7A – Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

High school athletes see their dreams of playing college sports come to an end every day because they get offered 0 scholarships to play in college. An underlying reason for this is that these athletes aren’t getting enough exposure to even get a chance at a scholarship to play at the next level.

The who: High School Athletes

The what: See their dreams of playing college sports come to an end every year because they get offered 0 scholarships to play in college when they’re about to graduate from high school.

The why:  These athletes aren’t getting enough exposure to even get a chance at a scholarship to play at the next level.

Testing the who: The who can be anyone that is pursing a college sports scholarship.

Testing the what: When it comes to athletes not getting scholarships, it can be for a variety of reasons such as they’re simply not good enough to play at the next level and sometimes its injuries. However, I’m going to focus on the not getting enough exposure as the main reason why.

Testing the why: In testing the why, I’ve come up with a solution. To combat athletes not getting enough exposure, I planned to create a website in which it allows them to upload they’re high school highlights. First off, they would obviously need their parents or friends to film them during games and practices. However, once this is done, all they would need to do is upload the videos to their respective account. This platform would allow individuals share their accomplishments with the sports world. By having a website that exposes college scouts to these high school athletes, it gives them a better shot at being noticed and ultimately a better shot at receiving a scholarship.

Interview #1

This interview was done with a friend of mine at UF. He’s a freshman now, but he played baseball his whole life. However, he didn’t start taking it seriously till 11^th grade and by then, his chance to go the next level was pretty much gone. However, he was a great pitcher and he never thought he’d end up playing college ball anyway. I asked him though, had he taken the sport more seriously, would he have used the sports website idea I proposed? His answer was a definite yes. He told me he wished that website was around when he was in high school as so many of his teammates wanted to play college ball but didn’t.

Interview #2

This interview was done with a friend of mine who attends FSU and played football his whole life. He wanted to play college football but unfortunately, he never got any offers despite being pretty talented. When I brought up the website idea to him, he was definitely intrigued. He told me that if it was around when he was in high school, he would be made highlight tapes for all 4 years he played. There’s no guarantee that would’ve led to a scholarship, however, it definitely would’ve given him more exposure.

Interview #3

This interview was done with my friend who currently is on scholarship at UF for golf. He’s an absolute stud when it comes to the sport and his family are all athletes. When I talked to him about my idea, he liked it, but said it wouldn’t really have help him in the golf world (back when he was in high school). He explained to me that you get noticed by performing in intermediate tournaments here and there and that when you play really well, you get offers. Golf isn’t the most popular sport in the US, but, it’s also one of the most difficult ones to be the best at so when colleges see any potential in a high school golfer, they’re immediate all over it. He then told me a highlight tape wouldn’t really work in his favor as golf is a complicated sport with various factors that can lead to success and failure.

Interview #4

This interview was done with my cousin who’s in 7^th grade playing football. He proceeded to tell me that he hopes my idea is in works by the time he’s in high school so that he can start uploading all the clips he has from games and from training. He dreams of playing in the NFL, but he knows how hard it is to get to even play college football. According to the NCAA, only 7.1% of high school football players successfully transition to playing college ball. With my idea, this could help my cousin significantly in the future.

Interview #5

This last interview was done with my father. My father played football his whole life and only had 1 offer once he graduated from high school. This offer was from Florida A&M University and he went on and became an All-American for the school at the wide receiver position. Unfortunately, that was the end of his football days. He wanted to go pro and his stats were very good for his position. However, FAMU is a small school so he never got much attention from NFL scouts, which ended up being his downfall. I told him about my idea, and he said that if it was around 20 years ago when he played, he guaranteed he would be in the NFL. I was sort of shocked at his bold statement. But he thought he was that good and his stats did back up his talk. However, the lack of exposure to other college teams ended up being his downfall as if he had an offer from a more known school (like a D1 school), things would’ve been different.

Summary:

After interviewing all these people, it’s clear my idea would be helpful. It would’ve helped them all in different ways. But mainly, it would serve its ultimate purpose which is giving high school athletes a platform in which they can show off their skills to college scouts in hopes of getting a scholarship.