What are college coaches’ pitch to recruits? Traditionally, it’s been the opportunity to get a great education, valuable degree, and play their sport a high level. But what happens six months after they graduate? What about 6 years?
Historically, institutions and their athletic programs have had clear alignment on two promises they made to every recruiting prospect: best-in-class education and athletics. In my experience, there’s been a clear connection between the educational and athletic metrics upon which schools and programs are judged and the support systems in place to help student-athletes educationally and academically. Logically, that makes sense.
Educationally, there are GPA requirements for NCAA student-athlete’s (minimum GPA > 2.0): most programs have tutors on staff to help student-athletes specifically.
Athletically, being quantitatively measured is the norm – number of wins, All-Americans, championships, etc. And, obviously, the associated support systems have been highly invested in and developed – strength and conditioning coaches, sports psychologists, world-class weight rooms, advanced physical therapy, etc.
From a degree perspective, many institutions have touted their student-athlete graduation rates as a selling point and point of pride: again, university staffs have ramped up student-athlete educational support staff.
So, let’s focus on the value of graduating with your degree. What value does it yield for student athletes? I think it’s fair to say that your professional career path is the primary input to the value of a degree. I know there’s a fair counterpoint: what about the qualitative benefits of the collegiate experience? Sure, fair. But, who’s to say you couldn’t have gotten a great experience without college?
This begs the question: if the value of your degree equals your professional career path, why aren’t college programs marketing / publishing any professional-relevant metrics? Why don’t recruits and their parents know the 6-month post-graduation employment rate of student-athletes? Why don’t they know the average starting salary of graduating student-athletes? Why don’t they know the distribution of student-athletes by industry? By function? By region?
Varsity Executive surveyed 40 student-athletes who graduated between 2008 to 2012: 34 of them wished they had any or better student-athlete-specific professional support during their college years. Of the education or training topics they wish they had while at school, the top three were: industries and jobs available to graduates, professional-specific skills, and career paths.
The two downsides of our survey are its qualitative nature and the small sample size. Sadly, we don’t know what we don’t know – specifically, there isn’t reliable and widespread data on any of the quantitative metrics mentioned earlier: 6-month post-graduation employment rates, average starting salary, etc.
For argument’s sake, let’s say that data tells the same story: student-athlete’s need better professional support from their institutions in programs. How does that problem get solved? In my mind, one of two things can happen. An unlikely option is that conferences or the NCAA mandate these metrics be published.
The second (and more realistic option) is that at some point, one or more schools is going to realize and capitalize on the opportunity before them. In this case, the opportunity is to develop a robust professional support system for student-athletes, and to use the success of that system to market their program to recruits. Do you think telling the parents of a student-athlete that their student-athletes average starting salary after graduation is $60K would be a selling point?
So, if you believe that this is a problem and that the problem is worth solving, the next and final questions is…how? I’m not sure if there’s one silver bullet, but I think any professional support system must include the following elements:
(1) Professional and Like Skill Building: training and education on foundational and transferable skills such as presentation skills, storytelling, personal branding, etc.
(2) Professional Awareness: training and education on what industries, functions, and career paths are available to graduates.
(3) Job Search Skills: training and education on the fundamental skills it takes to secure employment (resumes, cover letters, interviewing, etc.).
Not only can more robust professional programs be used as a recruiting tool, but, ultimately, it’s going to provide student-athletes with a diploma that truly has value. I’m looking forward to the first school that figures it out and starts the next phase of the student-athlete value proposition.