Thousands of Long Island athletes play sports in hopes of getting a college scholarship. Most won't ever make the NCAA.

The dream of playing college sports drives many Long Island athletes and their families. From a young age, the journey is paved with sacrifice — time, money and pressure. For many, the data shows, that dream can be out of reach.

Families envision the investment will pay off down the road with an athletic scholarship — a "free ride" that comes with tuition, housing, books, meals and fees — and a stage to perform at the highest level. 

For most, a surprise awaits. The process is a grueling one, and the hope of playing in college never materializes.

"We had an idea that it wouldn’t be easy, but you don’t see how much it really takes until you go through it," said Paula LaGreca, whose daughter Ellianna went to Half Hollow Hills West High School and is a sophomore on the women’s lacrosse team at Division III University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.

According to the NCAA, only 6.6% of the approximately 2.9 million girls who competed in the 13 most popular high school sports during the 2024-25 school year went on to play for college programs that compete in Division I, II or III.

Only 6.5% of the approximately 4.4 million boys who played in the 14 most popular sports during the 2024-25 school year went on to play in Division I, II or III.

"Ellianna went to a big [high] school with a lot of great athletes," Paula LaGreca said, "and I was shocked at how few were going on to play in college. ... It’s not an easy process, and there were times when she got discouraged or frustrated and we got discouraged."

Newsday interviewed athletes, parents, high school and college coaches to get a clearer picture of the challenges and realities of playing sports after high school.

"A parent should know there will be financial burdens," said Dena Ferrara, whose son Nick attended St. Anthony’s High School and is  a sophomore on the men’s soccer team at Division III Endicott College in Massachusetts. "You have to play on a club team to get in front of coaches, unless you’re that basketball player who is going to be someone, and that means dues and travel and hotels and meals. Some kids get special trainers or ... lessons, too."

The truth about college sports scholarships

Most people hear "scholarship" and envision the "full ride." That’s a small subset of what athletes can get.

In Division I, those are only guaranteed in six sports: football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, women’s tennis, women’s volleyball and women’s gymnastics. In other sports, one player may get 75% of a full scholarship and another 10%. When LIU first launched its men’s ice hockey team, it had the equivalent of 12 scholarships to distribute across 26 players.

Division II sports use the pool format, although some players can get a "full ride."

"Some people are ‘DI-or-bust’ but the division didn’t matter to me," said Chase Timberlake, a 2024 Newsday All-Long Island selection from Baldwin High School who is a sophomore on the men’s basketball team at Division II Molloy University. "I just wanted to go to school for free to help my parents out, play basketball and have a good time."

Division III has no athletic scholarships, but that doesn’t mean there is no money there. An athlete can qualify for academic scholarships or other funding. Sometimes it can take on the look of a negotiation.

"When I was on the call talking to Scranton, I had a list of questions about academic scholarships," Ellianna LaGreca said. "I ended up getting a scholarship for academics, but then I pushed for more before I decided. Once they gave me more money, that was big."

College recruiting changes

The college sports landscape has changed dramatically from when most of today's parents went to college. Players can now be compensated with NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) money. An athlete can transfer each year via the NCAA transfer portal and no longer has to sit out one year. Colleges routinely recruit foreign-born players, some of whom have already begun playing professionally overseas. 

The lure of the money, the chance to transfer to a higher-profile program and — after the most-recent NCAA rule adoption — the ability to play five seasons in five years (possibly with income) draws. While those have made college sports a higher-quality product — worthy of huge broadcast rights dollars — it also has translated to fewer opportunities out of high school.

"Look at college soccer rosters and you’ll see a lot of players from overseas and kids who transferred up," St. Anthony’s boys soccer coach Don Corrao said. "Some coaches don’t even recruit the high school player. There are still opportunities to play college soccer, but they’re different than they used to be."

The path of the elite men’s basketball player with a possible future in the NBA is well-chronicled. He might be recruited to a high school powerhouse, get on a national ranking like in ESPN’s SCNext 100 and take official visits to high-major programs. He gets full-ride scholarship offers, pares them to a group of finalists and announces a college decision at a school ceremony or on a national broadcast. It gets media attention.

Those stories are the rarest of the rare.

"You need training to develop your skills and build your body as soon as you can start, but you need more," Timberlake said. "You also need exposure. ... You can get a program interested in you real fast if you have a great tournament in front of a coach."

Every sport, however, is different. Track and field athletes from every state have recorded times and distances that can pique a college coach’s interests. The same is true for swimming. Tennis players’ results are tracked on a national website that calculates their rankings.

Lacrosse and Long Island

The NCAA sponsors 29 team sports in Division I, II and III. Among the 6.5% of males to play in college, the sports with the highest percentages of high school athletes who go on to compete at the NCAA level success are lacrosse (14.7%) and ice hockey (14.1%), while the lowest were basketball (3.6%), volleyball (3.6%) and wrestling (3%).

