Speaker AAnd so I think if I was going to give one piece of advice to somebody whose kids in 6th, 7th, 8th grade and you think your kid might have the ability or might want to at some point play college basketball, well, don't just have them in the gym 12 hours a day.
Speaker AMake sure that they're spending some time with their academics and they're taking care of their grades.
Speaker ABecause I will say that having kids with good grades opens up so many more opportunities across every level.
Speaker AAnd even if your kid is not an athlete, obviously the grades that they have make a huge impact on what schools they can go to and what it is going to cost to go to those schools.
Speaker ASo I think that's a key point that sometimes gets lost in.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AWe don't focus so much on the athletic side of it.
Speaker AWe forget that.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AThe academics is a huge piece of why colleges admit students.
Speaker BYeah, absolutely.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BAnd I, I think too, you know, I'd add one more thing.
Speaker BThere is like, think about how much your family makes.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BIf you are.
Speaker BWe've one thing we tried to pull together recently was this list of schools.
Speaker BD3 schools that we could find had made announcements about zero tuition programs.
Speaker BSo at some financial cutoff, you're not going to pay any tuition and that's a guarantee.
Speaker BFor all these schools on this list, I think it was like ended up being 20 or 21 and I'm sure there are others that were missing, but you know, for most of those It's a, it's 150 to band of 150 to $200,000 a year household income.
Speaker BAnd there are a lot of families out there who do not make that and are missing out on these opportunities to get free college simply on that fact alone.
Speaker BAnd to your point about academics being helpful for admissions, if a coach knows that you are going to be like, you know, it's an easy admit and you're getting this, all this money and you're going for basically for free, that just makes you as easy as possible to recruit and they're going to love that.
Speaker BSo I think, you know, especially if you are sub $200,000 of annual household income, try to look at D3s and look at the, the tuition assistance programs that they have because, you know, we just helped this one family track and field athlete out of Washington State.
Speaker BReally good student, 4.0, really good runner, borderline D1 and D3 and they were debating a couple D1s.
Speaker BWe were going to give them some money off, but they were still going to probably pay, you know, 40,000 a year.
Speaker BAnd we got them, convinced them to go to Tufts or to look at Tufts because they had a zero tuition program and they were able to get in and get about $80,000 off of.
Speaker BI think Tufts is like 95 now.
Speaker BSo much better result.
Speaker BAnd it was just because they had the patience and were willing to do that research to find the better option.
Speaker AAgain, coming down to educating yourself, figuring it out, knowing where the resources are.
Speaker AAnd I think that's again, where what you're doing with D3 Direct is something that anybody who's in this position that is being recruited that you're trying to figure out what's the level where I'm at, it's a tremendous resource.
Speaker AIs there anything that you guys are doing that we haven't talked about that you think could be beneficial for somebody who's listening to the podcast to know about, just talk about if there's anything that we missed here in our discussion that you guys are doing that you think could be beneficial?
Speaker BYeah, I mean, you hit on the playbook, which is great.
Speaker BI think we're going to try to bring out more resources to help athletes understand what nil is look behind the scenes on how to process a deal, make sure you're, you know, in compliance, not jeopardizing your ability to play.
Speaker BAnd, but I think understanding and if there's a little piece missing from a financial standpoint to make something work, how you can leverage NIL to, to get a more affordable education.
Speaker BAnd then I think we're going to start trying to do a lot more just with making one on one help affordable and we have some developments coming there.
Speaker BBut yeah, just so try to try to get athletes information that's reliable and just help more kids on their journey.
Speaker BTry to be the resource that I wish I would have had whatever 15 years ago when I was navigating all this and getting a lot of, getting a lot more no's and I was yes from yeses from college coaches.
Speaker BSo I'm trying to help the next generation.
Speaker AAbsolutely.
Speaker ALet me ask you about NIL and just in general, where do you think this thing ends up?
