Recruiting Help

Here's a little advice from someone who is in the middle of being heavily recruited. STOP looking for a generic template of an email to send coaches!!!!! Be honest with them, be yourself, that's part of the process!!

Tell them your interested, your grades, times, and anything else you feel is important.

Make sure you spell everything correctly and are grammatically correct.

You are already off on the wrong foot by seeking advice on Letsrun!

An example

Coach Smith

Hello my name is John Doe and I am a distance runner at Whatcamacallit High School in (city), (state). This year will be my senior year and next year I would very much like to run for (insert his college here). I have run 4:xx in the 1600m and 9:xx in the 3200m. I have also placed #th at XC state and #th in the (state your best event/s here)m in state track. I will be touring the (insert college here)'s campus on mm/dd/yyyy-mm/dd/yyyy. Would it be posssible to schedule a convenient time to meet with you to ask a few questions about the program during this week? Or if you are busy during this time could we speak over the phone? Thank you for your time.

Respectfully

John Doe

555-555-5555

Have your questions about the programs ready before you send your letters in case they want to call you and do a quick interview over the phone. Keep your questions simple, if it's something you should already know (i.e. its on the teams web site or something) don't ask it. Ask questions about training philosophy and make sure you don't hate the way they train there. Ask if you can meet with or perhaps go on a easy long run with some of the guys on the team. They will be able to give the real deal on the school, program, girls, coach etc. When picking your school keep your prioritys in this order. Major/degree program, little or no loans necessary to attend, location of school, track program, how much you get for scholarship. All to often people get these out of order and hate their lives for 4 years. Good luck

FYI - Do you have any video of your best races? A coach will be more willing to interact with you if he see's with his own eyes that you're legit.

It's not a deal breaker, but it does help.

Fosho wrote:

Tell them your interested, your grades, times, and anything else you feel is important.

Make sure you spell everything correctly and are grammatically correct.

And proofread your work, too, or have someone else do it.

[Oh, the irony.]

Many, if not most, programs have recruiting forms available on their websites. Most are similar - list your events and best performances, your gpa and test scores, your contact info.

I suggest filling those out and then following up in a few weeks with an email if you haven't heard back from them. In the email, again very briefly summarize your times, gpa, test scores. If you have any special interest in the particular school (family member attended, you've always dreamed of going there, it is best for your major, etc), mention that. Include a cell number.

Register with NCAA clearinghouse if you haven't already.

What I do for sending updates is: type up the message and send it to every coach, and if I want to include something specific to the coach, I'll include that in the specific message also.

Yes grammar nazi I made an error, but then again this is lets run not the Wisco head coach. Bro.

If you have the personality to seek advice on let's run, you will suck in college. Think for yourself.