Recruiting is such a major part of modern high school athletics.

Chilton County High School, led by athletic director Tal Morrison, recognized that with a student-athlete recruitment assembly on May 16.

The goal of the assembly was to introduce student-athletes to CCHS’ new initiative designed to help them create a recruiting profile.

The recruiting program is open to all sports.

“The big thing is passing the information on to students,” Morrison said.

Morrison understands the recruiting process and the mindset of what coaches are looking for at the next level, having spent six years as a coach in college football.

His past experience has allowed him to create a database of coaches and schools that he will email the recruiting profiles of student-athletes.

“Not every kid can play college football, but I feel like if you are interested in playing in college and you have the grades, nine times out of 10 I will be able to find some place for you,” Morrison said. “It may be in Michigan, but there are places out there.”

One of the major talking points during the assembly dealt with calculating GPA and the courses that are required by the NCAA.

Sixteen core courses are required to compete at both the Division I and Division II levels of the NCAA.

Ten of those core classes must be completed prior to a student’s senior year of high school.

Student-athletes must sign up in the NCAA Clearinghouse by the beginning of their junior year.

According to Morrison, something that is often overlooked by students is the way in which the NCAA calculates GPA.

The NCAA only factors in the GPA from core classes. This means that a student’s overall GPA may not matchup with the NCAA’s determination.

Morrison helped install similar programs designed to help students in the recruiting process at previous schools that he had been at.

“There were kids that before we started, would have never even been looked at or thought of [in the recruiting process],” Morrison said.

The requirements from NCAA Division III and NAIA schools was also discussed during the assembly.

The assembly was attended by freshmen, sophomores and juniors. Student-athletes were asked to join the CCHS recruiting page in Google Classroom and Twitter.

Another recruiting-based assembly will take place in the fall and coincide with the new school year.

“My goal moving forward is to get all of our student-athletes informed about academics being highly important not only for them after their athletic career, but also as a way for them to continue their athletic careers, if that’s something that they choose to do,” Morrison said.