Informed Athlete with Rick Allen

Welcome to The Baseball Awakening Podcast, where we dive into the raw, unfiltered, unsexy side of player development

Guest Bio:

Rick Allen, Co-Founder of Informed Athlete.

Summary:

On this episode, Host Geoff Rottmayer sits down with Rick Allen to talk baseball from a recruiting and eligibility standpoint.

Show Notes: In this conversation, Rick talks about:

• What parents and student-athletes fail to understand when it comes to the college recruiting process.
• How parents and student-athletes can save time, money and frustration.
• What is and what is not worth investing in.
• What it means to find the right school that meets the right needs.
• How much money is there in baseball and what does that mean?
• How to ask a coach is you are being recruited or being considered for a scholarship.
• What does getting emails and letter from college for camps and showcase mean?
• Why consistent efforts in education matters from a transcript viewing part of admission.
• Can coach bypass school admission?
• What to know about going to school out of state.
• How scholarship is not guaranteed.
• The coach that recruited me left, now what?
• and more.

Website: www.baseballawakening.com

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Email Address: geoff@baseballawakening.com

Transcribe:

Geoff Rottmayer: Today’s guest is Rick Allen with Informed Athlete who had been dedicated this in 2008 and helping student athletes play the sport they love and maximizing the eligibility by guiding them through the complex NCAA NAIA and Junior COllege rule that they pursue their academic degree.

Intro: Welcome to another episode of The baseball Awakening Podcast where we dive into the raw, unfiltered, unsexy side of player development. Get ready for some knowledge bombs with your host, Geoff Rottmayer

Geoff Rottmayer: Wlecome to The Baseball Awakening Podcast, I am Geoff Rottmayer and today we sit down with Rick Allen of Informed Athlete, of informedathlete.com, Rick how are you sir?

Rick Allen: I’m good. How are you today?

Geoff Rottmayer: I’m doing great. Listen Rick, I’m excited to have you on. You know, I want to talk about your business inform athletes and I’ve been following your stuff for, for for four or five years now. And this is where were you educate parents empire on numerous of topics such as recruiting, transferring, eligibility, scholarship, judge, just to name a few. And I really want to get into all of that, but let’s just kind of start with how and why you started informed athlete.

Rick Allen: Sure, absolutely. So, uh, my background, Jeff is, I was a NCAA compliance coordinator at a couple of major d one universities. Uh, being responsible for all the NCA rules for the coaches and the athletes at those universities. And then, uh, our son went through the recruiting process as a high school baseball player, ended up getting, getting recruited to play division one baseball. And actually, um, my wife suggested to me, she said, you know, when we’re at our son’s games, you get a lot of questions in the stands in the parking lot from other parents and so forth. You should start a service providing that information. So folks, right. And so, uh, uh, so it was actually her idea and uh, it started as kind of a nights and weekend type thing and now it’s developed to where it’s our full time business.

Geoff Rottmayer: Awesome. And you know, there’s a huge need for what you do and the information that you have to share. So the showed kind of geared more toward the baseball crowd. Let’s start with the recruiting side of things. In your experience are some of the things that you’re seeing that parents and players are failing to understand when it come to the college recruiting process? You know, something that could save them time, frustration and

