Athletics has helped my life from the time I was young. From an early age my life has revolved around sports. They have helped me during my youth, in college, and in my profession.

When I was young I played as many sports as I could. I loved everything about them. They taught me so much, and helped me shape my life. Sports taught me the value of hard work, and how if your work hard enough you will usually achieve your goals. They taught me how effective working with a team can be. How if you trust your teammates you will be able to achieve most things. Lastly sports helped me see the usefulness of setting and achieving goals. Few things in life are as satisfying as achieving one of your goals.

Athletics played a crucial role during my college life. When I as choosing college I knew I wanted to be a sports management major. Knowing this I was able to make the correct choice in choosing Ohio University as my college. They had the better department and thought it was the better fit for me because of this. The result was that I had a wonderful college experience at what I believe was the right school for me. Also while at school I was able to get an internship working for the Ohio University Football Film Staff. That internship gave me valuable experience that I would use as soon as I graduated.
Now working at the National Collegiate Scouting Association sports are a regular part of my life. The experiences and values I got from sports throughout my life have directly translated to my ability to do my job as a video coordinator. Be it the lessons about hard work, the value of setting and achieving goals, or the actual experience filming games for Ohio University. Sports have helped me achieve my goals and shape the person I have become.

It is difficult for me to imagine my life without sports in it. Had it not been for sports, I might never have settled so easily into life in the United States. When I was younger I played a variety of sports including swimming, soccer, rugby, karate, athletics and tennis. Playing these sports taught me many life skills including how to communicate with players in my team. It also gave me determination and self-control and assisted greatly with me settling into High School and college life. Before arriving in Chicago I never had any idea what opportunities sports could provide and how seriously it is taken at the collegiate sports level. The idea that by playing my sport it could help me not only financially to go to school but also to continue living out my dream of taking sport to the next level was one that I was completely unaware of. Playing sports has given me opportunities that I never thought I would ever be able to have and has helped me travel not only around America at college level playing other universities but also around Europe when I lived in the UK. More importantly sports helped me find a good academic school and taught me the tools to be a hard worker and ultimately graduate with a degree. Sport has played a large part in molding me into the man that I am today and continues to play an important part of my life.

A book like ‘Athletes Wanted’ is essential to anyone considering taking their sport to the next level. As someone who moved to America at 16 and knew nothing about collegiate sports, I was lucky to trip and fall into a good program. Had there been a book like this available I could have been a consummate pro on the college recruiting process inside of one simple read! A must for every sports player!

Growing up sports played a significant role in my life. Since grade school, I was a three sport athlete in cross county, basketball and track & field. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I found myself unsure about my future in sports. I knew that I wanted to run in college but the steps I needed to take to achieve my goal were a mystery. During my senior year of high school I developed a stronger passion for running. I was finally seeing the results of my hard work pay off and I wanted to find a cross country/track program that would help me reach my full potential. At the time I knew very little about recruiting but I did know that I needed to come up with a way to get coaches to notice me. I decided that I couldn’t sit back any longer and wait for coaches to contact me, I needed to be pro-active. I began to develop a list of colleges I was interested in and sent each coach a personalized letter expressing my interest in their program. Due to my efforts I was lucky to have found a college and a cross country/track program that suited my needs. I decided to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where I rose from freshman walk-on to scholarship athlete by sophomore year.

Growing up, sports were always a large part of my life. My love of athletics comes from my parents and from watching my older sister excel in the sports she played. Wanting to be just like my big sister, I aspired to play soccer and basketball through high school and college like she did. I knew how to accomplish this goal in high school, but making it to the college level was another story.

I stood out in high school on my freshman basketball and soccer teams and was elected captain of my soccer team. I played club soccer since third grade and competed all four years of high school. I missed the first portion of my senior season due to a family illness and I had a difficult time adjusting after.

At that point, I was not being heavily recruited and was unsure if I even wanted to keep playing. My dream was slipping through my fingers and I didn’t know how to turn things around. I had no education on recruiting other than what my parents knew from their experience with my sister. If I had had the help of a book like Athletes Wanted, I would have had a completely different story. I didn’t know how important being pro-active is in the recruiting process and figured that coaches would come to me. Only a few coaches did reach out to me and once they did, I had no idea where to take it from there or what was next.

Athlete’s wanted breaks down recruiting for the athlete and parent. It’s a step-by-step guide on how to be successful in the recruiting process; exactly what a family like mine would have needed when I was in high school. I was lucky and found a great school to continue playing soccer at and received a top notch education, but a lot of high school athletes who are like me, aren’t as lucky. To any athlete who aspires to play collegiate athletics, you should read this book. It will not only help you to be more successful in the recruiting process, but it will help prepare you for life after college and sports. Don’t make the same mistakes I did and if playing your sport in college important enough to you, you should be willing to get any additional education you can to make it happen; reading Athlete’s Wanted is a great place to start.

Athletics in general has made a major impact on my life-football in particular. When I was in Pee-Wee football my coach gave us a speech I will never forget. It was about what being a part of a team really means. Because a lot of times when you hear people talk about it, they explain the others around them, how you have to be looking out for this guy or that guy. But coach Murray took a different perspective-do your 1/11th. If you concentrate on your responsibility and no one else does we will be 1/11th effective, but if everyone comes together and does what they are supposed to do eleven 1/11ths equals one, and you have a team. And I take this same concept into every facet of life, especially my professional one here at NCSA.

