So are you really ’bout that life? Not that ball life, but grades life? You can’t be about be all-about-ball and not be about that classroom life. They simply will not co-exist separate from each other. It’s what a marriage is all about. Your grades are the backbone of your life–they’ll love you and be by your side when you come home banged up from practice and ultimately give you the love you deserve when you feel like nobody else wants you around. They’re are your reason for existence if you’re trying to stay in love and married to the game you love to play at this point in your lives.

Sounds kinda hokey, doesn’t it? Nope. If you are a freshman–or even worse–a senior reading this and thinking to yourself either A) this is hokey or B) damn–wished I would’ve loved a little harder, then you are experiencing the blissful ignorance of not knowing what lies ahead and the harsh reality that your playing days are over because of something that happened four years ago.

The small school recruiting fair that took place this past weekend was chocked full of institutions across this country looking for our boys to come and make a name for themselves–as long as they had taken care of the one thing that would’ve taken even better care of them back–and we are not talking their merits on the actual football field. In fact, football was absolutely secondary for the young men that did not sign their names to a letter of intent on the first Wednesday in February.

The schools come from “random” places in states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, and of course Florida–(yes, there are random places in Florida with schools that play football). Perhaps they’re not so random when a school like Division-III dynasty Mount Union comes a calling, though. If you have the grades, you suddenly find yourself on the radar of a program that’s won TWELVE national championships and played for another SEVEN in the last 22 seasons. If you’re doing the math, that’s NINETEEN chances at a ring. Who else is doing it like that? Not even some of these major D-1 programs can even sniff that–and a ring is a ring. Does. Not. Matter. So, that sounds like a pretty good proposition, doesn’t it?

Here’s the deal. A moment like that doesn’t happen this past Saturday in 2016 if you didn’t take care of business starting sometime in August of 2012. It’s a concept that’s difficult to grasp, but one that will chew-you-up-and-spit-you-out if you’re not willing to grasp it. It’s the definition of humbling and nobody knows this better than East Bay Head Coach, Frank LaRosa–who has had his own experience from working these fairs for years.

“The reality of it is–all these kids have these dreams of pulling that hat off the table and donning an SEC or Big-Ten hat on that first Wednesday in February, but the truth of the matter is, 99-percent of these kids are not going to playing Division One football,” said LaRosa. “That doesn’t mean that playing football at the next level with their buddies is over, but that’s what the recruiting fair is for–it’s for those kids that aren’t National Signing Day kids but still have that talent and passion to continue playing. The reality is–and you can’t harp on it enough–I wish that kids could see Saturday instead of Sunday.”

That reference of wanting the kids to see the interaction on Saturday is the day in which college coaches get all the vital stats needed–like GPA’s and test scores first–then getting to the actual football skills second. It’s the day that schools will quickly decipher who they will ask back to speak with personally on Sunday. It’s the day in which the harsh reality of the business side of this process rears itself. It’s quite frankly the final day of reckoning for the future of many young men in terms of their playing careers–and collegiate careers for that matter.

“Coaches aren’t pulling up to the tables and getting comfortable. They’re coming up like, [Coach, I need a 22 ACT and a 3.5 (GPA)–we’re in Wisconsin and it’s going to cost an out-of-state student fifty-grand]–so they don’t even sit down. I know the college coaches–especially the ones that have been around the block a few times know the reality of the situation is most of these kids don’t’ have those test scores or GPA so the thing is you can’t stress the grades enough.”

LaRosa goes on to break it down for the players that aren’t in the top one or two-percent–which is what the D-1 players represent. The equation is simple–you’ve got to stay on top of the responsibilities–aka your actual job at this point–aka the classroom.

“Once you get to the D-2, D-3 or NAIA? The academics are an absolute priority because that equals money. If you are a Nate Craig-Myers or a KJ Sails–when you sign on that first Wednesday they’ve got you locked in financially as well–not just from an enrollment standpoint, but financially. Well what happens if you’re not one of those guys? Well, guess what? You’re SAT’s and ACT’s–all that stuff is going to be added money ON TOP of whatever you can get from those D-2’s and so on. You harp on it and harp on it and I wish there was a way for the kids to see that process. Some schools talk just standing up because their academic standards are so high.”

LaRosa’s had his own humbling experience from this fair–not as an athlete–but as a coach. Something that has motivated him to get better at getting his kids ready for this process and something that is paying off after all this time.

“Personally speaking this year, we were fortunate in that we promoted some kids that were pretty good shape academically unlike the first year I did this and had to embarrass myself because I had no one that could benefit from this thing. I came out of it so embarrassed, I was like ‘No, I’m not going to do it again. The behind the scenes action with the high school coaches goes beyond the promotion of their D-1 talent–it goes beyond the kids that have been invited to a Rivals, or a Nike or a Big County Preps event–they’re probably working twice as hard with the kids that are on that academic cusp and realistically D-2 talent and working on getting them to retake their tests, take a couple more classes that will help them get their GPA’s where they need to be, find them a Saturday tutor that will help them for the SAT and so on. Because ten more points on their SAT’s can mean $2,500 dollars in terms of making the next bracket on the colleges’ “Merit Lists” and that’s the biggest reality of this in terms of importance of the grades when it comes to the small-school recruiting fairs.”

So in the end, which life are you going to be about? Maybe you are an “elite” football player and might not have to find yourself in this position–but maybe you will because yet again you didn’t take care of your business in the classroom and have now fallen into the “other” 98%-99% of the kids your age playing the sport. That also happens, too. But the reality is that it’s perfectly fine to go off and play at a program that’s willing to provide you the opportunity to do so–and it doesn’t have to be some sort of “glamorous” school that’s on TV 12+ times a season. If you’ve taken care of your business in the classroom, then you can start planning for the next four years of your life and with more than reasonable hope for athletic AND financial stability.

If you didn’t, then you may be faced with not having an answer for the following scenario that LaRosa’s seen literally thousands of times. “What everyone sees is the opportunity for kids to continue playing football–but football is not what helping them get to that school–it’s academics. If you’re not a D-1 kid, you’ll get some football money somewhere, but who’s picking up the rest of the bill?”