Walk-on VS Preferred Walk-on - Here's the difference

Hey team, Alex Swenson here. Hey, thanks for joining me again today and if you're new to this channel, I'm a former Division 1 college coach, Scout and recruiter and I'm here to help you or your son play at the next level. And in today's video we're going to be talking about walk ons versus preferred walk ons versus scholarship athletes and the differences between them at the Division 1 level, the Division 2 level and the Division 3 level. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this so I am going to clear this up. So if you get anything from this video, please smash that like button that thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. I put out a weekly video on recruiting and how to get better on and off the field. Alright, let's get into it. Hey, real quick, if there's any questions that you have, please comment down below. It can be about today's topic, it can be about the recruiting process, it can be about development, whatever it is. Or if there is a topic that you want me to cover, please comment down below. Today's topic about walk ons is a request from you guys. I want to make sure that I'm covering what you guys want to hear about or know about. So please comment down below. That means a lot to me and I will put out a video of that if I haven't done it already. Give me some time because I try to plan these out as we go. But please comment down below any topics that you want me to cover. All right, let's get into it. All right team, we're going to start with the Division 3 level. Then we're going to get into D1 and, and D2 and I'm going to group those together because they use the same terminology as far as scholarship athlete preferred walk on and walk on. Where Division 3 really just uses walk ons. And what does that mean? And the reason why is because there's no athletic scholarship at the Division 3 level. If you didn't know, there's only academics. So they do not give any athletic scholarship at the Division 3 level. So what does walk on mean? Things. Think of it as a player like myself not having a guaranteed spot on the team and I have to have an open tryout. It could be a half day tryout, it could be a full day tryout, it could be a week tryout, it could be even three months of trying out for the team. And I'm doing everything with the team. I'm in the team meetings, I am strength conditioning. I'M practicing, I am playing. And coaches are evaluating you through this process. See if you're going to make the team in the spring. That is a walk on. And the thing is, the tryouts can vary as you go. What is the communication of that process? So a player could have no communication with the coaches. He just applies to the school and reaches out to the baseball coaching staff when he's there and say, hey coach, I would love to try out for the team. Is there any tryout opportunities there? Coach would either say yay or nay. And then if it's yes, they give the specific date, what that looks like, etc. Or you could go through the recruiting process. The coach is not guarantee you a spot on the team, but he says, hey, if you apply, you get in and you decide to come, we're going to give you a tryout and it's either going to be a half day, full day again, a week or three months if you will. Again, it can vary. So that's how that kind of process goes. As far as the other athletes that are not walk ons, they're essentially guaranteed a spot. They say the coaches help them go through the application process, the schools helps them get in and guarantees them a spot on the team as far as playing. And those players might have either an academic scholarship or they might not. Okay. And if they don't have an academic scholarship, they are paying for colleges. Okay. And there might be some financial aid there as they go, but those are really the two. So it's a walk on or guaranteed spot on the team. Okay. There's really no, there's no preferred walk ons as far as in Division 3 or Scholarship athletes in the sense of athletic. Let's get into D1 in detail. Hey, let's go over scholarship athlete real quick before we get into preferred walk on versus walk on and the differences between them and what exactly those are, which are big by the way. But, but before we do that, be careful with these labels. There are people out there that think just because you're a scholarship athlete that you're above a preferred walk on or walk on. Guys, when you get on campus, everybody's on a level playing field because everybody's competing for that particular spot on the field and coaches do not care. Okay. If you're a scholarship athlete, a preferred walk on or a walk on, they are going to put the best players out there. So just be careful with these labels. And I'm just doing this because these labels are out there and I'm just trying to Distinguish the difference. So with that said, scholarship athletes are the obvious. But just want to cover this real quick. You have an athletic, an athletic scholarship to that school that qualifies you as a scholarship athlete, okay? Not academic, okay? It is athletic athletic scholarship. And as you guys might know, Division 1 only has 11.7 scholarships that they can divvy out amongst 27 guys. Now it's 32, but that's. It gets complicated with all these new rule changes, etc. Division two, they have nine scholarships. And this is if they're fully funded. So let's go to Division 1. Some schools, a lot of schools are not fully funded, meaning they don't have 11.7 scholarships. They might have 10, they might have seven, they might have five, four, three, two. Some of them have zero athletic scholarships, okay? But say if you're a scholarship athlete, meaning you have an athletic, you could also have an academic scholarship as well. And they call that stacking. You have an athletic and an academic, which helps a lot because guys aren't getting full rides just solely off of athletic. And if they say they are, they're not, okay? They're not. So athletic scholarship. So that is the scholarship athlete standpoint. Now with a preferred walk on at Division 1 and Division 2, you are essentially a scholarship athlete without the scholarship, okay? Athletic scholarship. Without the athletic scholarship, you could have an academic scholarship, okay? But you wouldn't be qualified as a scholarship athlete because again, that is only athletic. So prefer to walk on is guaranteed a spot on the team, okay? That is just not on an athletic scholarship, but it has an academic scholarship. So I was a preferred walk on at Jacksonville University, okay? I didn't have an athletic to start. I worked my way into that by the way. You can work your way into that whether you're a preferred walk on or a walk on, okay? But you are guaranteed a spot as a preferred walk on. Usually there's anywhere between six to eight preferably preferred walk ons on each team. I say usually because that's loosely. Usually 27. Let's just use a Power 5 conference for simplicity. Power 5, I was at Ole Miss. So 27 guys were on athletic scholarships. Eight guys were on no scholarship. They were preferred walk on or a walk on spot. Okay? So preferred walk on. You have a guaranteed spot, okay? A walk on. It's the same same as Division 3. It is an open tryout. It is not guaranteed spot. You come and try out. And the thing is with Division 1 and Division 2, there sometimes are not tryouts for them. So you have to. If you're going, I'm going to go walk on to this Division 1 club or Division 2 club, you need to make sure that they have a tryout that you can actually compete for a spot on the team. And whether that's a half day, full day or throughout the throughout the fall, okay? Most of them are just a day or a week or so. At the Division 1 level, it's not a full fall. There might be some out there, but most of them it's just a day or a week. But make sure that there is a tryout at that school because not all schools have trials like for Ole Miss, we didn't have open tryouts. Okay? We didn't have any open tryouts and a lot of schools are going that way because of the pandemic. But there's still schools that out there. So just make sure. So real quick recap. Athletic scholarship athlete, you have an athletic scholarship preferred walk on is the exact same thing as a scholarship athlete without the athletic scholarship. Okay? You're guaranteed a spot on the team and then a walk on it is an open trial. You were not guaranteed a spot. You could make it. You could not make it. Okay? So those are the differences. Let me know if you have any questions about any of that or there any topics that you you want me to cover and make sure you like and subscribe to this channel. Hope to see you at the next video. Okay, Take care. Bye.