Paul Putnam remembers the process of getting his son to play collegiate athletics and the laborious route it took.
An owner and operator of a sports medicine clinic in Ogden, Putnam was in the dark about how to get recruited out of high school.
“I found out I didn’t understand the rules,” he said.
Now a public speaker with the National Collegiate Scouting Association, Putnam spoke at Park City High School Wednesday evening to address a crowd of parents and student-athletes who were interested in getting tips on landing athletic collegiate scholarship.
The NCSA is a recruiting-based association that helps match student-athletes with coaches and programs at universities around the nation.
Putnam was adamant that student-athlete s today need to focus on their education first, and a potential athletic career second. He said that of all high school athletes in the country, only six percent will suit up in a college uniform.
“There’s a void in the process,” he said. “Parents today need to get it. 84 percent of Division-1 athletes are identified by the end of their sophomore year. The process of recruiting starts really early.”
This is the third time Putnam has spoken at PCHS, and while he has seen as many as 200 to 300 people at his seminars, each stop at Park City has been fairly sparse. About 35 to 40 people were in attendance Wednesday; something he hopes will grow going forward.
“I wish we could have had a better turnout,” he said. “When a parent leaves one of our seminars, they’re so pumped up. It happens every single time.”
The NCSA has established partnerships both with the NFL Players Association and others in college athletics enabling Putnam to offer his seminars at no charge.
Putnam’s message to each audience is that, while athletics can help a student get an education, the priority is being able to get a foot in the door in any sport and use the athletic ability as means for education that will only help student-athletes later on down the road. He also said that the NCSA is “all about education.”
One of his objectives is to make the recruiting process more transparent.
According to the NCAA, the requirement to be a Division-1 athlete must feature 16 core academic credits. Traditionally, it only takes 14 to graduate from high school.
To play for a Division-II school, an athlete may have earned 14 core credits, but once 2013 rolls around, the standard for all collegiate student-athletes will be 16 core credits.
“The bottomline is, if you don’t clear, you’ll have to go to a junior college before transferring to a four-year school,” he said. “A lot of people found out they don’t understand all the rules.”
The sticking point Putnam wants everyone to know is that the only way a student-athlete will be successful in getting to play collegiate sports is through their parents.
“Parents need to be productive,” he said. “And people need to let you use the school, not let the school use you. This is not about athletic scholarships, it’s about finding a way to get education funded.”
To contact Paul Putnam regarding NCSA, go to www.ncsasports.org or visit his sports medicine clinic at www.basicsutah.com .