Rick Allen: Marty, I don’t know if we can save them time. Certainly it takes time to be involved in the recruiting process and so forth. But as far as saving money, my personal opinion is I’m not a fan of these recruiting services, uh, that say, you know, they can help athletes get recruited or help athletes get more opportunities and so forth. Now I have talked to parents who have had success with them and has been happy with using those recruiting services. But personally I don’t think it’s necessary if they’ve got, you know, if the athletes and the parents have people that will, you know, if they will invest a little of their own time in it and if they have people that will be helpful, such as yourself, you know, such as, uh, training facilities, uh, high school coaches, travel ball coaches, et cetera. Uh, as long as parents are willing to invest some time, um, and have additional people that will help them out. I don’t personally, I’m not a fan of the recruiting services, but in fairness to them, I have talked to parents who have had good success. You know, maybe both parents work stressful a long hour jobs and don’t have the time to get involved in helping. They’re helping their kids with, um, athletic resumes, putting videos together, that sort of thing. So, so that’s one point I would make. Um, another point I would share, Jeff is a, and I’d be interested in your take on it, but I think in general, and there’s the payer, there’s exceptions to almost every rule, but I think in general, um, athletes are going to have more success if they go where a coach is willing to invest the scholarship in them. You know, uh, I, we, I hear quite often from athletes when, or their parents when they contact us to say, you know, hey, our son needs to transfer. You know, he’s not getting much play in time. Or he, he’s been told that his scholarship may be cut. Uh, you know, uh, we hear from them and I often hear them say, well, you know, our son went there as a walk on because this was his dream school, but the coach wasn’t willing to invest a scholarship in them. And in some cases the coaches didn’t even actively recruit them. And so, uh, I just think it’s probably in most cases it’s best to go certainly where the athlete is really wanted a, even if that’s a d two school as a PE as compared to, you know, the athletes goal of getting to a d one opportunity.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah, absolutely. People toward their, their dreams and having this d one or nothing mentality really. There’s a lot of junior colleges, d two and d three program that can compete on the same field as some of the d one program. You know, the d one, they tend to have a little more depth. But as far as meaningful to compete and play, you know, you know, you’re right Rick, you know, there, you want to go somewhere where they want you. So anyway, you said a few things that I want to kind of touch on. It is a lot of work and a lot of time put into the recruiting process and we can save a lot of time by focusing on the right stuff that takes time, if that makes sense. You know, so let, let’s talk about the, what are the things that I want to invest my time on and what’s worth it versus what I shouldn’t?

Rick Allen: Well, I think, uh, first of all, um, you know, encouraging to athletes to take care of their academics and I’m, and I’m sure you do that all the time Jeff, but certainly, uh, encouraging them to do as, as best they can academically because you know, as well as I do and most parents know if a coach is looking at two players who have basically the same skill set, play the same positions, if everything else is pretty much equal, that coach is going to be more interested in the athletes. It’s got the higher academic profile. So that would certainly be a, the first one. And then the second one would be, I think just, you know, trying to have a family discussion of, you know, what kind of, do we want to put, you know, limitations or boundaries so to speak on, you know, what we’re looking at, you know, if a, if a athlete is from say the Midwest and they want to stay relatively close to home to play, you know, does it really make sense to them to go to, um, a showcase event out in Arizona or out in California? Now, certainly events like, you know, the baseball game there, excuse me, the purse perfect game showcases and so forth are, are fun to go to and athletes can get a lot of exposure at those. Uh, but I guess just, you know, kind of setting some parameters on, you know, what, what’s our target area geographically, what’s our target in terms of the types of schools that, that we’re interested in and so forth.

Geoff Rottmayer: You know, what are the criteria that you would want to go spend the next four years or the next two years, or whatever it is. You know. So let’s just say if you’re a city, if you’re not a city guy, then it doesn’t make sense to you to go do a school in the city. It just not the right fit. So sitting down and know, understanding where you want to go and where you don’t want to go, it’s going to be a pretty important part of the process. So we can you talk a little bit about, because you know, a lot of parents don’t understand that they’re just not a lot of money in baseball. So can you talk about that? You know, how much money the baseball and what does though

Rick Allen: at the division one level, and I know you know this Jefferson probably a good number of the parents do, but at the division one level, um, baseball teams are limited to no more. They can award no more than 11.7 total scholarships and baseball scholarships are what is called by the NCAA. They’re called an equivalency sport because your scholarships are divided up among multiple players. D One programs can award scholarships to no more than 27 players. So they can provide 11.7 total scholarships and equivalency to up to 27 guys that when all total together total the equivalent, 11.7 scholarships. Um, so at the division one level, there’s going to be a maximum of 27 guys on a roster that get a baseball scholarship. Some programs, uh, only give 24 25. A lot of the smaller d ones aren’t fully funded. They don’t have the budgets to provide the full allotment of 11.7 scholarships. Uh, at the division two level, uh, the number of scholarships is less. And I think right off the top of my head, maybe, I think it’s nine. I don’t remember exactly right at this moment. Uh, but, uh, you know, the bottom line is when you look at rosters of, and so we already talked a bit about Division One, division two, if you’re looking at a roster of say 40 guys, uh, perhaps, uh, only 20 or maybe fewer are going to have a scholarship. So, and again, a lot of d two programs not fully funded. Uh, they can’t eat, they can’t award, uh, the nine scholarships that they’re allowed to give out. So, uh, there’s a lot of walk on positions out there. And you know, if I go back to what I mentioned earlier, where it’s probably better to go where a coach is willing to invest a scholarship in you. Well, a lot, a lot of coaches don’t have the budget or the availability to invest a scholarship in a guy. So, you know, again, uh, back to that go where you’re wanting to go, where they’re recruiting you hard, you know, if they don’t have money to invest in you, are they investing time in recruiting you? Are they calling you or texting you on a fairly regular basis? So they come in to see your games. Are they, you know, wanting updates on how you’re doing? And so

