welcome to the secrets of college planning i'm your host anthony uva and today we're going to get some insight into college football at the ivy league level my guest today is bob cerate he's the head football coach of princeton university welcome to the show  hey yeah no problem so usually i start my guess where they went to college so when you go to school why when i went to college here princeton university graduated in one nine hundred ninety we just had reunions this weekend i celebrated my twenty seven h met my lovely wife lisa who is the associate had a school at princeton day school she celebrated her twenty fifth and we were on the on stage with naughty by nature dancing in our union so had a great time amongst had such a great undergraduate experience it's like you pick right back up with your friendships and it's really nice so let's go back into high school and did you get recruited out of high school and what year did it start was a freshman year senior year yeah it was much different back then so i went to mill high school home i traveled a great baseball player my father was my football coach was football and baseball coach millville for twenty five years in football and recruiting was different back then it really pretty much started towards the end of the junior year  that summer i did a couple football camps but camps were nothing like they are today there was you know the technology today in social media today and ways we can't communicate with recruits did you did you just get recruited by princeton with a lot of no i was kind of a tweener i was an undersized i was a two was what we call now i was too small to be a lineman and too slow to be a linebacker but i had a you know really good high school career and it was all state new jersey and everything else and was a good high school player but the qualities that you look for at the major college level i was on the probably c plus list at the in oh the penn state's record as the big ten you know type schools or a c c type schools and i took my official visits and you know i my guidance counselor's for my dad to work with for years really indicated because i was such a strong student i should be looking at ivy league schools and i narrowed my ivy league schools down to a couple and patriot league schools and i narrowed those down to a couple i did take one power five visit to mississippi state but it was quite an experience and i also went to took a visit to a service academy to the naval academy and you know i took all the five visits and you know how to certain order and you know loved each one of them for different reasons but when i took the visit to princeton and the friendships and the bond in all those things that you look at in addition to the incredible education that you would get a princeton  really really took it over the top so so now you graduate high school go to princeton university you do four years five years four years in the ivy league in princeton it is very was i was the classic head coach's son tag along so i was on i was the back way for my dad's baseball team i was the water boy first football teams and i was you know the kid who when they were watching film on a sunday it department is this great team where the things you get out of sports that apply to life and i saw firsthand with my father i wasn't sure if i was going to go into that administrative or coaching and i knew i wanted to be in one or the other and i went and got my graduate assistant ship at springfield college in springfield as a cradle of coaches and administrators and i had a tough decision to make before my second year there i had an opportunity to do an internship in the national football league as a scout and i had an opportunity you run campus with some great football coaches and springfield i was both taking classes in administration and coaching on their football team and i just love the interaction with the students and i loved the direct one on one that you get with the students their student athletes there and wound up going to coaching route and from there i went a school called main maritime academy worked under john stuart college football hall of fame player and what a great great great experience he was at the cutting edge of technology back then and so from the beginning of my roots i was involved with you know in analytics in those type of things that are now so prevalent today he went from division three main maritime to the canadian football league they brought a few teams in the united states to the canadian football league in the mid one nine hundred ninety s he brought me with them that the experience did not last long in the united states and my wife who had graduated from princeton was getting her doctorate at u so i found i had an opportunity with a guy who coached at princeton was that r p i rensselaer polytechnic institute brought me with them and i was there a year and then became the officer coordinator at western connecticut had a great experience there eventually became the head football coach it western connecticut my wife was the head soccer coach at staples high school in westport and she was a school administrator there  and from there i got a phone call from a teammate at princeton you know this whole networking relationship your name john garrett john was with the cincinnati bengals a job come open and he asked me do you want to come interview and i said absolutely and then i went home to my wife and she's like where is cincinnati we were so happy in connecticut and i told her that i have no chance to ever be the head coach of princeton coming from a division three school and we were  you go to the n f l you're going to the least going to be in that final grouping hell have a real opportunity and i just said because i want to coach in the n f l i had no idea that the job would ever come open and i was there eight years with marvin lewis and really saw that program take off there and eight years the job of princeton came open and had a chance to come back home and you know this is always been home for us my wife and we've always every year great testing so let's go into recruiting and how the ivy leagues recruit where do you start do you just comb the whole country that they come to you and how does it all work yeah the ivy league is national recruiting and e s p n a few years ago did a survey through the database of every roster and princeton was the number one most regionally diverse football program in the country and we have kids from all over the top eleven schools were ivy league schools on the survey in military service academies and we really are schools that you know we will get kids i mean we've had a year we were shut out of north jersey and we've had years where we had the gator at state play or the air another young man that turned out alabama and florida state so you just never know so how it's going to go with with recruiting because the academic  or has to be so strong for these young men to come play for us in do the work which that brings up the next question and that is academics what type of academics do students need to to get to an ivy league school to play football and i get that they have to be very strong and peak oil used to call heartbreak hotel because there's even wonderful athletes that sometimes haven't met the academic rigor that a school like is the number one u s news and world report since i've been here it's been the number one college in the country so you know we're looking at the strongest caliber student and you know to me when i came millville high school