dvd for college

Question
Hi--My daughter is a junior in high school and has been diving for 1 year. (Prior to that she was a level 7 gymnast). She is currently thinking about diving at Division III colleges, has looked at divemeets.com of someone of the colleges that she is interested in and thinks that she is competitive. She wants to wait as long as possible to create a dvd to send to coaches as she feels that she is still not at the level that she would like to be. From your experience, when would coaches be expecting a dvd?

Answer
Kathy -

Since your daughter is a junior,she cannot be formally be contacted by a college coach until July 1, 2010. That is the day that the NCAA recognizes students who will be graduating in 2011. Have a dvd ready to send to college coaches by that date. She should include with it her athletic diving bio that shows her current list of dives, her goal list of dives and accomplishments at high school, AAU and USA Diving events. One thing to remember about the dives she selects to send, in college now it is only optionals that are done in any meet (6 total each board). College coaches are going to be interested in her dives that are above 2.0 in degree of difficulty. It is not wrong to include lower D.D. dives, but the ones they are interested in are the harder ones.

Try going to www.diverstocollege.com. It is a website that provides a service to divers where they can upload their diving bio and dvd. On the home page, click on coaches and a huge list of college coaches from all levels will come up.

www.diving.about.com. In the search box in upper right hand corner, enter the phrase "How to Get Recruited" and an article will come up that will help you. Also enter "10 important questions to ask a college coach".

Go the NCAA website www.ncaastudent.org. Lots of info here you will both need to know before the recruiting process starts.

Hope all this helps. Good luck.