Geoff Rottmayer: dive into a couple of them. Let’s start with this. You know, how would a kid, you know, a lot of kids, they just don’t ask the right question. So how would a kid start a conversation to understand am I being recruited and if I’m being considered for a scholarship, how did the player as a coach that,

Rick Allen: uh, I think you, I think you wait and see, you know, are they inviting the athlete too? Visit campus. And by that, not just to come to a team, not just to participate in a camp, but are they inviting you to come visit campus on a weekend to come and, you know, take him the campus atmosphere and go maybe to a Saturday football game in the fall or to come to campus in the winter and take in a basketball game. You see the energy on campus around a home basketball game, uh, that sort of thing. So I think first of all, you need to kind of judge how much interest are they show, how much interest are the coaches showing in your son. Um, and then if they are showing significant interest, coming to see your games, inviting you to campus, you know, then waiting until that point and then asking, you know, hey, uh, I’m, I appreciate your interest in, in, in me and in son. We’re very interested in your program. Are you able to offer a scholarship? And if so, how much will you just kind of want to, you know, start getting our thoughts together and putting a list together of, of what is, what college is going to cost us as a family, et cetera.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah, you gotta be recruited. Now the programs are, they’re buying email lists. You know, everyone’s invited to this camp or this showcase regardless of their skillset. And a lot of kids, they, they think that this means that they’re being recruited by the program. And so what happens is they end up going and they spend all this money and it ended up not being what they expected. So the email and the ladders that they’re getting, uh, for attending camp, the showcases, I would tell guys, and maybe you can add to this, I would tell guys to respond to those letters and ask, be coaches, you know, ask them and see where you fit on their recruiting less.

Rick Allen: I think that’s a really good suggestion, Geoff, because um, you know, many of those, uh, champs, um, and, and not to, not to necessarily speak negatively about stamps and say you shouldn’t go to them at all, but a lot of those camps, the primary purpose is for those assistant coaches or the graduate assistants to make some extra money from the fees that players pay to go to those summer camps. So, you know, uh, going to some summer camps can be good, but I think be selective about those. Uh, don’t go to one. If that’s not a school you would seriously consider it attending. You know, why would you do that if that’s not a school you’re actually interested in attending on the West? Unless they can tell you that there’s going to be coaches from other area universities participating in that camp. And where you might have an opportunity to be seen by coaches from say five or six or seven other universities from that area. Um, so you know, I guess, you know, a, for example, you know, if you were invited to a camp over in the Oklahoma City area, well is it only going to be, oh, you coaches that are there or might they also have coaches, they’re from southern Nazarene, a Uco, Oklahoma Christian, et cetera

Geoff Rottmayer: objective. You’re wanting to go there and learn from stuff that’s different than hoping to grab the attention of a called code. Right,

Rick Allen: right. Totally agree. And another good question Jeff might be, you know, who are the actual camp instructor is going to be, um, you know, for example, um, I think it’s probably pretty accurate that add a lot of major, uh, the d one universities at their camps. These guys probably are not going to see the head coach much at all. You know, the, the instruction is going to be the assistant coaches of the graduate assistants. Um, maybe even some of the current players, you know, maybe if there’s a picture of who’s arresting for the summer, not playing summer ball. If he’s on campus, he may be assisting a little bit, but uh, you know, they’re not gonna, they’re not going to be seen by the head coach as add a lot of those division one team.

