Question for HS coaches about helping athletes get recruited

Just email the coaches at every school the kid is interested in. Athletes with elite times their junior year will probably be noticed by almost everyone, but reaching out to the coaches is always the best way to go. If the kid has times that meet their requirements for money, they will be happy you contacted them. If they don't the kid may still want to talk to the coaches about walking on.

I help our high school kids with this process. I start them in the summer of their junior year contacting schools. I meet with athletes and their parents and explain the process, etc. I hand out a rough guide to the process. At my current school we are averaging approximately 8 distance runners per graduating class who receive attention and are running collegiately. I am happy to share this guide electronically if you provide an e-mail address. Use what you can and trash the rest.

I'm not original poster but would love to see you recruiting guide.

careyhammel@gmail.com

Me too, please. cgilliam26@hotmail.com

Me too please made5433@gmail.com

just the facts wrote:

I help our high school kids with this process. I start them in the summer of their junior year contacting schools. I meet with athletes and their parents and explain the process, etc. I hand out a rough guide to the process. At my current school we are averaging approximately 8 distance runners per graduating class who receive attention and are running collegiately. I am happy to share this guide electronically if you provide an e-mail address. Use what you can and trash the rest.

We do exactly this. We average 5 or so signees per year.

As I said on your other thread, the athlete needs to take some responsibility here. If you have junior times that are good enough, it is sort of like having a high SAT score (my youngest just started getting these things in the mail from Stanford, Penn, U Chicago, Harvard, etc. and he's going to Harvard in the fall). But if you don't have those kinds of times that show up in Dyestat, etc.:

(1) Research what schools you are interested in. Remember that NCAA ad about all the athletes that go pro in something other than sports, so put the academics up there where they belong.

(2) Go to the websites of the schools you are interested in, fill out the "prespect" form(s), GET YOUR INFO OUT.

(3) If you have questions, like "What are your target times for scholarships in my event?", SEND THE COACH AN EMAIL AND ASK HIM/HER. Coaches are allowed to respond to a student athlete's questions for people like the girl in question.

(4) DON'T wait until the last minute, signing day, or your Senior Championship results, when many schools' scholarship money will already be commited.

Johnny rotten wrote:

We do exactly this. We average 5 or so signees per year.

Are you okay with trading information? I would love to improve what I do. If so, reply and leave an e-mail address. If you are uncomfortable leaving your e-mail let me know and I will leave mine.

coach d wrote:...(4) DON'T wait until the last minute, signing day, or your Senior Championship results, when many schools' scholarship money will already be commited.

This is big.

One thing I'd add (from a college coach's perspective) is that prospective student-athletes need to look far beyond what is available for athletic scholarship dollars. The bulk of the scholarship money that's available is via academic/civic scholarships, and a lot of times coaches can have some influence on the financial aid package a recruit can be offered even if athletic scholarship money is not on the table.

I've written on here before about what the total athletic scholarships are for XC/Track in my conference, it's a lot less than you might think (averages about 2.5+/- FTE's for XC + Track, miniscule when you consider most programs have 25+ on their rosters). But that doesn't mean kids aren't coming into these schools with strong scholarship packages, it just means that when you email a coach asking about athletic scholarships and he says there are none available or the offer is low, you need to push for non-athletic financial aid.

just the facts wrote:

Johnny rotten wrote:

We do exactly this. We average 5 or so signees per year.

Are you okay with trading information? I would love to improve what I do. If so, reply and leave an e-mail address. If you are uncomfortable leaving your e-mail let me know and I will leave mine.

Sure. Here's an email: orxccoach at bellsouth .net.

AE

The first thing to understand about the recruiting process is that college distance coaches are really, really awful recruiters. They are lazy beyond words and you have to spoon feed them everything. Have your kid make a list of schools that they are interested in (limit it to ten, if possible). Then email every school on that list, or fill out their recruit questionnaire. You'll get responses from maybe 6 or 7. After a week, email the non-responders again. Most likely they are just incompetent and didn't notice the email. Once contact has been made, it's a matter of trimming that list to five, scheduling visits, ect. But to get started, you must take the initiative.

