Practice What You Preach

RT Staff Note: Carmen Bucci of The Complete Athlete e-mailed us yesterday with a new article. He contributes several times a year to Rounding Third. Carmen attributes the success of his company to a unique collection of life-long passions...Sports, Mentoring Young Athletes, and Entertaining.

He was Drafted and Played with the San Diego Padres, was a Two-Time All-Big Ten Shortstop, Scouted with the Texas Rangers, and was the owner of West Coast Baseball School in Sherman Oaks, CA. He graduated from Northwestern University's School of Communications.

Carmen is an experienced Actor & Stand Up Comedian, the Author of "Sports is a Mental Game," Contributing Columnist to well known National Publications, and is a highly respected Public Speaker on the College Recruiting Process for High School Student-Athletes.

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How many of you have heard that saying before? I imagine most of you have. For those of you that haven’t, it basically means to do what you say. As an athlete, it’s not good enough to just talk a good game. Some have the philosophy that athletes should….

“Let your actions speak for themselves.”
“Let your play do the talking.”
‘Do your talking on the field.”
“Actions speak louder than words.”

Ok, enough clichés. I am here to tell you that in the world of college recruiting, you need to flip that around. That’s right, if you want an athletic scholarship, you need to preach about what you practice. Say what you’ve been doing. Talk about your play. And, let you words tell of your actions. Huh? What I mean is that you need to let college coaches know about you. Tell them about how well you’re doing in the classroom, about your rigorous workouts, about how your season is going, about your commitment and dedication to getting a great education and competing at the next level. Let them know why they should offer you an athletic scholarship or any other kind of scholarship over someone else.

Of course, no one likes a braggart. There are proven ways to present you to a coach. There are techniques for the type of email or letter you should send a coach. And, there are techniques to interviewing with a college coach. As you proceed with the recruiting process, there will come a time that you’ll need to talk with the coach. How many of you have been practicing for that interview? Don’t tell me you haven’t been practicing. I am sure you practice before your competition. And, I am sure you study for a test. But, you’re not practicing for the college interview?

Maybe you’re not going to call your friends and get them together for a pick-up game of public speaking. That might seem a bit odd. But, you should be practicing with someone. Why wouldn’t you practice for what could be the interview of a lifetime? The successful student-athletes know how to present themselves to a college coach. Are you one of them? Get started today!