Welcome to the Enjoyable World of College Recruiting for Your Athlete!
Every athlete, dreams of continuing their athletic careers into college and beyond. This needs to be their dream! Mom and Dad should SUPPORT their athletes dream and not make it theirs. Athletes must understand their role in achieving this dream is not just work on the field but lots of other work off the field, performed without a bat or glove. Academics, Extra Curricular, Community, the Recruiting Process.
This is full family commitment to this process; it is a huge undertaking but, in the end, it is the athlete’s responsibility. Sacrifice of time, family functions, friends, missed birthdays, weddings, parties all to attempt to achieve an athlete’s dream. If everyone is ok with that then keep reading.
The focus of all this is not to guarantee you a college roster spot, but to help provide you with some guidance to the highways you will be navigating. The information contained herein has come from the experiences of the writer and their path to the college process, learning from various coaches, recruiters and watching others go through the process.
The person driving that vehicle along the highway unfortunately will not be Mom and Dad, it will be your athlete. Mom and Dad get to be the copilot and the navigator. There to assist and help when needed. They are not there to write and communicate with coaches, you can assist, you can proof, you can exercise your language arts skills, but in the end the coaches will know who wrote the letter.
Major Steps in the Recruiting Process
- Your athlete must want to play in college. Don’t assume they do, ask them. Playing sports in college is not like playing travel ball or high school ball. It is a second full-time job on top of their main job, getting an education. Does your child want that, being a college athlete is different than just being a college student.
- Begin with the questions about fields of study, how far from home do they want to go, size of the school, hot or cold. This is where using the College Search Grid can help. It will help organize your thoughts. Sample at the end.
- Once questions 1 and 2 are answered and the grid is completed then begins the process of creating a profile and gathering your athletic film.
Having Your Athlete Sell Themselves to Prospective Coaches, How to Do It.
- Build a healthy social media presence. Think of it as the first place a coach is going to see you.
- The athlete should have a dedicated email for this process for example janedoe2025@gmail.com; or janedoecatches1b2025@gmail.com. Start with the email and build off there.
- Use free resources like X(twitter), Instagram, (Facebook is not used so much), a personalized YouTube Video Channel. Try and make them all have the same name if possible or very close. For example, JaneDoe2025, or JaneDoeCatches1b2025. All of these will need to be in your Email signature with links for the coaches to click and be taken to.
- About recruiting sites, sports are not cheap, and recruiting is a HUGE business. It can be done without using a paid site, but there may be instances where it might be needed to help get the athlete’s name out there. A good site that can be utilized in the Free Version is Sports Recruits, you can upload videos, profiles, etc. College Coaches Utilize This Resource.
- About recruiters; if your athlete plans to go very far away and your travel team is not going to spend a lot of time playing in that college’s backyard then a recruiter may be helpful. You can also save your money and plan to attend college camps and clinics in those areas. Make sure the colleges you’re interested in will attend these events, and you can do that by contacting the camp or clinic and asking or directly asking the college coaching staff if they are planning to attend a specific camp or clinic to recruit
- A Resume / Skill Video. This should be the first thing your athlete creates. It should contain an introduction to your athlete, should showcase their skills and should be kept short no more than 4 minutes. This will only be sent once as an introduction at the very beginning of the process then it should be loaded onto the players’ social media sites. The introduction can also be used for the College Coaches to get a feel for the player.
- Short Clips to successfully entice a college coach; Positive things such as turning a double play with a teammate, (mention the teammate in your description, coaches want “We before Me” athletes), a homerun, a game winning RBI, a Bases Loaded K if you’re a pitcher and you helped the team get out of a jam. These can come from Game Changer or parents’ videos or tourney streams. You Need VIDEO to get the word out on YOU!
- Clips of Failure; a strike out after a tough 7/8/9 pitch at bat (may seem like a failure but not to a real coach), a SAC fly that got a run in, the batter doesn’t feel good but maybe that run was important to the team.
- Show examples of failure with then your athlete working to correct. Show the ugly swinging strikeout on a nasty change up, then send video of you working on recognizing the changeup in the cage with your coach, all the things a coach wants to see. They want to see how you react when you fail. Show them!
- It was mentioned at the very beginning, about a “Healthy Social Media Presence”. This is very important; colleges have people who will search the Social Media universe for an athlete they are recruiting. Looking for negatives, looking for things that may cause conflict, looking for negative behaviors, looking for anything that will detract from the reputation of the Program, the School and the Coach if it were to surface. If those things are there, you are going to have a hard time achieving your dream.
- Talk to your athlete about maintaining a positive Universe around them. Let them know their posts matter, No Bullying, No Derogatory Comments, Even Jokes, Memes or other things may be looked at in a negative light if they are suspect in nature.
- Make sure your athlete understands they may not post something, but they may be tagged in something that is detrimental to their recruiting process. They need to be careful. Having secret or numerous accounts is not the answer, the sleuths will find the negatives
How Do I Get Video, Make it Usable? I Have No Clue How to Do This.
- Your Kids Do!
- You don’t need fancy equipment. A phone, a team that does Game Changer, a commitment to taking videos at games. You never know when something good or great is going to happen.
