Spreading out the team's scholarships?

We just went on a college trip to D1 schools. Generally speaking I noticed a theme in how the college coaches distribute the 4.5 scholarships. However, it's just a theory. How do you think the coaches spread out the scholarships? What are the variables? Has it changed over the years recently?

Interesting question! From what I've heard about MTSU everybody gets half! Would love to hear how it works at other schools!

At Eastern Washington University, Top 6 gets a substantial amount of money, at least that's what I hear from a friend who plays for them.

Check http://www.weiltennis.com/html/placedstudents.html

for a listing of Weil Academy players who have received tennis scholarship moneys. I don't really see a theme (for guys) and would be interested to hear what tennismom42's theory is.

I know a top Southwest player who just signed and received 30%. Will not go into details of who or what college, but the person was pretty happy about getting that much.

Wow, I'm alright just going to a D2 school.

I have nothing nice to say about Weil Academy

10isDad said:

Check http://www.weiltennis.com/html/placedstudents.html

for a listing of Weil Academy players who have received tennis scholarship moneys. I don't really see a theme (for guys) and would be interested to hear what tennismom42's theory is.

I know a top Southwest player who just signed and received 30%. Will not go into details of who or what college, but the person was pretty happy about getting that much.

Click to expand...

I have nothing nice to say about Weil Academy, nor does anyone else who has played those kids. The "coaches" take the kids to national tournaments and shamelessly coach from the sidelines. It's non-stop signals, yelling coaching tips out onto the court. The coach does it, then when confronted, he gets other students to continue for him. Sure am glad I video taped it (Billy Pecor as the player). My friends & two others sat their aghast! When we told other people, they too said Weil Academy had done the same thing to their kids. The umpire said their had been a lot of complaints on those kids for the tournament. Sure am glad (& hopeful) they won't get away with that crap when they get into college. Weil Academy is doing those kids more harm than good when they coach from the sidelines.

I only pointed out the Weil page because it lists players that have received scholarships, as well as the % of moneys they got. I was not trying to endorse them.

Still interested in hearing your theory on distribution.

10isDad said:

I only pointed out the Weil page because it lists players that have received scholarships, as well as the % of moneys they got. I was not trying to endorse them.

Still interested in hearing your theory on distribution.

Click to expand...

I am still waiting to see view any answers that come in. Your answer said how much each kid got. That's not what I am asking for. I am looking for how a coach spreads out the 4.5 scholarships on one team.

Some kid/parents chase the dream of "full-ride scholarship." From what I can tell, there are maybe 5 - 10 of those per year. The reality is that the 4.5 is spread out over the team. I want to know some of the methods this are used?

What is the value of those 4.5 scholarships? Does it cover tuition & fees only? Can it cover room & board? Anybody know?

And that's what percentages are. If tuition/room/board is $40,000 and the team has 4.5 full scholarships worth of funding, the coach has $180,000 worth of scholarship money to play with.

If the coach gives a player a 40% scholarship, he still has still has $164,000 left for distribution.

It's not always so cut and dried in terms of full, 1/2 or 1/4 scholarships. As I said, a friend of my son just got 30%, so basically received just under a 1/3 scholarship.


...and the NCAA levels are based on a max of 4.5 full scholarships, so tuition, room & board. The schools do not always approve a full 4.5, so it depends. Some schools give less to tennis.

10isDad said:

And that's what percentages are. If tuition/room/board is $40,000 and the team has 4.5 full scholarships worth of funding, the coach has $180,000 worth of scholarship money to play with.

If the coach gives a player a 40% scholarship, he still has still has $164,000 left for distribution.

It's not always so cut and dried in terms of full, 1/2 or 1/4 scholarships. As I said, a friend of my son just got 30%, so basically received just under a 1/3 scholarship.


...and the NCAA levels are based on a max of 4.5 full scholarships, so tuition, room & board. The schools do not always approve a full 4.5, so it depends. Some schools give less to tennis.

Click to expand...

What about the other costs? fees, transportation, books & incidentals? Are the athletic scholarships paying for that too? Are you saying that if someone says they got a full-ride, that means they got $40,000 off of what items? I ask, because fees & books could be another $3K. That's a lot of unexpected expense.

I have heard recruiters use several terms: fractions (1/2, 1/3), percentage, and I've heard it applied different ways, i.e. "75% off tuition or 40% off overall." How do you cite that one? It seems there is no common language & it's all about self promotion.

I seen many notes on this issue from other posters, a summary-

Coach Carter has articles attached to his threads that point out there is no free lunch. Basically more work than minor sports are worth in scholarships.

Foreign players get the straight tennis money- Americans better have the grades to help the coach get them money with the administration- being very flexible with Athletic department work/study chances etc.

If parents had set aside just some of the money at the "top levels" USTA junior (monkey) business- Like daydreaming and paying WEIL to make your kid even MORE unpopular than they already are- They would have been able to EQUAL the scholarship money offered.
Frankly most tennis "business" seems to be blowing smoke up parents and kids butts-Worse than the kids "modeling" business.

