This time of year, I’m overwhelmed with people looking for (mostly free) advice on how to break into scouting. However, there’s another segment of the personnel community I hear from that is in a completely different mindset, and I had one of those conversations today.

I won’t bore you with the details, but I spoke to a very talented, highly qualified evaluation professional from the college ranks who is at wit’s end on what to do next. He’s in his early 30s and has done his job well for years, but just wonders if he’s making the progress he should be making.

It’s very hard to diagnose someone’s situation and offer them effective advice on what path he should pursue, but since these themes have become common ones (especially these days, with the fury of the spring portal in the rear-view mirror and burnout prevalent), I thought I’d address the questions you should be asking yourself if you fall into this category.

  • How old are you?: I’ve written this before in this space, and I’ve said it before many times, but I feel that 30 is a good milestone for progress. If you are where you want to be, or seriously feel you’re near it, at 30, proceed. If not, it’s probably time to start another path while you still have the time and energy to excel at it. There IS life after football.
  • How much money do you have socked away?: I know many of you are volunteers, or are working for money far below your value, but it’s smart to put money away if you can. As my father once told me, money equals independence. If you don’t have something in savings, for example, there are great football jobs you simply won’t be able to take because they don’t pay well enough. 
  • Do you have legitimate NFL contacts? Or are you just sending emails wildly, hoping to get traction?: If you listen to my podcast, or you read this blog regularly, or you subscribe to my newsletter or my website, you know that I value network over everything else as you climb the scouting ladder. You better have a mentor who believes in you, and you better have some well-placed friends. If you’re relying on a certificate from a third-party service to get you a job, or you’re hoping years of scouting reports and tweets will get you into the league, it gives me no pleasure in telling you this, but you’re wrong. 
  • Can you live without a senior college personnel position/NFL scouting post?: This is probably the toughest question of them all, because so many people I come across have their entire identity invested in football. With that said, I’m not sure I could answer “yes” to this question (though I very nearly had to a couple decades ago). 
  • Are you entrepreneurial?: I was 32 when I decided I’d try an Internet-based information service for people who worked in football and who were willing to pay a monthly subscription fee online. For a lot of reasons, that was a terrible idea, because I didn’t really have a lot of connections and didn’t know quite what I’d write about, but I was willing to give it a shot. Twenty-plus years later, I’m far from a household name, but I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. This is what I was born to do. It’s a special feeling to know God had this in store for me.

God has something in store for you, too. Maybe by asking yourself these questions, you can figure out if that thing is football. Good luck and Godspeed on your path.