Marc Narducci: Athletes can make college picks official Wednesday

Wednesday is jackpot day for many high-profile athletes around the country. It's National Letter of Intent day, when high school athletes in selected sports can literally sign with the college of their choice.

Football players will justifiably receive the bulk of the attention. Football recruiting has become a high-stakes game, where a few poor recruiting classes can certainly lead to a coach's firing.

Athletes in other sports face similar pressures in recruiting, if not the same media scrutiny.

Athletes in field hockey, boys' and girls' soccer, track and field and water polo can also sign letters of intent Wednesday.

South Jersey often sends numerous field hockey players to college programs.

The trend in football has been for colleges to get the youngsters to orally commit to a school before their senior year.

This doesn't just happen in football.

Take field hockey, for example.

Last week, Eastern junior Kelsey Mitchell, The Inquirer's South Jersey player of the year, made an oral commitment to attend Iowa.

She will sign with the Hawkeyes in February 2010.

With 102 goals, Mitchell has accomplished as much in her sport as any athlete in South Jersey.

According to Eastern coach Danyle Heilig, Mitchell was asked by one prominent college field hockey program to commit in September of her junior year.

"That is really early, but it's happening that early in field hockey," Heilig said. "I can imagine what a top-notch football player goes through, but it's also a lot to ask of a 16-year-old girl."

It appears that one major difference in the two sports is that when field hockey players commit, the opposing coaches back off. In football, college coaches are notorious for staying in contact with players.

"The field hockey college coaches are pretty respectful when a player makes the verbal commitment," Heilig said.

One thing that Heilig demands of her players is that once they make the commitment, they must call the other coaches who were recruiting them right away.

Mitchell admits she had to call quite a few coaches.

"They were really nice about it and wish you good luck," Mitchell said. "The coaches I dealt with didn't make it difficult."

In 10 seasons at Eastern, Heilig has guided the Vikings to 10 consecutive state Group 4 titles. Besides all the success on the field, Heilig, a former field hockey and lacrosse player and graduate lacrosse assistant at James Madison, is one of the foremost experts on recruiting.

She has had plenty of practice. At Eastern, 41 of her field hockey players have earned scholarships. An additional 13 in lacrosse, which she coached for six years, also earned scholarships.

Before the season, Heilig puts on a recruiting seminar for Eastern players and their parents.

Heilig goes over NCAA guidelines, and takes a player from her freshman through senior year and instructs what they should do in the recruiting process.

The key message is that if a person has aspirations to compete in college athletics, it's never too early to begin working on recruiting.