A dad of a TCU signee has his eyes properly set on the realities of college football
When it comes to athletic scholarships, the smartest move is to assume your son or daughter is not good enough to be considered for one.
Today feels like a good time to remind everyone that, according to NCAA.org, about two percent of high school students are offered college athletic scholarships. That includes Division I and Division II.
So the chances of your kid playing soccer at North Carolina, hockey at Notre Dame, or football at Texas are lightning-strike “good.”
Doesn’t mean it can’t happen; just means that if your kid is playing ball in high school now, they are close to the end of their organized, formal athletic career.
On Wednesday, a lot of lucky young people signed their national letter of intent with colleges all over the country on National Signing Day.
For those of you who are fortunate enough to have a kid being considered for an athletic scholarship, the best advice comes from not a coach, recruiting coordinator or former player but the dad of a kicker.
Carroll place kicker Kyle Lemmermann is the nation’s top ranked kicker; on Wednesday he signed with TCU.
What his dad, Brian Lemmermann, learned through the recruiting process should be required reading for every kid and parent that is fortunate enough to be considered for an athletic scholarship. This is a difficult process, and it must be approached like a business negotiation.
“As soon as you get that first offer it becomes more stressful; the coach wants a decision fairly quickly,” Brian Lemmermann said on Wednesday in a phone interview. “You are getting pressure to (accept the scholarship) because if you don’t there is going to be someone else who will take it, and yours is gone.
“All the way throughout it is very stressful. Kyle took his time to evaluate everything; in the end he made the choice on the school, and the degree, and how the network he would be around and what it would do for him for the next 40 years as opposed to just the football for the next four.”
“The network he would be around” has become the real value of a college degree, and experience, more than a specific academic sequence or department.
If your son or daughter is good enough to be offered one of these precious spots, squeeze. Use that college for everything that it makes available, because it is so much more than the average college student receives.
The team “owns” your kid and in exchange virtually all costs associated with college is covered. That includes three meals a day. That includes more athletic gear and clothes than anyone will ever need. That will include a variety of other perks that only increase the value of the scholarship.
Lemmermann is one of the fortunate specialists who was offered a football scholarship. Because the position is so unpredictable, usually the kicker or punter is offered a preferred walk-on spot, and will have to prove they are worthy of the scholarship.
During the recruiting process Kyle was offered by Texas Tech, SMU, Baylor, Arkansas, North Carolina, North Carolina State and a few others before he decided. Amid the conversations with these various schools, the topic of NIL does come up.
“He was offered quite a bit (in NIL) and some of the schools do have a standard that all scholarship players get,” Lemmermann said. “Others have a collective that if you are a starting player you get one thing, and the others have opportunities outside of (NIL).
“They really can’t talk to you a lot about that. He did have some considerably large offers, but it was not a big factor because none of it is guaranteed anyways.”
“None of it is guaranteed anyways” needs to be drilled into the head of every parent and kid during this process.
While his son weighed the pros and cons of each offer, his dad talked to a recruiting analyst for advice. The family didn’t want to let any of the coaches down with whatever they decided.
The analyst told him what every parent needs to hear: Do not let that weigh into your thinking. This is a business decision for them. They could change what they want. They could leave. It’s a business decision for you.
“When we would talk to coaches we asked them not to talk to him about the NFL,” Lemmermann said. “Because a lot of times the first thing they say is, ‘I coached this guy and he went to the NFL.’ We just didn’t want that to be a focus.”
Wise decision.
According to the NFL, 1.6 percent of all NCAA football players make it to the league.
According to Statista.com, the average length of an NFL career is 3.3 years.
The percentages in all of this approach lottery-level.
So if your kid is actually good enough to be considered for an athletic scholarship, you didn’t win the lottery, but it’s close.
This story was originally published December 20, 2023 at 2:55 PM.