Play DIII because they CAN'T give scholarships- Everything is other types of grants/scholarships- That way if you get injured,burned out, ar your grades are suffering from the sacrifice, you can always quit (for good or even temporary) and it is not based on playing tennis.

You are not majoring in tennis- have fun, have a good mix.

I wanted to reply as I have been reading the posts for awhile and I must say the discussions are very interesting. As to the question tennis mom put out there, here is my best take on it and I have been a division 1 men and women's coach for the last eight years. As you all have stated if a team is fully funded then that team has an allotment of 4.5 scholarships maximum.
Note all top d1 programs usually have 4.5 but most mid majors or lower
level d1's don't have 4.5. Some have 3 and some have more or less. Some coaches will tell you exactly what they have and some will not. As to how coaches divide the 4.5 well that varies from program to program. I know quite a few coaches we talk about this quite a bit. There really isn't any cookie cutter way of doing it. Usually we try to get a guy on as much academic as possible and supplement that with the remaining athletic but that is not always possible. If the guy is a solid player and when I say solid I mean NO WEAKNESSES, he could play 1,2, or 3 for a mid major or 4,5, or 6 for a top program. A player like this would recieve 50 or 60 percent and up especially if the grades are superb, meaning B average and above. Some coaches will give their top 4 guys each a full ride. Tennis mom asked a very good question. She asked if books, transportation and a few other things are covered in a scholarship. Books will usually be covered if it is a full or close to a full. The other items are all out of pocket expenses and depending on the circumstances can be considered a violation of NCAA rules so one has to be very carefull. A half could be considered tuition and fees. The other half could be room and board and books. So there you have it and I hope this helped at least just a little. Here is a tip for all those looking to play big time
d1 tennis. I look for a basic skill set and also a person who will fit in with the players I already have in place. If a person does not fit it won't work. They also must be coachable! Thanks For allowing me to share!

Ah ha! That's what I was looking for!

panther10s said:

...... There really isn't any cookie cutter way of doing it. Usually we try to get a guy on as much academic as possible and supplement that with the remaining athletic but that is not always possible. If the guy is a solid player and when I say solid I mean NO WEAKNESSES, he could play 1,2, or 3 for a mid major or 4,5, or 6 for a top program. A player like this would recieve 50 or 60 percent and up especially if the grades are superb, meaning B average and above. Some coaches will give their top 4 guys each a full ride. Tennis mom asked a very good question. She asked if books, transportation and a few other things are covered in a scholarship. Books will usually be covered if it is a full or close to a full. The other items are all out of pocket expenses and depending on the circumstances can be considered a violation of NCAA rules so one has to be very carefull. A half could be considered tuition and fees. The other half could be room and board and books. ... Here is a tip for all those looking to play big time
d1 tennis. I look for a basic skill set and also a person who will fit in with the players I already have in place. If a person does not fit it won't work. They also must be coachable! Thanks For allowing me to share!

Click to expand...

That's the kind of response I am looking for. Now I can divulge my own theory. We've talked with about 10 coaches & visited about the same # of schools. Coaches absolutely CRINGE to talk about scholarship distribution. It must be one of the most painful parts of their job. (My son signed this week with D1. We predict he'll play 1-3. I fear we could have done better because he's soaring the the rankings, but I suck at Poker & the economy sucks too I feared all the good scholarships would be gone. He got 51% off Tuition & fees.) The jest I got from all the coaches is that they share all the scholarships among the team. Everyone gets some. Jrs & Snrs get more than Freshmen & sophomores. If you do well, you get more at the next year's signing. Doing Well = on the court, in the classroom, on the trips.

MIGHTY MANFRED THE WONDER said:

Foreign players get the straight tennis money- Americans better have the grades ...

Click to expand...

This has been asserted many times. I wonder if the money bias for foreign players can be substantiated by anyone on the inside of these teams.

tennismom42 said:

That's the kind of response I am looking for. Now I can divulge my own theory. We've talked with about 10 coaches & visited about the same # of schools. Coaches absolutely CRINGE to talk about scholarship distribution. It must be one of the most painful parts of their job.

Click to expand...

You mean men's tennis coaches cringe. Not a big problem for women's coaches, due to Title IX practices. Equality, you know. As in Animal Farm, some are more equal than others.

(My son signed this week with D1. We predict he'll play 1-3. I fear we could have done better because he's soaring the the rankings, but I suck at Poker & the economy sucks too I feared all the good scholarships would be gone. He got 51% off Tuition & fees.) The jest I got from all the coaches is that they share all the scholarships among the team.

Click to expand...

I think you meant gist, not jest.

Everyone gets some. Jrs & Snrs get more than Freshmen & sophomores. If you do well, you get more at the next year's signing. Doing Well = on the court, in the classroom, on the trips.

Click to expand...

To answer one of your previous questions, the NCAA definitions of scholarship limits apply to tuition, mandatory fees (not fees you add at your discretion), textbooks (only those assigned in your enrolled courses; cannot buy any old book at the student bookstore and assign it to your scholarship), and room and board.