Geoff Rottmayer: True. Yeah. Let, let’s talk about that a little bit about the, the, the academic side of thing for the kid that decide to slack off there for two years and then all the sudden decide to get serious or vice versa. You know, they do really well there for two years and slag off the last two years. So talk a little bit about why the important as far as the, the transcript I concern to show that you have been putting some consistent effort into your,

Rick Allen: and by the way, I might add here, Jeff, before I get into detail, the academic requirements for Ncaa Division One, division two, Nai Aa are all slightly different. But in my example I’ll on Ncaa Division One because if an athlete strives for and can make sure they’re eligible for d one they’re almost certainly going to also be eligible for d two and an AIA and so forth. So for Ncaa d one, um, it’s important for the athletes to certainly be taking the right courses and doing their best in those courses, um, if not right away as a freshman by the start of their sophomore year. And that’s because for division one eligibility, um, there’s a total of, so there’s a total of 16 core courses required for Ncaa Division One eligibility in your typical college prep type courses of English, math, science, history, et Cetera. For an athlete to be fully eligible for division one by the end of their junior year of high school, the athlete must have earned or completed at least 10 of those 16 core courses and at least seven have to be in the categories of English, math or natural science.

Rick Allen: So obviously the majority of high school athletes are going to have more than 10 core courses by the end of their junior year. Cause that would leave six senior year, which is a very heavy load and that’s exactly why the NCAA put that rule in place. So you know, you’ve, you’ve got to be starting early or you’re going to be too far behind to be able to catch up. Um, and then a point I want to add that I’ve had a couple of, we’ve had a couple of calls from clients lately is you’ve got to make sure that the courses you’re taking are approved for Ncaa eligibility, especially if you’re taking online courses. We’ve recently been contacted by uh, two families where they have just now found out in the athlete’s senior year, but some of the courses they’ve been taking aren’t acceptable for NCAA eligibility. Yeah, it definitely does. It definitely does. Now in one case, the family we just spoke to this athlete will be able to catch up and remedy his situation. But in the other case, unfortunately this athlete was taking a lot of online courses and it’s too late. I mean there’s no way in the second semester of senior year that that athlete is going to be able to be d one eligible. So that’s why that’s very important to, uh, beyond top of that. Uh, early on,

Geoff Rottmayer: I dunno, 93, I’m a pitcher and I’m a stud, you know, the school wants me and I can’t get in academically. So can you tell our listeners, our listeners to understand Ken, a coach override emissions?

Rick Allen: You mean as far as the coach help the athlete get admitted into the university?

Geoff Rottmayer: Correct.

Rick Allen: So the, the coach as an individual, the coach himself doesn’t have that authority, but there are, um, there are units, many universities across the country where the admissions office, uh, and the university administration, excuse me, works with the athletic department and they may have what I’ll call slot, where they have a limited number of slots where if an athlete does not meet the admission requirements, which by the way are separate now from the NCAA academic requirements for playing eligibility. But, but what I’m talking about right now is the admission requirements for a university. Many universities and athletic departments have agreements where they may have a certain number of slots and they can say, hey, even though this individual doesn’t meet our regular normal admission requirements, we’d like to, uh, use one of our slots to help this athlete be admitted under the provisional admission requirements for our university. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Buffer: Baseball awakening decal by subscribing on iTunes and leaving an objective review to claim your decals, screenshots or a view and email it to Jeff at baseball, awakening.com. That’s g, e o f, f@baseballawakening.com, and we’ll get that your way,

Geoff Rottmayer: that that does make sense. But for the, for the people that are listening, don’t, don’t be that guy. Make it easy for them and you’ll be able to get into there.

Rick Allen: Yep. You’re exactly right. Because if you’re on the bubble, so to speak, and you are one of those guys may need a slot like that, you know, there’s very limited number of those. And A, unless you’re being very highly recruited by that program, uh, there may not be a slot available. The, an athletic department as a whole, for example, might have, say 10 slots or 12 slots and the athletic director has to make a decision about, you know, and he might say, okay, we’re going to let football use three of those, we’re going to let base basketball use two of those and then we’re going to have some kind of process to divide the other five between the others 16 sports we have at our university. You know,

Geoff Rottmayer: you know, a lot of parents are always surprised to hear whenever talking about going out of state, how expensive that can be. Can you talk a little bit about that for our listeners to understand?

