What is a walk on? can you receive a scholarship being a walk on? \r\n

IF you are lucky enough to find a coach that will let you walk on to try out, you are lucky. Most coaches already have their players... and their scholarships are taken. BUT, if they have an opening OR you are lucky enough to have one of the coaches on staff see you play - you might get a shot.

A walk on is someone who wants to try out for the team without being invited........

I had one good player who wanted to play for Bradley, I knew the assistant and I made several calls and got nowhere.... the kid finally walked into the coaches office and he turned him down also. In his Junior year they had a three point shooting contest with the three racks / 5 balls... my kid gets to the semi finals and nails 15 straight shots, the other kid says YOU WIN .... the prize was to shoot against the varsity coach and he beat him too...... Coach asked him where he had been, his answer was - I was the little kid that you turned down 3 years ago... coach said.. what a D A I was...... he invited him to join the team but there was no scholarship.

NOW, IF you have a Shaq or Kobe type body and ability I think you have a good shot. :-)

Ken

That is generally but not entirely true.

A walk-on is a player who does not have a scholarship. However, often players are invited (can't say "recruited") to join the team without a scholarship. Some are promised a scholarship in time, some play their entire career without one but are assured a position on the team.

Most, but not all, Division I and II programs will have a "walk-on day," which is a 1 day tryout for hopefulls who are already on the campus. It is usually after practice starts, for various and ridiculous NCAA reasons, and can only be 1 day, for the same reason. The deck is really stacked against on-campus players. They cannot take part in preseason workouts because they have to be declared eligible and physicalled before they step on the court and most schools won't go through that process for players that won't play.

On the Div I level, usually a walk-on is identified in the recruiting process and 3rd party means are used to let the player know he will have a spot on the team. On the Div II level, the same thing happens but they have an advantage of a "try out day" that is for incoming students and they are free to invite whom they like, as long as they can be term an incoming, not a returning student. It is usually held late in the spring semester, well after the season is over. Div I teams don't have that opportunity. In any case, a walk-on has to satisfy the same eligibility and academic rules that scholarship players have to satisfy before they can step on the court in a team setting or activity.

Div III has recruited and unrecruited players in a much more open and generous setting due to the non-scholarship nature of their programs and different eligibility rules.

Thanks for the clarification Don..... :-) And who said you cant teach an old dog new tricks?