Friday, February 5, 2010

National Signing Day


As any college football fan knows, this past Wednesday was National Signing Day for high school seniors. One of my long time clients, Alec Bartz, invited me to Orange High School to be there with him when he signed with Davidson. It was great to be there because in addition to Alec signing, two other SOAR clients were also signing. Corey Joe signed with Ashland University and Ross Smith, a client of Reggie Germany, signed with Holy Cross.

Even though signing at Davidson is not going to get the publicity that signing at Ohio State, Texas or Florida gets, it was still a very proud day for SOAR and an even prouder day for Alec's family. There are two very important lessons that can be learned from Alec's story.

1. When Alec started at SOAR in the summer of 2007, let's just keep it short and say the agility ladder was a sufficient workout for him. He was heavy on his feet, a little clumsy, and not the fastest kid I have ever seen.... As soon as his 07 season ended, Alec was right back in...for 8 months straight. He started to make great progress. He was a starter on his 08 varsity team at Orange. As soon as the 08 season ended, he was right back in. We realized his squat form was not very good and he took a step back to work on technique. Alec listened and his hard work started to pay off. He won the lineman MVP at the Schuman's Underclassman Combine. He was getting invited to college camps and then had another successful varsity season. The result was his signing on Wednesday. Three years ago, it didn't seem possible. But with consistency and dedication, it most definitely became a reality.

2. ACADEMICS. Alec is great student and to my knowledge a member of a few academic clubs at school. He is a student athlete in every way. The best way for the high school athlete who is not on the radar to get a scholarship it to have good grades.


Congratulations again to Alec, Ross and Corey.

1 comment:

  1. To the folks who read about SOAR-

    As Alec's parents we could not agree more with Mike's assessment of Alec and the effort it took to make him a better athlete. The differentiators? SOAR, Mike Kozak, his staff and their program. Sure, Alec wanted to be better because it has to start there. But, without the positive, building process Alec went through at SOAR, he would not have had this opportunity to play DI football. For the parents looking for the difference I say get your kids to SOAR and let Mike and his staff build their bodies. You work on their adademics because the better you equip your athletes, the more choices they will have! Keep up the good work Mike!!

    Roger and Sherry Bartz

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