Turning the Page: ACES Nation's Visionary Journey from College Recruiting to Revolutionizing Youth Sports and Athlete Development

Beyond the Scoreboard: Transforming College Recruiting to Empower Every Athlete's Journey and Unveiling a New Vision for Sports Success

For most of the past 16 years, I have worked in college recruiting.? Whether it was working with individual athletes to get them placed in college programs or developing recruiting software for organizations to?use to?manage the recruiting process to maximize the?opportunities for their?players,?the goal has always been the same...to help athletes to achieve their?goal of becoming a college athlete.? It is an awesome feeling knowing that you played a role in positively impacting someone's life and possibly giving them an opportunity that they?may have never had without your involvement.? Once you experience the feeling of knowing that you can make a difference, it's like a shot of dopamine and you want to repeat that feeling over and over again by helping everybody you can!??

?However, when it comes to recruiting, the reality is that no matter how many athletes you try to help, it is impossible to help them all.? Since only a very small number of athletes can play in college, you cannot help far?more than you can.?Having been involved?in some capacity with hundreds of thousands of athletes throughout my career, I have experienced first-hand the heartbreak and disappointment that athletes, and their parents, feel when they realize that they have no place to play or if they do, having to face the fact that the cost of college is beyond what they can afford.??

Unfortunately, most parents don't understand how the system works, and they don't realize that over 90% of all high school athletes will?NEVER?play at a 4-year college. For those that can, there is the daunting fact that the average college athletic scholarship is under $4,000 per roster spot per year for NCAA DI,?DII, DIII & NAIA. Some sports are worse than others.??Take baseball, men's lacrosse and men's soccer for example, where?the average athletic scholarship is about $2,395 per rostered player per year.

?I believe we are looking at things through an old broken lens and there is a better way for us to move forward with less stress, pressure and insanity.

Don't get me wrong, I want every athlete that?is wanting, willing and able to play in college to have a chance to experience what that is like!? For those of us that were blessed with that opportunity, we know what it feels like and how it positively impacted our lives.?

That said, what I want even more is...

?1. for every athlete to play their sport as long as possible because playing sports prepares you for life, and

2. for every athlete to have the opportunity to go to college because an education can change lives and it cannot be taken away.

Embracing Change: A Leap of Faith from Recruiting to Tackling Bigger Challenges in Youth and High School Sports

With this weighing heavy on my mind, about 4 months ago I made the difficult, no, gut-wrenching, decision to make a major pivot and step away from focusing on college recruiting to take on the bigger issues that sports organizations are facing. These are the ones that deal with balancing the complex demands and many times, unrealistic expectations of?parents, athletes and coaches with the challenges of affordability, efficiency and scalability.? ??

?I was blessed to be part of the incredible College Fit Finder legacy started by Greg Allen and Stacy Allen .? Fortunately, that legacy will not only continue, but will flourish in our new partnership with the talented team at SportsRecruits . With that transition coming to its completion, we will still be able to assist in providing any organization with the best recruiting software in the country, but now it is time for ACES Nation to focus on forging a new path forward.

Believe me, this was not an easy decision and, it was time for me to once again put my personal belief of “FAITH?OVER FEAR” to the test.?Not only did I have doubters and non-believers all around me, but I also had to acknowledge the fact that I had allowed?my own personal identity to become entangled with my profession. Neither of these promoted much confidence, but as my good friend? Jeremy Boone says, "courage comes before confidence.” I had to remind myself that just because something hasn’t been done before, it doesn’t mean it cannot be done. If that were true, we would have never put a man on the moon and Roger Bannister would have never run the mile in under 4 minutes.

?When you have faith and truly believe that God will lead you in the right direction, amazing things can happen.??

Game-Changing Partnership: ACES Nation and Florida Travel Baseball (FTB) Join Forces to Revolutionize Athlete Development and College Opportunities

?Today, I am thrilled to announce a new partnership between ACES Nation and the Florida Travel Baseball (FTB)!?

Thank you Billy Bullock , George Gonzalez and the entire FTB management team for seeing our vision and?believing in the transformative power of our partnership. Your trust and commitment are invaluable as we embark on this journey to redefine the landscape of athlete development and collegiate opportunities. Together, we are poised to make a lasting impact on the lives of countless athletes within the FTB community.???

FTB brings over 100 10u-18u teams including:

FTB Phillies National/American,?FTB Phillies - Mid Atlantic,?FTB Phillies - Georgia,?FTB Phillies DB9,?FTB Tucci Tampa,?FTBA Bulls Academy Tampa, FTB Rawlings Tampa, FTB Futures Tampa, FTB Georgia, FTB Panhandle, FTB Select, FTB Blue Wave, FTB Heavy Hittas, FTB Pottstown, FTB National, FTB Adidas, FTB California, FTB Brooklyn Falcons, FTB Blanco, FTB Lime.??

?Several additional organizations, TBT Baseball - South Florida; Elite Baseball - Gainesville; Southern Squeeze Baseball - South Florida and the International Baseball Academy of High Schools (Puerto Rico) will also be included within the FTB Alliance.?

ACES Nation will be providing FTB with the following:?

1. FTB coaches will our ACES Nation Connect app to manage all their messaging, scheduling, training and key performance metrics to improve organization, efficiency and productivity.
2. FTB athletes will use our ACES Nation Connect app to access professional, year-round, sport-specific performance training programs including strength & conditioning, speed & agility, sports nutrition and mental performance from our talented performance team, Zack Wallace , Claire Igoe MS, RD, LD and Tiana Wood .
3. FTB parents will receive guaranteed tuition reductions for all their athletes at over 450 colleges and universities in the country valued at over $3,000,000!

It is time to start looking at things differently and stop solely focusing on the small minority of student-athletes who might play in college and start educating, equiping and empowering all student-athletes in ways that can change their lives!

?Stay tuned...this is just the beginning and there's much more to come!