Rick Allen: So, uh, at a lot of, um, well almost all public universities and colleges, uh, you know, they had now private universities, like an oral Roberts tuition is going to be the same for in state or out of state tuition. Uh, but for the vast majority of public universities and colleges, there’s an instate tuition rate in and out of state tuition rate. And even if you’re getting an athletic scholarship or even if a coach is recruiting you with an athletic scholarship, the fact that you’re getting, uh, that you’re an out of state athlete, that may mean that the, uh, impact on their 11.7 scholarships is higher for now the state athlete. So that’s another factor to keep in mind. Uh, when coaches are looking at out of state athletes, um, you know, they’ve got to kind of assess, uh, what’s our, uh, scholarship impact when we look at those out of state tuition rates and so forth.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah. Let’s talk about what that means. When a coach says, Hey, we’ll take you on as a preferred walk on what does that mean and the good or bad and you know, obviously at different revenue one, but what the general take on it.

Rick Allen: You brought, you brought up one of my pet peeves, preferred walk on is a term that I really disliked coaches using that term because term preferred walk on. All It means is whatever that coaching staffs wants it to mean. Yeah. Uh, there is no specific NCA a classification for it. It doesn’t mean that under NCA procedures, uh, it does not mean that a preferred walk on gets more benefits or is more highly regarded than a true walk on who just comes out for a tryout at the start of the year yet only means whatever that coaching staff wants it to mean. And so a couple of examples is at one program, uh, being told you’re a preferred walk on my mean, uh, you are guaranteed a roster spot and you’re going to be on the 35 man roster for the whole, for the whole academic year and for the spring season. Whereas at another university, the term preferred walk on might only mean you’re welcomed to come to practice during the fall segment. Uh, and you don’t have to go through, uh, an open tryout at the start of the school year, but there may be no assurance that you’re going to have a roster spot.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that brings up a bunch of things. If we look at baseball in terms of transferring, okay, that number is way up there, you know, why do you think that is? And what does one need don to Stan about transfer?

Rick Allen: Well, there are a lot of transfers among college athletes across all sports, but I think even more so in baseball, and a lot of the reason is because, um, this, uh, 35 man roster limit in Ncaa Division One, uh, you know, a lot of, uh, d one programs, we’ll have more than 35 guys, uh, on the fall practice squad. And then, uh, some of those guys are going to get cut, um, hopefully, uh, at the end of the fall semester so that they can then decide what they want to do for the spring. Did they want to try to transfer to a Juco? Do they want to leave to drop down to a division two or an Nai a program? Or do they just want to stay at that university for the academics and they’re going to continue working out on the road trying to improve their skill level and perhaps try out again, uh, next fall. Uh, I think that’s a large part of the reason for it. And the limited number of baseball scholarships is another reason for it. Uh, there’s many circumstances, uh, in situations where division one coaches are either not renewing scholarships for the following year or strongly encouraging guys to leave by telling them, hey, you’re not going to get much playing time here. You haven’t developed the way we thought you would. Lots of times coaches try to encourage players to transfer because they don’t want to be perceived as the bad guy that they cancelled the scholarship or did not renew the scholarship for next.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah. What do you mean? What do you mean my scholarship not guaranteed for four years?

Rick Allen: Good, good question. So again, the rules are different, uh, between Division One, division two, somewhat different between Division One, division two, Nai, AA, um, focus in again on division one. Um, now the major conferences or the power five conferences, I know you’ve heard that term, use the, the big 12, the sec, et cetera. Those conferences have rules that they put in place a couple of years ago that if an athlete has a scholarship in their freshman year that they cannot choose to not continue the scholarship for following years. Just because an athlete isn’t developing the way the coaches thought they would, they’re not producing on the field, they’re not having as big an impact on the field as the coaches thought they would when they were being recruited. The power five universities aren’t allowed to use that reason to not renew a scholarship. They would have to have a specific reason like the athlete when academically ineligible or the athlete, uh, had a misconduct issues, student misconduct issue. For example, they had caught with beer in the dorm, something like that. But your smaller division one programs, um, like an oral Roberts for example, or Wichita state that are not in a power five conference, they can choose to not renew the scholarship for the following year. And the same is true at the lower levels, the to an AI as well. Um, and uh, you know, there, I’ve even talked to many parents that they said, well, you know, during the recruiting process, the coach told us, hey, as long as you do well academically, you don’t violate any team rules. You’re a good representative of our program and our university. We’re going to continue your scholarship for four years. But oftentimes that’s not true. That’s just a recruiting pitch that they give when they’re recruiting the guys