Speaker ABecause I look at where we are now and I'm talking across all levels, not just Division Vision 3, but where do you see this thing ultimately settling?
Speaker ABecause it just feels like what we have now is not sustainable.
Speaker AThere's only so many times that a school can go to a booster, an alum and say hey, we need money.
Speaker AWhat do we need money for?
Speaker AAnd I've always said like in the past if somebody comes to you and says hey, we need money and it's going to go to our new practice facility or it's going to go to rebuilding our locker room, or it's going to go to something tangible that is going to stay with the program for the duration of the time that whatever.
Speaker AFor the duration of the program as opposed to now.
Speaker AIt's like somebody comes to you, right?
Speaker AIt's like hey, we need $5,000 or we need $10,000 or we need whatever that number is, what are you going to use that money for?
Speaker AWell, it's going to pay Joe's salary for this year.
Speaker AAnd I'm like, well is Joe good?
Speaker AIs Joe gonna stay for more than a year and then next year you're gonna come back and now I gotta pay Jimmy's salary because Joe is gone to the NBA or Joe transferred to another school and it just, that piece of.
Speaker AIt just doesn't feel like it's a, it's sustainable.
Speaker ASo I'm just curious what you think may or may not happen as we move forward because there's just so many moving parts to it.
Speaker BThere really are.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BAnd I mean I would just say first and foremost, I think player mobility and players being able to move freely is, is a great thing.
Speaker BLike at the end of the day, when I was in college, I definitely, I remember a lot of it was mostly Division 1 transfers but being held up by a coach who didn't want them to leave and they couldn't get that release.
Speaker BAnd I think, I think the ability of players to move around now is, is a good thing.
Speaker BGenerally.
Speaker BI do think we're moving towards a system this is mostly at the D1 level where there are going to have to be contracts at some point because to your point, you can't keep tapping these donor bases and saying, you know, give me a let's get a million dollars poured in for this one player and then the next year they're gone or do it for a coach and then the next year you have to pay their buyout.
Speaker BAnd I think, you know, we posted some stats, it was ridiculous.
Speaker BLike the, the buyout for Brian Kelly recently for him to leave was more than the annual budget for the entire level of Division 3.
Speaker BAnd so like that is not sustainable in the long run.
Speaker BSo I think, yeah, some kind of player contract model inter as it, as it applies to D3.
Speaker BI think we are, there is going to be some element of the haves and the have nots.
Speaker BI think there was a good podcast recently on the left hash call with Coach Catanzero from Lake Forest Football and he was talking about how, you know, There are probably five or six schools already in D3 who are, have earmarked 250 to $300,000 for their rosters annually.
Speaker BAnd that is not, you know, touching the Division 1 level.
Speaker BThat's like a, you know, a mid major backup salary at Division one.
Speaker BBut it is definitely going to have an impact in terms of who they can get in and what players they can, you know, recruit and make that spot and that experience affordable for.
Speaker BSo yeah, I mean I think there's a risk there that you kind of exacerbate some of these challenges of you know, some people having a budget, other people not, but yet competing for the same prize.
Speaker BBut I also think it can be done really well and you know, we try to showcase athletes who are, have a brand and are using it to make some money and all these things that, you know, it didn't for a long time it made no sense that a kid couldn't, you know, go back their hometown and run a camp and make money for doing that or you know, be compensated in any way.
Speaker BSo I think there are positives.
Speaker BI think obviously there are people at a much higher level than you and I having these conversations about how to structure this.
Speaker BBut yeah, I'd have to think if there's any kind of collective based compensation or kind of loosely tied to the school because they're always a separate entity in the school, then I think contracts are going to have to be in the future of, of nil.
Speaker AYeah, I agree.
Speaker AI think you're heading towards contracts, you're setting.
Speaker AYou're probably heading towards some type of unionization.
Speaker AI think at some point you're probably looking at do the power five conferences end up being a separate entity from the rest of Division 1 where there's such a disparity even you look at the NCAA tournament and you look at the sweet 16 and every team basically is a power five conference.
