Hoop Mom: Attention, UConn

Teresa is back with some advice to a player who wants to get noticed by the University of Connecticut.

My cousin is a very good basketball player. She only wants to go to one school – UConn – despite what other school writes to her. She will be a junior this upcoming fall, and she stars in our state. How can we get UConn to take notice of her???

Andy

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Dear Andy:

It's understandable that your cousin wants to play for the University of Connecticut. The school has an impressive record of consistently fielding excellent college women’s basketball teams and is one of the nation’s top Division I schools. Given the competitive nature of the UConn program, however, it’s also important to be realistic about her chances.

I posed your question to someone who works with high school girls aspiring to play college basketball and who is very knowledgeable about how the system works: Chris Bown, head girls basketball coach at Seattle’s Lakeside School and also a coach for the HoopGurlz select team. Here’s what he said:

"First off, the numbers are not in her favor. UConn, like every other D1 school, has a set number of scholarships it can give out. They already have some players on scholarship. So the number of scholarships they have each year is limited (but less than 15). Basically, if they have not contacted her, the chances of her getting a scholarship at UConn are slim. UConn has many many, many people out looking at talent for them."

Chris adds that if your cousin is getting letters from other schools, and is not responding, "pure and simple, it is a mistake. I have told all of my kids, ‘Answer every letter you get as you never know what will happen.' "

Your cousin should keep in mind that there are more than 1,000 colleges in the U.S. seeking talented young women basketball players. Not all of them are as visible as UConn, but many of them offer high-quality programs with scholarship dollars available. I would encourage her to do some homework on the schools that have contacted her, as well as other schools she has heard about, and make a list of ALL schools that seem attractive to her. She can visit this NCAA Web site link:

http://web1.ncaa.org/ssLists/orgInfo.do

Plug in the name of any college with an NCAA program (Division I, II or III) and get contact information for that particular school.

In addition, I would urge your cousin to keep this thought in mind: If she were injured and could no longer play basketball, would she want to continue attending any of the schools she is interested in? Her primary consideration should be whether the school is a good fit for her, academically, so she can obtain a college degree no matter what happens to her athletic career.

Hoop Mom

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Teresa Wippel is team manager of the Warriors Basketball Club, an 8th Grade girls' team from the Seattle area, and mom to Warriors post player Amanda Waldron. In her other life, she is a freelance writer and editor. To ask Teresa a question, email her at

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