Keith Blackwell, BEā84, would like nothing more than for all his clients to have storybook careers. After all, heās in the business of helping high school athletes realize their dreams of playing at the next level. But to pursue those dreams, Blackwell says they first must be willing to let go of the very storybook notions that inspire them, including one he calls āThe Blind Side “Ś²¹²ś±ō±š.ā
āIāve found there are many misperceptions about the college recruiting process because of The Blind Side,ā he says of the popular movie about NFL lineman Michael Oher. āA lot of players assume that the doorbell will start ringing and coaches will come in and try to recruit them.
āI tell them, unless youāre a top-ranked recruit, itās really the other way around. Itās the athlete who has to recruit the coach and the program.ā
This scenario is especially true for students looking to play varsity sports at colleges and universities known for their high academic standardsāthe bailiwick of , a Connecticut-based company that Blackwell founded in 2013 after he and wife Jean Ackermann Blackwell, BSā85, helped their own daughters navigate the college recruiting process.
Because high-academic institutions devote relatively few resources to recruiting athletes, Blackwell developed a user-friendly website to bridge the gap between players and coaches. āMy customer base is really twofold: Iāve got the players and parents on one side and coaches on the other,ā says Blackwell, who draws upon his software engineering background for the technical side of the business. āOne of the challenges for these coaches is that very few students have the academic scores to enroll at their schools. So what I do is provide them a concentrated pool of high-likelihood candidates to evaluate.ā
To be part of that pool, athletes pay $150 fora 36-month membership. Benefits include an online player profile visible to coaches at more than 100 colleges and universities throughout the U.S., detailed academic and sports information about those institutions, and in-depth analyses of each programās roster.
Members also get access to what Blackwell calls the ECS Processāa set of clear guidelines to assist them in their search for the right program. The closest thing to compare it to is a job search, he says, and the earlier the athletes start thinking about it, the better.
āThey really should start as freshmen, which seems strange to a lot of people,ā he says, ābut hopefully by the time theyāre juniors theyāll be able to pick the right school, both in terms of academics and sports, rather than just letting a āWhere am I going to play soccer?ā mindset drive the process.ā
Elite College Sports currently provides support for womenās soccer, basketball, lacrosse and volleyball, as well as menās basketball, and there are more sports to come. But regardless of how the company evolves, Blackwell intends to stay true to his original vision for it: that playing college sports can, and should, serve as a means to achieve larger academic goals.
Itās this idea that motivates Blackwell and brings him the greatest sense of professional satisfaction. He finds his work so fulfilling, in fact, you might even say heās discovered a storybook career of his own. āItās great to start a company and be successful,ā he says, ābut whatās really special is knowing youāre making a difference in these kidsā lives.ā