Geoff Rottmayer: they’re trying to win and they’ve got to free up some spots for a guy who’s perceived to be better.

Rick Allen: Yup. And, and I will also just add jab even in those power five conferences where as I mentioned, they have these rules specific to them where they’re not supposed to not renew a scholarship just because the guy’s not being productive on the field. Um, that I can tell you from some of the clients we’ve spoken with that still doesn’t stop some of these coaches from saying, hey, you know what, I can’t legally take your scholarship away from you, but I can tell you that if you stay, you’re probably never going to see the field. So if you want to play, you really should transfer to another program.

Geoff Rottmayer: A ton of code changes and a kid goes to school hoping to play for a specific coach and he leaves. What, what happened there

Rick Allen: now, interesting you raised that point Jeff, because there is a possible change, possible change to the NCA, transfer rules for division one possibly coming down the line this summer, uh, that may, um, that may change things. A bit of the proposal, uh, that may be considered and voted on is that, for example, let’s say one of your guys from your facility signed with a d one program back in November, let’s say that that coach leaves for another job or is fired this summer. One of the proposed changes is that that player would be able to, um, be released from the national letter that he signed with the school in November and be allowed to sign with another school. Now, as you know, from a practical standpoint, that could be tough to do because there’s not going to be many, if any scholarships available at any other schools by the time you get to the following summer. But that a potential rule change that may be considered this summer aside from Matt, Jeff, the change of a coach really doesn’t affect anything. Uh, I have heard quite often from some of the athletes and families we speak to, uh, they call us about, um, our advice and guidance for a transfer and they say, you know, the assistant coach who was my main recruiter is no longer at that school. That is something we hear quite often.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah.

Rick Allen: And as you can imagine, you know, so bad assistant coach was the one that evaluated that player, went to see that player, believed in that player’s ability to help the program. Maybe the head coach never saw that player until he got on campus. Well, if that assistant coach and an hour is gone to another program, that player has no support on the coaching staff.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah, that’s true. You know, these coaches, man, a lot of time developing the relationship and the player to get hung up on them and then change the comfort. And like you said, guys believe in me, you know, and no one else knows who I am. So if I’m listening to this and I’m saying, okay, this is some great information, but I’m curious about, you know, what is the main thing, you know, I’m a player and a player or a parent. What is the one thing or a couple of things that I need to be on my, a game with when it comes to understanding the path to college?

Rick Allen: Uh, I would say, um, a few of the key things are, number one, um, go where you’re wanted, you know, don’t just go to your dream school because that, you know, that don’t go there just because you grew up going with your dad too. You know, the football games at this school starting when you were eight, 10 years old, go where you’re wanting to go, where the coaches are seriously interested in you and see the value in you to help their teams. And then, um, as we mentioned earlier, kind of set some parameters, set some guidelines of here’s how we’re going to look at the recruiting process. Do we want to look within a certain geographic area? You know, what do you want to major in? Make sure that that school, the program you want to major in and make sure that you talk with the academic folks in the Athletic Department, the academic advisors and athletics, can you realistically major in that degree program and be able to commit your time to your team and so forth. Um, I think that’s another key factor. And then obviously, you know, what’s the, what’s the out of pocket costs of the family. You know, you may be getting a 50% baseball scholarship at a university, but because of the cost of that university, your out of pocket costs or the family might still be more than a school that’s only offering you a 25% baseball scholarship.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah, I mean, I had, whenever I was in school, the athletic academic advisor got my courses all wrong. So how does the guy, especially one, you know, who might end up transferring from Juco or from another school, how does one know how to stay on top of their courses?

