Ex-Churchland star seeks to ease recruiting process
Have you ever received a recruiting letter from a college coach?
It’s the biggest thrill in the world, isn’t it?
The coach makes you feel like you are the most important person in the world. He praises you about all of your accomplishments and makes you feel like you are the only person for that college. And on holidays, they send you cards.
But here’s something you may not have known or you learned later as time went on.
“When a kid receives a letter from a school, they don’t realize that those
letters go out to thousands of kids every year,” said Jamin Elliott. “They know the kids they want, but they put you on the prospect list. … Letters mean nothing without personal contact.”
Elliott should know because it happened to him.
That’s why he decided to write a recruiting guide to help student-athletes and parents deal with the recruiting process.
Elliott was raised by a single mother in the rough Jeffry Wilson housing projects in Portsmouth. He was an all-state track athlete at Churchland High, but his first love was football.
As a junior, he played wide receiver in an offense that didn’t showcase his talent. Though he didn’t have many offers, he was ranked No. 12 on The Virginian-Pilot Terrific 20 football prospects for the Class of 1997. The comment next to his name read, “Good athlete, but doesn’t get the ball enough.”
He moved to running back his senior season after a starter got hurt. He had a productive season, but still didn’t get much interest.
Fortunately, he caught the eye of a University of Delaware coach. He went there and became one of the Blue Hens’ all-time leading wide receivers and was later inducted into the school’s athletic hall of fame.
He was chosen by the Chicago Bears in the sixth round of the 2002 NFL draft. The following season, he won a Super Bowl with the New England Patriots. He played six seasons in the NFL.
Not bad for a guy who wasn’t highly recruited.
But he knew he was one of the fortunate ones to make it. What he learned through his own recruiting experience and later as an athletic recruiting adviser was some student-athletes and parents — through no fault of their own — have no idea how the process works.
“I would say 96% of them have no idea about what steps they needed to take or how to get started in the process,” he said. “Because of that, you have so many kids who are missing opportunities.”
So, Elliott, 41, designed a manual —“not a book” he stressed — to help other student-athletes and parents through the recruiting process.
He called it, “A parent’s step-by-step guide to getting through the college athletic recruiting process. Taking the frustration out of the recruiting process using the C.H.A.M.P.I.O.N.S. approach.”
“What inspired me to write this guide is because I was one of those kids that was looking for an opportunity,” Elliott said about the guide, which came out this month. “My ultimate goal is to get as many kids to college and use athletics as the means to get there.”
One of the first things he advises parents on is to be realistic about their child’s ability.
“I think a lot of times, the parents have a false sense of my child is better than everybody else. They don’t realize their child is competing not only against the kids in their area, but nationally,” he said. “Another thing: You can’t compare your recruiting process to anybody else because college coaches see different things in different kids.”
Another big misconception he’s learned about the recruiting process is that student-athletes and parents think it’s the coach’s responsibility.
“If that coach wants to do it, that’s OK. But coaches aren’t obligated to do that,” Elliott said. “When it doesn’t work out, then the kid is disappointed because they feel like their coach isn’t doing what they think he should be doing.”
In the past three years, Elliott, who now lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, said he’s helped more than 70 student-athletes get into college.
He said he feels it’s his mission and purpose to help others.
“Who better to bring you through the process than someone who was under-recruited himself,” he said. “It’s not somebody who never got recruited or even played sports in college. But this is somebody who went through it themselves and knows the process. I just want to help that kid get an opportunity.”
Copies of his guide are available for purchase on Elliott’s website at https:// www.jaminelliott.com/ recruiting-guide