The scholarship offers came early and often for Taylor Koenen

Doug Koenen was sitting in his home office listening to his daughter Taylor in the next room talking on the phone with Bill Fennelly, head coach at Iowa State University. It was one of her first recruiting calls but Taylor was handling it beautifully. "How did it go?" Doug asked when the call ended. "It went great," she told her Dad. "He offered me a scholarship." At the time, Taylor was in the 8th grade. Welcome to the world of big-time college basketball recruiting, where talented junior high kids are receiving scholarship offers worth $200,000 and parents are often overwhelmed. "I remember saying to her, 'Are you sure? That can't be right,'" Doug recalled. "'He couldn't have offered you a scholarship now.' But sure enough he had. I still have the text from him in my phone." Taylor had a good laugh recalling that first offer. "Honestly, I didn't even know what to think," she said. "I remember asking my Dad, 'What does a scholarship mean? I didn't know this wasn't normal." In the end, there were drawers full of letters, countless phone calls, and more than 20 major college opportunities. "She was deep in offers from all over the place," Doug said. "I let her talk to coaches all the time. She was pretty good at it for her age, and it was a good growing experience." Taylor committed to the University of North Carolina the summer before her junior year, and is now entering her sophomore season with the Tar Heels. The 6'2" combo guard from Shakopee High School finished her career as the #1 player in the class of 2016. "I started the process pretty early so it was OK to end it early, too," she said. "I talked with a lot of the major schools in the Big 10, the Big 12, the SEC, and the ACC. Once I visited North Carolina, I knew it was the right place for me." The recruiting process plays out differently for everyone. The focus here is on high-end recruits, the kids ranked at the very top of their class. Koenen's early offer may have been rare five years ago but it is fast becoming the norm. There are a number of high school freshmen in Minnesota with multiple Division I offers. I know of 8th graders and at least one 7th grader with Big 10 opportunities, and there may be more. I spoke with Taylor recently from Chapel Hill, N.C. where she spent the summer taking classes and working on her game. This is the perspective of a player and parent who have been there and done that. Q: Now that you have a year of college basketball experience, what has it been like? "It's awesome. I love it. Playing for hall of fame coaches is amazing. Not everyone can say they've done that. My biggest adjustment has been the speed of the game. There are no easy plays and everyone is so quick on defense. Just the timing of everything. You have to get your shot off quicker because everyone who is guarding you is just so fast and so athletic." Q: When you were looking for the right college opportunity, what were you looking for? "Growing up my Dad was a huge Iowa fan because he's from Iowa, so Iowa and Iowa State were on my list right away. Those were my first two offers. I also liked Stanford because academics is really important to me. Of course, they are really good at basketball, too, so I went to elite camp there. Same with UNC. Good basketball and academics were both important to me, and they had to have a really good coaching staff. The distance didn't mean that much because my parents told me they were going to make it work to come watch me play." Q: How important is it for kids to have a strategy for picking the right program and to know what you want? "For me, I just took it as it came. I was able to take some unofficial visits, which was great. That way you get a feel for the coaches. At UNC, the coaches are very family oriented. That was a big thing for me. Academically, each school is a little different. Do you want to be close to home or far away? If you talk to your parents you can figure out the values that are important to you." Q: What happens on an official visit when you are a big-time recruit? "I only took one official visit and that was to UNC. It was awesome. They pay for everything. They fly you in and you can bring a total of three people. Your days are packed. I got to go to a football game. I hung out with the girls and they took me to the fair. I got to see the facilities. You try on the gear and you get sized up. You get to see what a typical day is going to be like. They show you the buildings where you will have classes. Then they fly you home on Sunday. It's a packed weekend full of fun." Q: We hear stories about some pretty over-the-top things that schools do on official visits, within the rules of course. Was it that way for you? "Oh for sure. They showed up at the airport with a big sign with my name on it, and then we got into a car with a big UNC logo. You get to stay in a high-end hotel and you get your own room with a big king-sized bed. The room is filled with everything you like. They had all my favorite foods – red velvet cupcakes, my favorite pop, and confetti and all kinds of things. They had UNC stickers everywhere in the hotel so you know where to go to your room and the elevator. I didn't really know what was going on. I was just happy to be there. I was just smiling the whole time." Q: What advice do you have for other kids who are going through the recruiting process now? "I would say do not cross a school off your list right away. Give them all a shot. Make sure you call them back when you are supposed to. There were schools that I thought I would never have gone to and when I visited I ended up really liking them. You never know what school you might like so I would say give them all a fair chance." Doug agrees. "Don't turn down any phone calls. You never know what might happen," he said. "If someone is interested in you, no matter who they are, no matter where they are from, you need to talk to them." He also expressed the importance of attending elite camps at the schools you are interested in. Q: What advice do you have for parents? "I think the biggest thing was that my parents supported me in whatever I wanted to do. Because my dad was such a big Iowa Hawkeye fan, people thought he might force me to go to Iowa, but it wasn't like that at all. He let me choose. It was funny though because every time a coach would contact me I would have to give them my email address. Well my email has 'Hawkeye' in it so it was pretty embarrassing." Doug said choosing the right AAU program is vital. Taylor played on the outstanding Minnesota Fury 2016 Elite team that sent several players on to Division I programs, including Jamie Ruden (Arizona State), Abby Kain (Northern Colorado), Madison McKeever (South Dakota), Sarah Jacobson (NDSU), Ally Gorres (UND), and Erika Schlosser (Fairfield). "I have a lot of people who call me for advice or call Taylor to talk about what we did," Doug said. "The thing I always tell them is to pick an AAU program that you are comfortable with where you have coaches who will help the kids get better. It's not just about wins and losses."