Rick Allen: Oh, that’s really good question. Um, so I, my suggestion and advice would be to, um, you need to take the advice of the, or at least considered the advice of the academic support staff within the athletic department because they’re the ones that you’re going to have probably the bulk of your face to face contact with and they’re the ones that are going to be interacting and communicating directly with your coaching staff. But in addition to that, compare and periodically double check what you’re being told there with the academic advisor in your department on campus. Uh, for example, if you’re pursuing a degree in business administration, double check with the academic advisor and the College of business, uh, double check with the advisor in the Department of history if you’re going to be a history major or a political science major. Um, I think that’s important to do. Uh, most of the time the academic advisers in the athletic department are going to be pretty knowledgeable or should be about there, about the academic programs at your university. Um, but I would, my one bit of advice would be to double check that information with the folks on the, in your college, especially if your academic advisor is fairly new to that university. May, they may hate, they may have been, uh, in college athletics for 10, 12 years, but maybe not at that university. Maybe they’re a new hire to that university and they don’t know the ins and outs of the degree plans at that school. That’s, and so that’s another thing to consider.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah, I think that’s great advice because man, I went through that and, and man, it was a mass, you know, I had to overload one semester off from classes and it was just hard to manage, you know, with all the practices and the weightlifting and then,

Rick Allen: yeah. Well, and one thing, I think they changed Jeff, since your playing days. NCA now has rules where you have, it used to be years ago that, uh, Hey, I’m not trying to make you sound old, Jeff.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah, I’m getting there.

Rick Allen: You know, it used to be a number of years ago that uh, players, especially baseball guys who as you know, you play the spring season and then you would go off and play in the summer and then guys would come back in the fall and you’re cramming hours into the fall to make sure you’re eligible for the upcoming spring. Ncaa put in rules to where you now, half the athletes have to make more consistent semester by semester progress academically. They don’t allow a setup where you can just skate during the spring and the summer and then load up in the fall. They’ve kind of taken that away. You have to have more consistent progress throughout your college career.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah, that makes sense. Let’s say you get drafted, can you talk a little bit about these guys, you know, the type of guys who are exploring the option of, you know, going to professional route versus the scholarship Arbor. Have you dealt with that at all?

Rick Allen: Uh, we have dealt with that. Um, so two bits of information there. So number one, uh, families that find themselves in that situation, uh, could certainly call us and we could talk to them about just now. We now I will say we don’t have expertise in the pro side, the, the draft side, that sort of thing. But if they wanted to talk to us about, you know, so we’re comparing our son’s scholarship offer with this potential draft’s coming up here in June. You know, we can explain them to them a little bit about, okay, here’s what your scholarship means. A, as we talked about earlier, Jeff, we can say, you know, this is only a one year at a time scholarship. There’s possibility it could be careful after year one or you know, if it’s a true multi-years scholarship, if it’s written for multiple years, we can explain that to them and so forth. So that’s one bit of information I would share. The other thing I would share is that Ncaa Division One change this rule, Jeff, just about a year ago, so where now or maybe two years ago, so where now, um, high school players coming out and, and being drafted out of high school. And I stress that because Jeff, this rule is not available to junior college guys get it drafted. This is only for guys that are in high school getting drafted. Ncaa mouth does allow that athlete and that family to have an agent. Uh, they can, they engage an agent, they can have an agent be involved in, you know, talking with them about the pros and cons about communicating with proteins on their behalf. But here’s the key thing to keep in mind. If that athlete does not go ahead and sign with a major league team but instead is going to, uh, go ahead and go to college before they started college. So by the end of the summer, they are supposed to, according to this new NCAA rule, they are supposed to take action to discontinue their relationship with that agent. Yeah. So they are supposed to basically disengage from work. And with that agent. And so if they, for example, were to get drafted but then choose to attend Oklahoma state or Oklahoma, uh, they are supposed to say, uh, hey agent, we appreciate your help as we were considering the graph. Uh, we need to disengage. Uh, we’ll get back to you later on if our son looks like he’s going to be drafted after his junior year.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah. So can you talk about that a little bit? You said after junior year. Can you explain that to our listeners?

