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Sports Scout

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Bryan Shumock has the resume -- an All Conference football player at Virginia, a coach at Ohio University and the Air Force Academy, and a master's degree in sports management. Now he's taken his vast expertise and started a company that scouts for high school athletes and helps them get connected with college coaches and recruiters.

"We work with kids from all over the world," says Shumock. "We have kids in the U.S., Canada and Europe. We also have over 55 scouts around the country and Canada as well."

Not only does the company offer a registration service for student athletes, they also offer a training program for scouts. "The scouts actually get all the tools from us to open their own recruiting and scouting business and get to use our site and expertise. Scouts sign kids up and perform the various services we offer and get to keep the money."

What type of background is needed to be a sports scout? "All you need is a love for sports, the ability to see talent in student athletes, and most importantly, the integrity to perform a service for them for which they pay and depend on you to perform.

"College recruiting and scouting is for entrepreneurial-type people. Since there are really no guidelines, you're pretty much a service-based business. Some work for kids, some work for college coaches. In fact, some colleges will pay a good scout to take videos of student athletes, while others just pay for lists of top prospects in the area," Shumock adds.

Daniele Sauvageau has a very exciting part-time career -- she's an assistant coach and scout for a women's national hockey team. Sauvageau's "other" career is in law enforcement, but she may begin working with the team full time in the near future.

So how do you get the chance to work for an Olympic-caliber team? "You need to find someone who will give you a chance. They may be willing to give you a chance if you've been able to show them what you're capable of. It's hard, because it's a man's world.

"Yes, women have to work harder in order to be recognized. The best way to do it is to work hard and prove you can do it. It's a new option for a woman to work in this field, and I think we have to be patient. But I also think we have to have a very positive attitude."

What does it take to be a sports scout? Sauvageau believes it's experience. "You have to know the technical part of the game, like how to recognize ability, such as skating, shooting or passing. Your knowledge of the game needs to be fairly high in order to recognize those details."

Scouts also search for players with specific strengths. "If a player is the best defensive player, but if your team needs to have an offensive player, that player might not make the team, even though she's one of the best players," says Sauvageau.

Duke Babb works for a company that scouts for 11 NFL clubs.

"We have the country broken into 11 areas," says Babb. "We have an in-area resident scout...and he's assigned to his area. He scouts all the colleges and universities in his area year-round. We keep a composite list of all the current players that are eligible at each school. We also designate which ones...that we write up and recommend to the clubs as possible professional prospects."

Babb's group ends up with between 600 to 800 reports of players who are being considered. "We don't negotiate any contracts -- that's up to the clubs."

What do professional scouts look for in players? "Each player is evaluated in relation to a set of skills in relation to his position. So we scout them by position," explains Babb. However, it all starts with basic statistics on each player, such as height, weight and speed charts based on the averages in each position in the NFL.

Most of the professional football teams also have their own scouts. "They'll have four to six, whereas we have 11. They can't blanket the country with four to six because there are over 700 colleges and universities that have football programs. We do all the basic groundwork and make the recommendations and give them to the clubs," says Babb.

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