© East County Sports.com
SANTEE (5-20-08) -- Sports services abound which claim they will get your student-athlete a scholarship to continue playing at the next level at a college somewhere across the country.

There are only two problems: the services are costly and they can't guarantee success.

“Getting your kid recruited is expensive, between club team dues and all of the travel required,” said Debbie LaChusa, who spent years investing in order to gain a softball scholarship for her daughter, former West Hills High standout Brianna LaChusa, who now attends Kenyon College in Ohio. “We got lucky and my daughter got a nice package, but not everyone gets that or knows how to do it on their own.”

The nightmare going through the marketing and recruitment process led to LaChusa and her neighbor, who also has a daughter starting for her high school team, to find a better way. In a website set up similar to MySpace.com, they soon launched a completely free website: www.ShowcaseMySport.com.

"It allows players to create online profiles, feature skills videos, and connect with college coaches," LaChusa noted. "We are marketing it to travel coaches, college coaches and high school players. While we have started with softball, we hope it will grow to include many sports."

"That's how the idea was born."

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"Really, why invest more than you need to."

In LaChusa's hands are a pair of binders, each standing 3-inches thick with correspondence between her daughter and colleges coaches.

"I spent 1.5 years helping my daughter market herself to coaches," she recalls. "But trying to get a get a 17-year old to write and mail letters and videos back was difficult."

However, electronic correspondence is second-nature to most high school students, if not their parents.

Introduced in January 2008, ShowcaseMySports.com is quickly gaining acceptance throughout the industry. Several club tournament directors are allowing LaChusa's firm, DLC Marketing, Inc., to promote the service at events, including the America 's Finest City Showcase in Escondido and a major tournament in Boulder, Colo.

"We've had a great response from the travel ball community, and the college coaches like it, too," LaChusa added. "Our goal is to get the word out in softball this summer, then expand to other sports."

Similar to hardcopy profile forms distributed by players to college coaches to potential recruits, the website includes a biography page, a place to embed video. photos and statistics, along with academics information including SAT scores,

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www.ShowcaseMySport.com

And the system works in both directions.

"Players can send their profile to coaches, while coaches can make a watch list of players, creating direct links to all the players they're watching, tracking how they're doing -- all the facts are in one place."

"We hope to be on the leading edge to manage the process online."

It certainly beats the alternative, especially when it comes to the family budget.

"I spent so much money taking my daughter to travel tournaments and paying travel club fees," LaChusa noted. "I didn't want to spend more money for someone to market my kid for me -- enough money gets invested."

And with www.ShowcaseMySport.com the bottom line gets achieved: ballplayers get connected with college coaches.