Rick Allen: So, um, for Major League baseball, uh, if an athlete goes to a four year college out of high school, uh, in the vast majority of cases, uh, that athlete can’t be drafted again by major league baseball until after their junior year, after they’ve attended the four year college for three years. There are exceptions for guys that have an early birthday, but in the vast majority of cases, they can’t be drafted again until after they’re a junior. Now that’s only for guys that go to a four year college, excuse me. Guys that go to a junior college, uh, have the opportunity to be drafted again, uh, after their freshman year or again after their sophomore year. But as I mentioned earlier, those guys can have an agent because that rule I mentioned is only available for kids coming directly out of high school.

Geoff Rottmayer: And they’re always kind of surprised to hear that. Yeah. So, so Rick, you know, I don’t want to take up too much more of your time. You know, you shared a lot of great information and you have a lot more to offer and you can get really specific with people. So if someone’s listening to this man and they want to connect with you and see what you’re all about, what the best way for them to do that.

Rick Allen: Yes, they can contact us. Our website is, excuse me, informed athlete.com. Uh, and uh, through the website if people choose to do so, they can sign up for our free email newsletter. We send out an email newsletter each week with tips, reminders, updates on NCA rule changes, um, uh, you know, junior college changes. They changed their rules couple of years ago. Those types of things that folks can sign up for our newsletters. We have a lot of blogs on our website. Uh, that folks can review our blogs and may be able to pick up some helpful info there and if they want to directly communicate with us and perhaps engage us in a consultation call. Uh, my email is rick@informedathlete.com or our phone number is area code (913) 766-1235.

Geoff Rottmayer: Awesome man. I was thinking that the blog is gray resource. You know, Rick got a, a tremendous amount of information on his website that can help you guide through some of the processes and better yet your it better to pick up the phone and talk to Rick directly. Well Rick. Yup. Yup.

Rick Allen: Absolutely. Absolutely. That may be listening. Uh, cause we’ve encountered a few bad or rough situations for with kids recently. Um, if an athlete is going to go as a walk on to a program, whether that’s from high school into a program as a walk on the fall of their freshman year or if they’re transferring from junior college to a four year program as a walk on, especially if they’ve not been actively or heavily recruited by the coaching staff at that school. Jeff, if they are, you know, kind of uh, um, a non recruited walk on or not highly recruited. One bit of advice I want to share and again folks can always contact us for more details but make sure as much as possible try to make sure before classes start at a university in the fall, ask the compliance office at that school, have you met all the academic requirements to be eligible to compete that season? Can they assure you that they have looked at your transcript, they’ve assessed your transcript and your eligibility and can tell you that you will be eligible to compete. Jeff, we’ve, it seems every, almost every year in the fall, maybe late August, early September of two or three weeks after classes have started. We get inquiries from athletes and Sam, will you sue say who tell us, uh, our son or our athlete, uh, was just informed that they’re not going to be eligible this year. Uh, the school finally got around to checking their transcript, determine they didn’t have enough credit hours and they’re not eligible this year and they’re already three weeks into the semester at that school. They can’t choose to go instead to maybe go to a junior college or return back to that junior college for another semester. Um, so that’s one bit of advice I just wanted to share.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah, probably not a bad idea to get a third party to help you with that.

Rick Allen: Absolutely. And we can certainly do that. Uh, you know, one of the services we offer is a transcript review for either, um, um, athletic gen high school or athletes in junior college. Uh, we can review their transcripts and we can give them a pretty good indication of whether they’re on track to be eligible or whether they need additional course work if they need to raise their GPA, et cetera.

Geoff Rottmayer: Yeah. So the people that are listening, you know, matters, you know, be, be proactive on that front and make sure that your son can play. Because like Rick said, you’re going to get in about three weeks, then you’re not going to be able to apply.

Rick Allen: Yeah.

Geoff Rottmayer: Well, Rick, Rick, sir, I really appreciate you coming on. I really learned a lot though, a Nicu. Thank you very much for coming on.

Rick Allen: Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker 1: I am Geoff Rottmayer and thank you for listening to our conversation on the baseball week mean podcast. We’ll catch you next week.