when i came back here was the two hundred ninety ninth right public school out of three sixteen in the state of new jersey that intimidated me until i got here and you see the support systems and how wonderful all the the deans in the deans and the academic support groups are here for all students not just south leitz in this is in a place we're just trying to put a number on and how many graduate you know you really take classes that are enjoyed born challenging in everything else but that intimidated me when i was seventeen years old and having gone through that i think it eases you know the parents in the young men that i recruit it eases their thought process a little bit that you know what we graduate ninety eight point seven percent of our football players since i've been here that's the number one we've got a little little trophy a couple years ago it was number one in college of college football that way and i like to say i can take credit for that  before i had the job we were graduating like ninety seven point five percent it's truly the university administration and support group or are terrific they're now no grades at the high school level  there's the student need an a plus average or do you do you take that kid that has a b plus average but is really good in other things like extracurricular activities of other while they one of they certainly want to see pallets and  certainly we don't want ever like as a coach you never set limits on your students like i've heard people you know b s and c's get degrees no if they're capable i want to see them challenge themselves you know it's not just about getting a degree and hanging that on a wall it's about the challenges you face and sometimes you know the high school students that are be plus students that have challenge themselves and taken you know courses that are very rewarding to them that's better than taking courses just to get an easy a yes and so they really look at the whole picture like the application process like i don't know if every school does this but i know our admissions department reads every essay like it is important to see and you know there's a lot of them were that what would you do it was summer what interests you what are the last three books you read they really want to see the quality of the candidate not just somebody who has had all the resources to study for an essay t test and you can p really high score they want to see balance they want to see students are going to embrace this wonderful university now now is there a lot of parents out there always look for money because princeton is not a cheap school  so is there scholarships at the school is there money available at the school that that parents can look for yeah it's you know i always wish was retroactive but they do they don't give out loans anymore everything is granted in terms of you know the thing that i found so impressive about princeton and when you go from one thousand nine hundred eighty six to twenty seventeen our president our leadership group has made this huge commitment to identify kids from maybe the millville high schools the schools that are maybe have underachieved in the past but have these wonderful young men and women that can do the quality of work at princeton and when you look at our our team it is a very diverse team we have kids coming from all different backgrounds and you know i embrace that and it's a wonderful thing at the university embraces that as well so is there is there because of division one school is there are scholarships that that are given just like other no rocker's rockers will give somebody a scholarship because they are a tremendous athlete a football player maybe the best quarterback in the country with us and we've recruited guys that are top ten quarterbacks in the country if they qualify for money they're going to get the same money that the unbelievable mathematician coming out of odessa whatever you know omaha you know to really know that they financial weight they're not having to take out loans unless they want to just so now parents also ask when they go to school for sports it's always about the sport and not about the academics is it like that at prin university yeah i look at are the people i recruit and you know you look at you know you read the paper you say oh my god kids today and this and that all i know is i'm recruiting at princeton and i walk into a house and it may be a beautiful house maybe a really you know no it's about the nun that you know small tough neighborhood type i mean we we every every single place we go in but the support systems the moms the dads the guidance counselor's the friendships that these kids have basketball and baseball in high school small school in minnesota and he was all steve in all three sports he was a wonderful student he plays the guitar well he is you know does everything and he comes to princeton so far he's won and i really tight on football and i really tight on baseball has been all conference in football as a wide receiver for us he's been all conference twice in baseball and he's spending a summer in nicaragua one of summer which you know i got on him because i thought he was only going for a few weeks because he's a national football league prospect he's a major league baseball prospect wow and you know he needs somebody to throw to you know in terms of reaching that and he'll figure it out like our kids figure out a way to excel in everything and you know i don't want to set limits you know on them i don't want to say oh you can only play football because this kid's a wonderful baseball player and you know they'll play guitar you know you should be lifting no he's going student and you know that's that's the wonderful thing here you don't have to just you know i expect our guys to do more than just you know catch a football i spect them to serve the community i expect them to you know re standards and everybody has different standards some of these kids should be shooting to be three hundred students some of them you know they're taking every hard course on campus and challenge themselves i know maybe a three to was more realistic for that student but he's going to get his you know he may get more of that experience than the three eight student test so when they're at the school what are they what are they looking at for the whole year like when when did the football players come to the school is it august september what did he do from august all the way until the following july well yes the process so you know a freshman coming in you know i'll go through like a whole year with the freshman coming in and w start camp in late august and they'll go through a training camp no different is that point we don't have classes till mid september so this is like an n f l training camp or you know a train here for anybody else you know they're going to practice they're going to meet and then we're going to orientation sessions at night and maybe careers it may be you know service it maybe whatever that is we'll do something every night that is outside of football and hopefully helps them life was you know in terms of the the big forty year plan of their life yeah that way and then we'll start our season with the ivy league we play ten weeks season we start you know september sixteenth and the saturday before november the season ends and it is a spread you know we are not a marathon sport that goes you know fifty games from october fifteenth until april first we had ten games and the no one hick up can really make or break whether or not you