- Editing, shortening, polishing the video; your athlete knows how to do all this, so get them engaged, this is their process.
- Update and upload these clips often, to the athlete’s YouTube channel and recruitment sites if you are using them. Show progress. High school seniors and juniors should have all this setup and running. Freshmen and sophomores need to create this now as they start their fall season. Coaches want to see growth and progression before they make an offer
The Definite Don’ts of Recruiting
1. Do not write or communicate as your athlete, coaches will know.
2. Do not carry your athletes gear bag anywhere when you pull up to a tourney or showcase. This is where they begin to “Adult” for themselves.
3. Make sure your athlete brings a cooler into the dugout with enough liquids for a game, they can come to you between games and refill for the back-to-back games. They should not be yelling at mom or dad (you will not be there to bring them liquids in college).
4. Do not coach your athlete from off the field.
5. Do not be seen as being frustrated by your athlete’s performance, softball is hard! It is a game of failure you can strike out 6 out of 10 times and be called the greatest. Failing only sets them up to grow with the right mindset. Coaches will see this.
6. You are being watched by the Coaches as much as the athlete is, cheer them on, don’t be excessive, help them celebrate theirs and the team’s success and be there for support at those time of failure. College Coaches will watch you and the athlete when there is a failure for a response. Don’t give them anything negative. Let them focus on the athlete not a yelling parent.
Hey, What About Divisions?
Wondering why we didn’t talk about Division 1, 2, 3, JUCO and NAIA. Wondering why it never came up? Because it is the most harmful part of the whole process. Divisions are based on a school’s size, finances, and resources of the institution. Don’t chase a Division, don’t chase an unattainable school. Chase the dream of playing the sport you love for 4 more years. In the latest study, only 6.3% of all high school softball players go on to play at Div 1, 2, or 3 universities. It is an elite group. 21,735 players out of 345,000 plays in college at an NCAA ranked university or college. Playing College sports at any school makes your athlete an elite individual.
It was mentioned earlier that sports in college is a second full-time job on top of your academic job. It has been likened to the following: D3 schools – you will work an additional 40 hrs.on top of your academics, D2 – 60 hrs., and D1 – well that’s like being the new person at the law firm working 80/100-hour weeks, athletics owns you. Yet you must maintain your grades, and scholarships all while making practices and travelling. It takes a special type of mental strength to handle that.
Your athlete should dream, but they need to have realistic, an attainable goal. Parents, you need to have realistic views of your child’s athletic ability, and mental drive. We all love our children and want them to succeed, but giving false hope, narrative or saying my kids like Jocelyn Alo when she is not, is not going to help them. Have dreams and hopes but also be ready to face reality. You will see it at these camps, clinics and showcases. Quietly compare and observe and use that gauge where your athlete will succeed.
The Wrap Up
In summary, have realistic dreams.
Watch the virtual tours of the campuses if you can’t get there for an in-person visit. For a sophomore, this may help with the narrowing down of where they might want to go. Juniors, this is your time to get out there and visit the schools you’re interested in and have had communications with coaches. Go to the campus, set up tours, attend the athletic camps and clinics the schools you’re interested in are offering, it’s an investment of time, money and sweat. Put the work in and reap the rewards.
Cast a wide net of emails and introductions 10 – 20 different colleges. Some dream schools, maybe not attainable but dare to dream. Send to some colleges that may be challenges, schools that are highly competitive programs, check their schedules, etc. – do the homework. Then send emails to a few safety schools that you know you can make or that you know need you. You would have done this anyway if it was purely an academic search.
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t hear back on the first try. They are getting 1000’s of these emails. Do something to stand out.
Be realistic and be certain of a couple of things: Can you, the parent, afford the school without scholarships or aid, you don’t know what you are going to get, if anything? Have these difficult conversations with your athlete.
If your athlete had an injury and couldn’t play ever again, would they still want to attend that school, the broken leg test so to speak, could you afford it if they lost their scholarship. Very real questions that need to be discussed with real answers.
Useful Document Examples
Sample First Introductory Email
Dear Coach , My name is ________ . I am a (Grad Year) student-athlete, currently playing club for (Club Team Name and City, State). I attend (High School) and last season, I was an All-American nominee (if you have something good to share).
I am beginning to explore my college options and am extremely interested in attending and playing (Sport) at University/College. It offers everything I am looking for in a college (distance, recognized, Academic program, competitive (sport) program with a winning tradition)(if it actually does, don’t say this if they had a rough year or you’re not sure). Therefore, I want to introduce myself and give you some information about my athletic and academic background.
Please click on the link below to access all my athletic and academic information. In addition, you will find my contact information, coach’s contact information, (sport) awards, and travel schedule. You will also be able to watch my highlight reel on my player profile.
I hope you will have the opportunity to watch our team play this season. I believe I can be a part of your program and contribute to its future success.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Your Name+GradYear
Your Phone Number
Your Address
Link to Socials Twitter/Instagram
Link to dedicated YouTube Channel
Link to Recruiting Service if using one.
Travel Team
HC Name
HC Phone Number
HC Email
HS Attending
HS HC Name