AGC #037 - The college coach recruiting event gameplan

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Navigating the early part of the recruiting process means operating in a constant information vacuum.

You’re trying your best to see and be seen, but it’s tough to know how (or if!) college coaches are evaluating you.

And until after your sophomore year, you’re not allowed to ask them, either.

With the fall high school sports season finishing up, recruiting tournaments are back on the agenda.

This is the first in a two-part series outlining what college coaches do before, during, and after these tournaments - and how you can make a plan for it.

Today, we’ll examine what happens before a tournament; part two, out on Tuesday November 26, will look at during and after.

Let’s dive in.

A coach’s reality: Too many players, too little time

Most schools will have more players writing to them ahead of tournaments than they can physically go and evaluate in any meaningful way - even if they have multiple coaches attending.

So it becomes about deciding how to use those limited resources.

Most schools will attempt to ascertain who is “good enough and interested enough” to narrow down who to watch.

Some will take an “exhaust all possibilities” approach, searching for diamonds in the rough and trying to get notes on as many people who write as possible.

Others will take a more pragmatic view, and narrow their focus to clubs they’ve successfully recruited from in the past, or where they have strong coach-to-coach relationships.

The top schools in each sport - the ones with strong academics, in the most powerful conferences, who regularly compete for championships - can afford to be pickier.

They don’t need to listen quite as hard to the interest signal, because most players are interested in their school by default.

So they will likely watch the top players they already know about, and then attend the games of the strongest clubs to find the ones they don’t know about.

A player’s response: Make yourself undeniable

You can’t control how each school strategically plans its evaluations, but you can try to ensure they know who you are, so you end up on their list of who to go and see.

Find ways to work with the coaches at the schools you’re most interested in, so they can put a face to the name when you email them.

Getting to campus is always the best way, but outreach / multi-coach clinics can substitute for those early in the process.

They can’t talk recruiting with you at these events, but you can take a minute to tell them what you enjoyed most about being coached by them afterward.

Next up, write interesting emails to make yourself even more memorable:

The timing of your emails is crucial too, as I wrote about in a previous edition of A Good Coach.

The later you leave it to write your pre-tournament email, the lower your chances of being seen at it.

It’s human nature to leave things until the last minute, but the avalanche of emails college coaches get 2-3 days out from tournaments makes planning more difficult.

Instead, write yours 2-3 weeks ahead of the tournament to get on the school’s radar.

Follow up with something short and sweet with a few days to go by ‘replying’ to your previous email to bump it back to the top of the inbox.

And lastly, ensure you have up-to-date highlight videos available.

Quality is better than quantity here - I’d rather see 60 seconds of decent footage that leaves me wanting more, than 8 minutes where I have to squint.

Coming next on November 26: what college coaches do during and after recruiting tournaments, and how PSAs can adapt to it!

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