Selecting a college is rarely an easy decision, especially for those weighing athletic options.

For years, many have questioned where to go and why. And in most cases, the places to get any answers to those questions were limited.

Typically, coaches, family members or academic counselors would be the first people students could turn to for help.

But, now there is another option.

Scholarship for Athletes, a company started by Hopkins High School graduate and former University of Florida men’s tennis player Ross Greenstein, serves as a place to find those answers.

“If you ask any college athlete how much help they got in their decision, they will tell you about zero,” Greenstein said. “There are so many questions that need answering, and that is what we do.”

Greenstein will be back in Minnesota next week answering such questions. He will be giving presentations Monday, April 23, at Hopkins High School, and then again Wednesday, April 25, at Velocity Sports in Champlin Park.

The main reason for the stop in Minnesota is to get the word out about the company.

“Not a lot of people know about us yet,” Greenstein said. “We are the only firm that I know of that provides this type of service.

“The fact is kids need to find the right school for them that fits them socially, academically and then athletically. Most kids don’t look at all three of those aspects, and they are vital to having a successful and enjoyable college experience.”

Greenstein got into the business shortly after graduating from Florida, mainly because he said he didn’t have much help when he was going through his own recruiting process.

“It really would have opened my eyes to the fact that is a cruel business,” Greenstein said. “I had a very tough freshmen year. Part of the reason I went to Florida was because of the coaches, and that happens. At the beginning of my freshmen year, the assistant coach that recruited me resigned, and at the end of the year my head coach got fired. I still would have gone to Florida, but nobody told me that was a possibility. No one told me to make sure I don’t go to a school because of the coaches, because the chances of them being there aren’t very good.”

One misnomer about a service like the one Scholarship for Athletes provides is that it is a recruiting service. Those types of services take profiles of students and send them out to college coaches across the county.

Scholarship for Athletes doesn’t do anything like that. Rather, its mission is to inform, something that allowed the company to come to places like Hopkins to give a presentation.

“We are leery of having people come in and sell recruiting software and stuff like that,” said Hopkins Athletic Director Dan Johnson. “But this is not a recruiting service; this is something that can help athletes understand the process of getting into intercollegiate athletics.”

That gives Scholarship for Athletes a leg up on recruiting services. For Greenstein and his company, it’s all about honesty, which is something that is often times lost in the athletic business world.

And a business is exactly what college athletics have become, he said.

“It has, and it is a really hard, long process deciding to where and when to get into that business,” Greenstein said. “The kids and parents need help. Nobody has ever done a service like ours; a full on consultant from beginning to end. Everyone that works for us all played college sports at a high level, and they’ve all been through this. We all believe we are doing something that is really important in today’s world of athletics.”

For more information go online to www.scholarshipforathletes.com

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