After reading Athletes Wanted everything clicked for me. I never realized how much athletics has shaped my life. The best part of the book for me was part 1 “Benefits of Athletics.” Looking back on my playing career, I now have a greater appreciation for those who influenced me. My parents, teammates, coaches, and many others have helped me become a better person. I still have strong relationships with these individuals. For example I just touched base with a couple of my former teammates that I played travel soccer together. Both of them play at top college programs, Duke and Stanford, and now they are still involved in the game of soccer.

Ali Curtis, 1999 Hermann award winner from Duke, works in New York for Major League Soccer. My other teammate is Corey Woolfolk, a Stanford standout that was drafted in the 2001 by the San Jose Earthquakes, is co-founder of isoccer.org. These are just two players among many that have affected my life.

Another quick example is the reason why I work for the National Collegiate Scouting Organization (NCSA). My former college coach emailed me one day telling me about a job opportunity at NCSA. I followed up with my resume and next thing you know I am changing player’s lives by mentoring them in the recruiting process. I see the effect my parents, teammates, coaches, etc. had on me growing up. Building great character and confidence not only on the field but in life. This is what drives me everyday; having that same effect on the players I work with and seeing their dreams come true.

Athletes Wanted is a must read not only for players, but for parents and coaches!

Playing sports has given me tremendous opportunities that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I didn’t play organized football until 10th grade. I was 6 feet tall 200 lbs and didn’t know how to properly wear my equipment. By 12th grade, I was a 6′4″ 240 pound major D-I recruit. Fast forward fifteen years later, I had the chance to earn a free education, attain financial stability, meet dozens of influential people including two U.S. presidents, visit and live in some of Americas finest cities. None of this would have been possible without my achievements in sports. I agree with Chris Krause’s quote that the “goal was not to be successful in sports, but to use sports to make you more successful”.

NCSA was proud to receive our first in initial review of Chris Krause’s New Book, Athletes Wanted, from Chicago Sun Times Reporter and our good friend Taylor Bell.

My choice for reading during my recent vacation was a book by Chris Krause, the founder and president of Chicago-based National Collegiate Scouting Association. A graduate of North Chicago High School and Vanderbilt University, he is a former football player who has been in the recruiting business since 1989.

His book, “Athletes Wanted,” is a must read for every parent and athlete who ever gets involved in the recruiting process. I’ve read dozens of how-to books on recruiting over the years and most of them are helpful and well researched. But Krause’s book is best of all, a complete guidebook for maximizing athletic scholarship and life potential.

“I wanted to do it because there never has been a resource that looked at the end result in mind, the end goal, not just a scholarship but a meaningful degree that enables you to provide for your family,” Krause said.

“Kids say they want athletic scholarships or go to a Division I or II school. But they never graduate. They don’t look at all of their options. Most people don’t have a clue about the recruiting process when they start out. They haven’t done enough research. They don’t understand how the whole process works. And that includes the schools, coaches and counselors.

“They don’t know how to leverage the sports angle and negotiate the best financial aid package. In this book, I wanted to focus on the benefits of athletics, what sports can do for them. People don’t appreciate the value of the academic support that colleges can offer an athlete. People don’t realize that by playing sports you separate yourself from all others who are going into the job market.”

Krause, who founded NCSA in 2000, tried to answer as many questions as he could in his 354-page book. A total of 2,000 copies were printed for an advance preview and so far, he said, no one has complained that he missed anything. No wonder. He had accumulated data for 20 years and did two years of research before making a decision to write this book.

“I saw all the books out there, all the same thing, nothing that dug into the benefits of sports as to why your son should play in college or the benefits of playing in college and what it does for the rest of your life,” Krause said. “Most of the other books were how-to guides, telling kids to make a resume and call coaches and wish them good luck. I wanted to do something better.”

The book, complete with dozens of interesting facts that would delight any trivia expert, includes chapters on the benefits of participating in athletics, the history of college recruiting, role of parents, how to communicate with coaches, marketing the student-athlete and everything you need to know about scholarships, videos, financial aid, admissions, camps, combines and recruiting services.

For example, did you know that a college football staff might send 10,000 to 15,000 letters and watch 1,000 to 2,000 videos before making 500 phone calls to potential recruits, then verbally offer between 65 and 200 scholarships and extend up to 85 offers for official visits before signing a maximum of 25 players per year?

Makes you want to know what you have to do to become one of those 25 players, doesn’t it?

It’s all in Krause’s book. He is becoming a significant player in the recruiting business, not just for football but for all sports, boys and girls. NCSA employs 25 full-time, in-house people and 45 scouts around the country. The data base has 40,000 college coaches in 30 sports and 1,700 colleges and universities–Division I, II, III, NAIA and junior college. NCSA has 10,000 clients and 96 percent of those in the class of 2005 went on to compete in college.

Krause points out one very interesting statistic that all parents and athletes should understand: 83 percent of the opportunities to compete in college come outside of Division I. Another interesting statistic: According to the Big 10, over 50 percent of the kids who signed men’s basketball scholarships in the 1990s either dropped out, flunked out or transferred by the end of their sophomore year.

“What it says is kids aren’t making educated choices and colleges are stockpiling and overrecruiting,” Krause said. “Kids don’t look at school for education. We have power rankings in athlete graduation rates. More than 50 percent of the schools that rank highest in the top 50 aren’t Division I-A programs. It means kids aren’t being exposed to opportunities outside of the big-name schools.”

If you read Krause’s book, you will.