Here are eight of our most useful tools that help SASF readers get to college, and on the
team ... many with full scholarships.

1. GOOGLE: Today's most powerful search engine ranks websites your request by weighing the
number of links to that site.  Use GOOGLE for digging back into the history of your target coach and school ... researching events that are not on the college's website or in the program's media guide. Remember, college is not a four year decision, but a forty year decision.  Get it right.

2. POWER RATINGS: analyzes and ranks every college soccer team by combining win/loss with
opponent strength. See: www.soccerratings.com Use it to follow your favorites, but MUCH more
important, use it to identify good colleges with weak teams. Quick test ... fish among colleges
in the middle of the rankings, selecting the best schools with the worst ranking. WHY? Because
those teams will recruit you, and if they consider you to be an impact player, will offer scholarship
money. Why? Because they, too, want to be in the top 20% and need your help. Makes sense to us!

3. NEWSLETTER: We now send 10,000 free Email newsletters. They contain samples from future
publications and are the forerunners of our new on-line magazine. As a non-profit group we use technology to reduce our costs, which enables us to reach more families, worldwide, within our limited budget.

Interesting statistic: female players are 3X more likely to share our information with their teammates than male players are! Yeah, and they have higher GPAs and SAT scores ... earning them more
merit scholarship $$$ than the guys get.

4. COLLEGE WEBSITES: After using our unique publications to isolate your "best fit" list
of schools, visit their web sites to confirm or remove them. Start with the coaching staff
bios to learn how they think and coach.  Scrutinize their rosters to compare player
qualifications with your own and to forecast openings and scholarships graduation will create.

Bad example - a recruitable high school keeper studying a college roster containing three
freshmen goalies who are all-everything, is advised to look elsewhere for playing time
and money. Get it?

Inspect colleges in their conference. Check out their opponents scores and stats to confirm
your selection and maybe even add them to your "best fit" list. For sure, learning that an
arch rival is ALSO on your "best fit" list, will start two coaches' competitive juices
flowing and could trigger a bidding war.  Naughty but nice!

5. EMAILING COACHES: An asset not to be abused.  College coaches are now comfortable with Email,
using it to supplement a traditional paper file containing cover letter, resume and references.

Invest your time in selecting colleges and teams who need you, not saturation bombing everyone
with .edu in their address, hoping something will stick. That SPAM makes you unpopular and signals
that you are not serious about a short list.  Our readers identify "best fit" colleges who earnestly recruit them in response to their paper presentation and use Email to update the coach's file and signal changes in your plans.

Fortunately, the NCAA is unable to control coach to player Email communication, and has
apparently abandoned efforts to include Email in their minefield of recruiting violations
plaguing our overburdened college soccer coaches.  Soccer coaches labor with compliance restrictions
created by the sins of Basketball and football programs. 

6. PDF FORMATED FILES: We were pleasantly surprised when college coaches embraced Adobe
PDF (Portable Data Format) files. Think of PDF as a free, color copy and fax machine that
makes all computers and all desk top software compatible. Popular word processors like
Microsoft Word contain an option to output your resume (characters and images) in PDF.
Reading a PDF document is just as easy with free downloadable software from http://www.adobe.com/
Another advantage of PDF is that it cannot easily be changed by anyone but the author,
so if your stats and addresses are safe. 

7. http://www.student-athlete.net/: since 1991 our non-profit group of concerned college coaches,
parents, and EUROSPORT have helped over 1 million serious student athletes get to college, and
on the team ... many with full scholarships.  Website contains reprintable articles, unique
publications written by college coaches, a scholarships calendar and free fund raising
system powered by SOCCER MOMS. Visit often. 

8. NEW EUROSPORT COLLEGE OPPORTUNITIES BLOG: Operational November 2006 thanks to the help
of our friends at the world's largest catalog retailer of soccer, lacrosse and rugby equipment.
Our articles have appeared in millions of EUROSPORT catalogs since 1993, and now we are
distributing important information, worldwide, at the speed of light by Internet. See:
http://www.soccer.com/studentathlete/index.blog

Bob Collins, Editor
Student Athlete Scholarships Foundation
theinstep@aol.com
(561) 498-1546
http://www.student-athlete.net/
GOOGLE: "student athlete magazine"