I believe that the scholarship allotments changed a lot when the NCAA limit was reduced from 5 to 4.5 about 20 years ago. I was familiar with the allotment at SMU in Dallas in the late 1970s. They would usually give 5 full scholarships, then talk one good recruit into paying his own way for his freshman year, with the promise that he would get a full scholarship when someone graduated at the end of that year. One or two walk-ons were on the team for practice purposes and in case someone got injured. A precarious roster situation in the eyes of many coaches today, no doubt, but it worked well and it enabled them to do well in recruiting because of the offer of a full scholarship. It was not an uncommon practice at the time among schools in Texas that they competed with.

When the limit became 4.5, everything changed. It would be hard to have the right size roster if you offered 4 full scholarships and one half scholarship. The potential wait for the no-scholarship recruit to get money could scare them off. At 4.5, everyone started dividing scholarships up into various sized pieces. For flexibility, coaches today do not tend to promise exact amounts (e.g. start out at 25%, then I will increase you to 50% the second year, then 75%, etc.). Instead, the standard thing seems to be that, if you do well, your money will increase. That gives the coach flexibility to increase the money slightly, if recruiting is going well and he needs the money for incoming stars, or more substantially, and in either case to some odd fraction of a scholarship.

Some schools tie the scholarships firmly to cost items, and some schools tie to cash. For example, one school that was recruiting my son offered full tuition/fees/books for athletic scholarship, and full tuition/fees/books for academic scholarship. The academic and athletic departments were obviously not in sync, because the scholarships were duplicates. We asked the school to switch one of the scholarships to room/board, but they couldn't, so we passed. The school he signed with offered a full cash athletic scholarship, and a full cash academic scholarship, and we were free to apply the cash any way we wanted. The school was not fully funded, so full scholarship did not equal full ride... but at least it was the full amount that each department was allowed to offer for one full scholarship. As far as distribution of the 4.5, in my observations, if a coach is losing a top player, then the coach might use a full scholarship to recruit one top person, if available, that will immediately contribute near the top of the team. All other recruits are offered various partials.

Why didn't they just cut to the chase and also offer a full cash position as University President along with the other full cash offers?
I would have passed on the second school.

Dave Mc said:

For example, one school that was recruiting my son offered full tuition/fees/books for athletic scholarship, and full tuition/fees/books for academic scholarship. The academic and athletic departments were obviously not in sync, because the scholarships were duplicates.

Click to expand...

If the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing...

Your son could have come away earning quite a handsome wage...

tennismom42 said:

What about the other costs? fees, transportation, books & incidentals? Are the athletic scholarships paying for that too? Are you saying that if someone says they got a full-ride, that means they got $40,000 off of what items? I ask, because fees & books could be another $3K. That's a lot of unexpected expense.

I have heard recruiters use several terms: fractions (1/2, 1/3), percentage, and I've heard it applied different ways, i.e. "75% off tuition or 40% off overall." How do you cite that one? It seems there is no common language & it's all about self promotion.

Click to expand...

normally if someone says they are getting 30%...that's 30% of tuition (for tennis). that's why grades are important, because the coach will try and get something that route too. the FAFSA is important because they'll try to get you qualified for something there too. it was correct in another post that gave the example of $40,000 per year for tuition means $180,000 (if the team is fully funded...we again need to focus on that). the coach has $180K to spend...however he feels it wisest to spend. foreigners are expensive!

Coach Carter said:

normally if someone says they are getting 30%...that's 30% of tuition (for tennis). that's why grades are important, because the coach will try and get something that route too. the FAFSA is important because they'll try to get you qualified for something there too. it was correct in another post that gave the example of $40,000 per year for tuition means $180,000 (if the team is fully funded...we again need to focus on that). the coach has $180K to spend...however he feels it wisest to spend. foreigners are expensive!

Click to expand...

Would you be able to estimate how many "full-ride" scholarships are offered to freshmen each year in D1? Full ride, I guess, means 100% tuition paid, unless you want to define "full ride" in some other way? My kid got 51% off tuition, but the school has 4 kids graduating my son's junior year. My hope is that he may be full-ride the last two years. Am I fooling myself again?

tennismom42 said:

Would you be able to estimate how many "full-ride" scholarships are offered to freshmen each year in D1?

Click to expand...

I doubt there are any gathered statistics on that, at least not available to the public. I've searched around the NCAA website and looked through many of their available documents and never seen anything.

I would guess that full-ride tennis scholarships are definitely in the minority and that the majority of those full-ride tennis scholarships are going to top foreign players and/or those cream of the crop USTA players - and sometimes not always them.

There's a gentleman who was an all-american at Stanford a few years back. He was a top-ranked junior. He played #1 for the team in at least 2 years, won a couple of fall season major events, won the US Open Jr. Doubles, was ranked #1 in the country in NCAA, etc. The story goes he got virtually nothing in the way of athletic scholarships.