This is true for little All Conference Sally as well as big Fanny the Foot Locker qualifier. I had a distance girl who had to write Colorado repeatedly to finally get someone to call her. She would've been equal with anyone that they signed this year. Their recruiting coordinator (Billy Nelson) was so inept that it was laughable. Promised to call several times and would always forget. Visit never got set up. Just a joke. You have to hound a lot of these guys. Do not expect competence in recruiting, at any level.

just the facts wrote:

I help our high school kids with this process. I start them in the summer of their junior year contacting schools. I meet with athletes and their parents and explain the process, etc. I hand out a rough guide to the process. At my current school we are averaging approximately 8 distance runners per graduating class who receive attention and are running collegiately. I am happy to share this guide electronically if you provide an e-mail address. Use what you can and trash the rest.

I'd love to adapt some of this..

My experience has been similar. This is why I started helping in the process.

Two years ago I had a girl complete the questionnaire, e-mail and call repeatedly, and finally give up contacting the school of her choice. I contacted the coach and CCed the AD and expressed their obligation to at least respond to the athlete. The coach finally did, reluctantly. This girl currently holds a few school records at the university.

I have had to be the one to contact the coach since they ignore kids routinely at a minimum of 3 schools per year. These kids are not national record holders, but are far above average.

Most are very lazy in my opinion.

If you find them to be lazy and incompetent, then why attempt to send your student-athletes there?

Academics and academic financial packages.

Also, many are lazy recruiters, but okay hands-on coaches.

I agree with you, but it is not MY decision. I don't push any athlete anywhere or deter them either. I answer all questions from athletes and parents honestly including the laziness and incompetence you mention. I prod them to ask those very questions of the coaches as well. If it were me, I would rule out those universities immediately, but it is not me.

just the facts wrote:

I help our high school kids with this process. I start them in the summer of their junior year contacting schools. I meet with athletes and their parents and explain the process, etc. I hand out a rough guide to the process. At my current school we are averaging approximately 8 distance runners per graduating class who receive attention and are running collegiately. I am happy to share this guide electronically if you provide an e-mail address. Use what you can and trash the rest.

I have some perspective with my past coaching, but would like to see your guide and take more from it. I am into my second year at a school with some talent on the way up. I have talked to them about running past high school; some are interested, some not sure. Thanks.

burke dot binning at nisd dot net

Remember to have them register with the NCAA Eligibility Center if they want to run D1 or D2.

www.eligibilitycenter.org

.

I'd love to see your guide as well. Thanks.

Jschrotz at gmail dot com.

in response to the lazy comment i need to make sure people understand the difficulties of being a college cross and track coach. Now this in no way excuses some of the behavior i have seen or maybe you have experienced but our sport is not like other sports. Cross and track coaches unlike other sports do not have an off season during the school year. they have 3 different championships to prepare for(6 if you count men and women seperately), large rosters of athletes to deal with, few assistants to help share the workload(unless they are at a big time D1), and if they are at a smaller D1 or at most D2 school they have an enormous amount of administrative overhead (only bigger D1's have directors of operations) which includes monitoring budgets, scholarships, travel, fund raising,ordering apparel, community service, discipline, practice planning, as well as being ncaa compliant,which can be overwhelming by itself. Many of these coaches have families and after working 12-15 hour days just don't feel like talking to a recruit. I look at other sports that only compete in one semester during the school year and think, what the hell do they do the rest of the year. So if a coach has not contacted you remember a couple of things. 1. the coach is extremely busy. 2. coaches spend a lot of time coaching and traveling. 3. if they want you bad enough they will come find you. 4. if they don't want you they will not put in the effort to get you (if you are persistent it will either annoy the hell out of them or make them change their mind and give you a spot) 5. talent is only part of the equation. maybe you are not a fit for their program 6.they are human. emails get deleted phone calls missed and mistakes happen.

ultimaetly if you wanna go somewhere make yourself marketable to that coach. First impressions are everything. Be upfront and above all else do not waste a college coaches time because they have so very little of it at the end of the day.