The highest percentages for female sports were ice hockey (32.1%), lacrosse (14%) and field hockey (13%), while the lowest were basketball (4.7%), volleyball (4.0%) and tennis (4%).

"I never thought it would be as hard to get here," Molloy's Timberlake said. "I thought it would be straightforward. It’s not — except for a [select] few."

Long Island is a strong producer of college-caliber athletes and is maybe the biggest national recruiting hotbed for men’s and women’s lacrosse, thus it gets a lot of attention from the college lacrosse programs.

On a national level, only 3.4% of boys high school lacrosse players make a Division I program out of high school while 7.9% get to play in Division III, where there are no athletic scholarships. The NCAA reports 4.4% of high school girls lacrosse players make a Division I roster while 3.3% make it to Division II and 6.3% make it to Division III.

AAU and travel teams can be key

Timberlake, LaGreca and Ferrara all said AAU programs played an enormous role in their recruiting journeys. They played against top competition. They worked with coaches who made them better players, helped them understand the recruiting game and became advocates for them with college coaches.

Equally important, these club teams travel to regional and national tournaments where coaches at every level of every division attend to evaluate players they are recruiting and discover new potential recruiting targets.

These tournaments and showcases — and not all of them are what Timberlake’s father, Chris, calls "legitimate opportunities" — can be the fastest and most direct line to being recruited to a college program.

Ellianna LaGreca opted for the Long Island-based Yellow Jackets, a nationally renowned girls lacrosse travel program.

"You want to be surrounded by a bunch of people who are getting looks from a lot of colleges because, even if a coach isn’t coming to see you, they might see you play well and check you out," she said. "If you play for the Yellow Jackets there will be a lot of college coaches watching you no matter what. Another player might be the reason [one] came, but they also have a chance to see you."

Nick Ferrara felt he got something comprehensive with the Long Island-based SUSA soccer program. 

"They have a reputation for getting their players into college programs and they go to all the showcases," he said. "You get the exposure there. You get the great training there. And their coaches are connected to college coaches and trusted by college coaches.

Social media plays a role

Timberlake estimated that social media relationships accounted for 75% of the college programs he engaged with.

"I was getting a little college interest but not a lot in junior year and then I started getting on [X.com]," Timberlake said. “[Social media] has no limits. Now you can find coaches in Nebraska or something and he sees this kid from New York. Now you have a name they can go out and look for. They can reach out and talk to you, watch your game highlights, maybe even watch a live game of you playing. They can know your name."

There are several recruiting websites that can play a role in making a connection to a college program. They provide a platform — some at a cost — where a high school athlete can post a resume of sorts, contact information and videos of their game action. Nick Ferrara and Ellianna LaGreca both built profiles on SportsRecruits.com, which allowed them to showcase their abilities and send and receive correspondence with college coaches.

"Whenever you went to a tournament, you could get a film and just put that up and you could also email colleges — like a LinkedIn for lacrosse," LaGreca said. "Then you could see which coaches viewed your profile and get a hint of who might be looking at you."

Ferrara’s recruitment to Endicott started with him emailing his highlight video to the coaching staff with a personalized email and his phone number. He estimated that he sent 40 such emails — each tailored to the school he was soliciting — and got about 10 responses.

The cost: 'It can really add up'

The road from high school roster to NCAA roster is a hard one, and it also can prove quite expensive for families.

Playing for an AAU program that competes nationally is invaluable, but at a price. The annual membership dues can run anywhere from $1,200 to as high as $8,000 and that’s before a team has made a trip.

"AAU is a very big machine and there's a lot of money involved, but you can also get a lot out of it," Chris Timberlake said. "You might be a great basketball player here on Long Island, but you’ve got to get out to the city, out of state, go across the country and face top competition. Unfortunately, there are kids on these teams whose families are paying and they’re not playing."

Many parents take on the added cost of traveling  to watch their kids compete in national AAU tournaments.

"There are families where two or three kids are playing sports and the mother is going with one and the father is going with the other," Paula LaGreca said. "Now it’s twice the hotels and twice the meals, and it can really add up."

There can be other costs along the way. Former pros and college players offer private lessons by the hour that could run as high as $300. There are personal trainers, pitching and hitting coaches, sports psychologists, game equipment and at-home training aids.

Many recruiting websites offer a profile at no charge. One can get extra features for an added price. Some families choose to pay for recruiting services or for an individual recruiting counselor.

One of the most popular national services is Next College Student Athlete (NCSA), which has a strong track record. It offers a basic profile for free but has tiered services that can run up to more than $5,000. Among the options listed on its website are general scholarship advice, roster alerts, personalized recruiting game-planning and even one-on-one recruiting coaching. Some of the recruiting coaches are former athletes and coaches.

"Parents should know that the college recruiting process also will require a lot of their time," Dena Ferrara said. "From a young age you’re driving them to tournaments out of state, you’re helping them stay on top of what they need to do, you’re spending weekends at their events. Any parent would tell you that seeing your kid happy makes the time investment worthwhile."

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