Imagine dreaming of playing college sports since you were four years old. You are an above average high school athlete, and emails start to flow into your inbox. Various colleges are “showing interest”, or that’s what you assume. You open one of the emails and it includes a link to the camp registration website. The camp cost is $150. This goes for every college contacting you. You have no clue who is actually interested in you and who is trying to use you for the money. This makes it extremely difficult to find out where to spend your money, especially if you don’t have much disposable income to work with.

Many athletes receive the sample email that goes along the lines of:

Owen,

I wanted to let you know that we have some slots available for our upcoming camp. This is a great opportunity to get insight to what it is like at our program!

Click the link for more information.

Now you may think being talked to in person means that a coach is actually interested in you, but unfortunately, that is not the case. Multiple colleges and even organizations can just be sending those emails to fundraise for a certain cause. It is hard to tell if you are just another number, or if you are actually being looked at for your ability. I’ve had to deal with this all throughout high school.

For baseball players, like myself, these camps consist of a sixty yard dash, some position work and a little bit of hitting. The majority of the time at the camps is usually spent unproductively and there is no time to showcase your athletics to the coaches.

This happens to many high school prospects today, especially since college coaches don’t come to high school games anymore. The “prospect” tournaments that you have spent hundreds of dollars on over the summer are a bust. Nowadays, money could be the deciding factor on whether you can make your dreams about playing in college of being a college athlete a reality or not.

This is such a flawed process. Money should not be a factor in the college process for athletes. The chance to play in college should be determined purely on athletic ability and accomplishments in high school.