Important Steps to Take to Get Recruited

Have a Recruiting Game Plan and Start Early

Having a game plan applies to all aspects of life and it’s a personal choice either to ‘just wing it’ and use luck to get recruited or follow a structured game plan with tasks, guidelines, and checkpoints through your path to keep you on a straight line to reach your goal. Roster spots are limited at the collegiate level and roughly only about 6% of High School Athletes end up playing collegiate sports. Using a proven game plan that National Prospect ID customizes for you increases your changes to play your sport in college. We like luck, but we don’t want to rely on it 100% knowing your future is on the line.

Start early in your High School career. The later you start the less opportunities are available to you. College coaches have their jobs on the line, they are not going to procrastinate when recruiting their next class. If college coaches procrastinate – they end up not landing the top recruits and eventually their job security suffers because of this. In today’s world roughly 85% of Division 1 prospects are identified by sophomore year. If you are one of the better athletes on your high school team for your grad year, you need to start. Your chances to play college sports is in your hands and it is gone after graduation.

Get Evaluated by a 3rd Party

This might be the single most important part of the recruiting process. You might be the best player on your team but how do you compare to the rest of the country? Not every athlete will be able to play Division 1 sports. Division 1 only represents about 20% of college sports. 3rd Party Evaluations can help you identify what level is realistic for you.

College Coaches use 3rd Party evaluators, like National Prospect ID, to help them identify and scout potential recruits for their team. Most coaches don’t have the budget to travel all over the country or even travel to the state next door to find athletes. National Prospect ID connects those coaches with student athletes and makes the recruiting process easier for both parties.

Create a Highlight or Skills Video and Post it Online

Video is king in today’s world of recruiting. Coaches from all sports will evaluate video to determine if they are interested, or not, in a student athlete. These videos need to be sequenced to showcase the best of the student athlete right away.

Coaches want to decide within the first 30 seconds if they want to watch the whole video. Coaches watch video online in today’s world. Sending DVD’s or any type of material in the mail is too time-consuming for a college coach. Sending emails to college coaches with a link to a YouTube video has proven to be very time consuming for a college coach as well. Coaches can receive hundreds of emails a day from prospective student athletes, and these coaches can spend all day sorting through emails and not find 1 athlete they are interested in to recruit.

So what do you do? It goes back to the 3rd Party Evaluation. College coaches need verified information from an online 3rd Party in order for them to view your video. They don’t have time for the needle in a haystack approach. They need help from others to tell them who to consider as a recruit for their program.

Contact 50-100 College Coaches That Fit Athletically and Academically

College coaches play the numbers game in order to recruit, why shouldn’t you? If you are receiving letters, email or phone calls from a college coach you should be very proud of that…but we hate to break the news to you…you’re not the only recruit they are targeting. You need to be taking the same approach as the college coach.

Finding the right fit college for you is very important. You want to avoid choosing the athletic program before the academic programs at the school. The last thing you would want to do is choosing a college and having a great time playing college sports, then graduate 4-5 years later with the wrong degree. Always target at least 50-100 college programs. Or More. Playing the numbers game will give you the best chance to find the right fit academically and athletically for you.