The term walk-on is used in sports, particularly American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 college athletics

College athletics

College athletics refers primarily to sports and athletic competition organized and funded by institutions of tertiary education . In the United States, college athletics is a two-tiered system. The first tier includes the sports that are sanctioned by one of the collegiate sport governing bodies...

, to describe an athlete who becomes part of a team without being actively recruited beforehand or awarded an athletic scholarship

Athletic scholarship

An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport...

. This results in the differentiation between "walk-on" players and "scholarship" players. Technically all Ivy League

Ivy League

The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...

 sports players are walk-ons; while they may have been actively recruited, league rules prohibit member schools from offering athletically-related financial aid.

College football

Walk-ons have a particularly developed history in college football. Often these athletes are relegated to the scout team

Scout team

In sports, the scout team, also referred to as a practice team, taxi squad, practice squad or practice roster, is a group of players on a team whose task is to emulate future opponents for the featured players. Frequently used in American or Canadian Football, these teams consist of less...

, and may not even be played on the official depth chart

Depth chart

In sports, a depth chart is used to show the placements of the starting players and the secondary players. Generally a starting player will be listed first or on top while a back-up will be listed below...

 or traveling team. However there are occasions, sometimes well publicized, where a walk-on will become a noted member of their team in one of several ways.

• Due to scholarship limits instituted by the NCAA, many football teams do not offer scholarships to their punters
  Punter (football position)
  A punter in American or Canadian football is a special teams player who receives the snapped ball directly from the line of scrimmage and then punts the football to the opposing team so as to limit any field position advantage. This generally happens on a fourth down in American football and a...
  
  , long snapper
  Long snapper
  In American football and Canadian football, the term long snapper refers to a player who is a specialized center during punts, field goals, and extra point attempts. His job is to snap the ball as quickly and accurately as possible....
  
  s and kickers
  Placekicker
  Placekicker, or simply kicker , is the title of the player in American and Canadian football who is responsible for the kicking duties of field goals, extra points...
  
   until they've become established producers.
• Sometimes injury and/or outside issues can ravage the depth chart of a particular position, resulting in the elevation of a walk-on to a featured player.
• In other situations, a walk-on may impress the coaching staff with their play on the scout team and in practice that they are rewarded with a scholarship and made a part of the regular depth chart. Often it is the players who achieve success in this manner that are the inspiration for future walk-ons.
• Finally, there are times where a walk-on will be a dependable member of the team's practice and scout teams for several years, and if a team has an extra scholarship it may reward the player as a token of their hard work and devotion to the team, although the player may never actually play in a game.

The reasons athletes choose to pursue the path of a walk-on are numerous. Here are several more common reasons:

• The athlete is already receiving praise, however the school they are particularly interested in does not share the level of interest. This target team could either be considered more athletically prestigious, it may already be saturated at that position or the athlete chooses that school for purely academic reasons over others. The walk-on will join the team to try to win the coaches over.
• The athlete may be a scion of a notable former player, alumnus or coach of the school. Often these players do not strive to be placed in a starting position, rather carry on the tradition of being a part of a particular team.
• In the case of punters and kickers, there may not be a scholarship available, but the coaches may have encouraged or invited them to join the team without offering an athletic scholarship.
• An athlete may have just been homeschooled during high school and was unable to play on a team, and therefore, not receive any attention from scouts.
• Athletes also walk-on after playing at small high schools, which also limits the attention paid by college scouts.
• In some instances, a college coach/recruiter may designate an athlete as a "preferred walk-on" during the scouting process. In this situation, the athlete is assured a spot on the team, however the coach is unable or unwilling to offer a scholarship.