win the ivy league  championship that way so you know we put so much energy into you know our practices we practice you know review the game on sunday have a light workout and then mondays are off day tuesday is the lift and a physical practice wednesday is the same and then thursday is basically a walk through for us just a helmet no other pads friday is just that they were baseball caps and we do a really brisk you know fast paced run on that day going through all the main points of you know what we want for the game and then saturday off saturday and we'll do that for ten weeks that will give them two weeks off and then they'll go into different phases of the lifting session and you know the first phase they are going to lift and just it's going to be a lot of reps you know three three sets of fifteen reps and they're getting their bodies back and then in february when they come back for the second semester that's her power phase and we're to do a you know four or five week power face then we're going to have spring practices we get twelve spring practices we spread them out over about four weeks in march in early april and then a we're into another power phase in april until graduation basically until final start more again they you know we get to test them and see where they gained and then in the summertime we have guys like jesper her going to nicaragua we've got other you know a lot most our younger guys will be on campus and get internships in the community you know guys working many different you know guys who  be lawyers or doctors or you know into business or football which is whatever that is we'll find mentors for them and you know people that live in this community that need to you know interned will utilize our connections with that and help them you know find and meet people that might be able to help them out with that and then some others will do their in turn shapes elsewhere they may be in new york city and you know we have a group working at the morgan stanleys and goldman and you know all those lisa's and so now how how does a tour at the school go for football do you take them to the biggest rooms on campus is that oh yeah it kind of depends on when they come up you know we can would be different than a week day but you know they'll meet us if it's just one person not a junior day type where there's hundreds of you know kids getting younger kids coming in and just you know somebody comes in and we say you know we do tours every day to levin or one thirty campus or they'll do the university tor depending on which one you know the truce time wise and then with us taken with we don't have a big campus it is a beautiful small campus and you know the penny on who's taking all the me they may hear about where i met my wife and where you know what eating club i was and you know there's a lot of personal stories if it's one of the coaches he may be talking about his players oh are starting mike linebackers in when they do an overnight or anything like that i will do official visits typically those are in december or january were a leader sport you know my daughter is thirteen she play soccer and lacrosse and you know yeah that that was a little bit early to me and do you find that more kids now are starting to try to find the school's freshman sophomore year of high school or do they still do it jim you senior i think it's still mostly junior senior year but it starts earlier junior year and i think freshman sophomore year ino they were really there were he in football such a unique maturity you know you're they're not physically grown it fourteen fifteen years old and for them to say for you know there's both jacksons of the world there's the rest of us and for the other ninety nine percent they're not physically mature enough or fourteen years old to say i'm going to be a pla alabama i'm going to play at western connecticut yeah you know but i think most kids know how i want to be a college football player and they're working on the lifting in the running and all the things they need to do to hone their games in that way and i found high school coaches and this is all due respect to my dad but what they do now with seven on seven is in everything else these kids come to us they're the smartest football players not just because princeton no matter where they come they are so far more advanced in terms of their mental you know understanding of the game than we were and i played with chase and garrett i played you know we weren't anywhere near like the guys the are playing today when they get to us the physical part still takes some time and you know sophomore year is typically when they'll you know come to work camp sophomore junior year and you know that's really for then they get a chance to see campus and you know i think it's a it's a two way street in terms of recruiting i may want you but you have to determine if you want princeton you know the way do you want this do you want you want to be an environment where this is the best college in the country it's also the ivy league football champion and we're going to him both ways push our guys to be as good as they possibly can be some people they don't want that in football and there's other schools for that and some people don't want that academically and i look at it we get you know we bring in about thirty kids every year you know we had a fine thirty of them that are just the right people the way they fit princeton well coming to the end of our show yeah and  usually my guest my last question for my guest is what advice you want to give to the parents that are out there that their sons want to play football at a ivy league school like princeton university you walk and i'm a parent i have a fifth grade boy as well and you know you know jeff played football growing up he played basketball all those things made it impact on him becoming the world's best baseball player still don't feel this need that oh billy can only play this because that's the only way it's going to make it no it's all about the experiences the around this great group of friends be around this and it really doesn't matter whether you're at the number one high school or you're it a you know school with your friends we're going to find guys there's there's technology to send us the video and everything else but i'd rather see kids embrace the community there in whatever high school that is whatever tell that is in preset embrace the academics embrace the challenges because maybe this isn't the r go to the place it's the right fit because too often kids feel i got to go to the school because that's where mom and dad want me they want me to be at the number one national champion clemson football but maybe conses not right maybe there's another community  school smaller bigger or different you know tight go to the place that fits you because you marry your school i mean i married my wife at school but i married princeton as well and you know for better it's all been better that's that's where i'm associated with the rest of my life and that's where my friendship that's were when we come back to reunions you know it's the greatest group of friends and it's not you know just football it's not just school it's you take everything together and you put it together and that's what you want and you know to me it's enjoyed that you know there's the trust the process enjoy the process still very well thank you very much for coming thank you i think this is great all right so you've been watching the secrets of college planning on your host anthony until next time