Speaker AYou've.
Speaker ANot that, not that a Cinderella can't win a game or two, but it's going to get more and more and more difficult at that level just simply because of the budgets and the disparity there.
Speaker AAnd look, inequality is always going to be a part of every walk of life, whether we like it or not.
Speaker ABut this has definitely made it even more of a challenge.
Speaker AAnd then I think on the Division 3 level, like you guys do a really good job of highlighting kids who are doing it well, as you said that through their brand they're able to make a little bit of money on the side.
Speaker AI know one of the things that I heard, I haven't heard it talked about much, it happened.
Speaker AI, I heard this and I can't honestly remember who I had this conversation with, but somebody was talking to me about that at the Division 3 level that you might at some point have schools that have alumni who have a lot of money and might say, hey, we want to really have our program take off.
Speaker AAnd so now suddenly the NIL money at Division three, maybe it's not the same as it is at Division 1, but maybe you have a program where the school's sticker price is $98,000 and nil now covers that players entire tuition.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ALike we'll offer you again through nil.
Speaker ACan we offer that in terms of we're going to pay the entire tuition And I haven't really heard that recently, but that was something that I heard a couple years ago that people were maybe worried that that was going to happen.
Speaker AAnd in some ways it kind of tracks with what we've seen in Division 1.
Speaker ABut it's.
Speaker ARight now it's Just the Wild west and the NCAA knows that anything, any rules that they try to impose, they're going to get sued and they're going to lose.
Speaker AAnd so because of that, it's like they're treading very, very, very lightly.
Speaker AAnd I actually had on Joe Paterno's son Jay, who he's now a trustee at Penn State, and he's part of a committee that's working on trying to craft a proposal to put in front of Congress to be able to sort of guide them in what colleges may want or need in terms of setting some laws and trying to help to put some guardrails in place to kind of get this thing at least a little bit less like the Wild, Wild west and more, where there's a set rule.
Speaker AAnd I think the combination of contracts, unionization, and laws that are passed by people who understand the landscape and are still doing it with the best interest of the athletes, the sports, everything that goes along with it, there's some combination of all that that I think can work to make this thing tenable, but I'm not sure how close we are to getting to that point right now.
Speaker BYeah, it does feel like it's a long way away.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BIn the meantime, I think try to.
Speaker BYeah, it's like.
Speaker BIt'll be interesting to see what kind of D3 schools and donor bases do.
Speaker BI've talked to coaches who, you know, love the support from a donor or who are really frustrated by it, you know, and it just.
Speaker BIt's.
Speaker BIt's very polarizing.
Speaker BSo.
Speaker BIt is sometimes.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BYou just have to see how it all shakes out.
Speaker BAnd we'll be trying to cover that from a Division 3 angle.
Speaker BPeople can follow that on X or our newsletter or Instagram or wherever they, you know, check in with us.
Speaker APerfect.
Speaker AAll right.
Speaker ABefore we wrap up, Carl, share with people how they can get the D3 recruiting playbook, how they can subscribe to the newsletter, how they can connect with you.
Speaker AAnd then after you do that, I'll jump back in and wrap things up.
Speaker BPerfect.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BJust check out our website.
Speaker BIt's d3-direct.com that's usually the best place to go for the latest from us.
Speaker BThe playbook is on there.
Speaker BIf you want one on one help with your recruiting process, there's more information.
Speaker BThere's.
Speaker BAnd there's also information on how to sign up for the free newsletter to get Scholarship Sunday, like we talked about every week.
Speaker BPlus, we push out a recruiting and.
Speaker BOr admissions guidance and advice posts every Wednesday.
Speaker BSo.
Speaker BFree.
Speaker BFree to access and yeah available all on the website again.
Speaker BD3-direct.com Perfect.
Speaker ACarl, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to join us.
Speaker AGreat to have you back on for a second time and to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.
Speaker AThanks.
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