Here's the quick overview: college athletic scholarships make you forget what's important.

Let's be clear, there are many great things about the right college athletic scholarship, which is when you get money to play at a college that is truly right for you as a student and as an athlete.

All too often, players follow the sports scholarship money and end up making bad decisions. Here's an example: There are two colleges left on Cameron's list. College A is his dream school, but College B has offered him a 10% athletic scholarship. Cameron wants to study engineering, but College B doesn't have an engineering major. Cameron is eager to get involved in the fraternity scene, but College B doesn't allow fraternities. To make matters worse, College B is situated on an unresolved Superfund site.

I think you get the point.

Of course, getting offered a college athletic scholarship has an undeniable benefit. But here's the rub: while a college athletic scholarship might help you deal with the short-term pain of paying for college, where will it get you in the end?

For Cameron, the scholarship offer from College B is dangerous. That offer is the only thing College B has working in its favor. Everything else about the place is bad. Yet Cameron is seriously considering it against College A, which is his dream school that could very well launch him into a lucrative engineering career. This is part of what makes college athletic recruiting so difficult.

Here's the question you have to ask yourself: if it weren't for the athletic scholarship, would I still go to this college? If the answer is a resounding no, you should drop it from your list. Of course, this applies for both NCAA scholarships and NAIA scholarships.