.
.

.
 HOW TO MAKE RECRUITING VIDEO WORK

Recruiting video is playing an increasingly important role for both families and college coaches today. Video allows college coaches to get an insight into your skills when you are not afforded the opportunity to play in front of a college coach in person. While nothing replaces performing in front of a college coach, a good video coupled with strong recommendations from qualified coaches that are familiar with your skills and ability can often be the deciding factor as to whether or not a college coach chooses to recruit you or chooses to pursue you further. In some sports (football for example) all initial recruiting activities on the part of the college coaches are done first by video. In order to get the most out of your video, it’s important to follow several rules when providing coaches video.

1 – Keep the video short. College coaches do not have time to watch a 2-hour game tape. Most coaches want video between 4 and 8 minutes long and will often request full game tape after they have sampled your highlights first. You have to remember they are often receiving several hundred tapes a year and your tape has to be short and to the point.

2 – Never send unsolicited video. Many college coaches will not watch an unsolicited recruiting video from a recruit they have not met, spoken to or at least heard from. While we don’t always agree with that philosophy, it continues to happen. It’s important to contact them first, develop some sort of relationship and then inquire as to whether or not it would be useful for you to send a video. More on this below.

3 – Make sure the video is clearly labeled with your name, address, phone number, school name, graduation year, jersey number, jersey color, email address and possibly your SAT/ACT scores, and GPA. You would be amazed that recruits are still sending video to coaches and the coach has no idea what player they are supposed to watch and there is often no contact info on the tape. Most companies that create video will provide your contact info on the tapes or disks, but if you need to provide additional information an easy way is to print labels right from your computer and affix those to the tapes or disks you are sending. You can go to Staples or Office Max and buy different sized labels that can be printed from Microsoft Word.

4 – Perhaps the most important aspect of sending out video is identifying schools that you are interested in and will be an academic and athletic match for. You can have the best recruiting video in the world but if your grades or ability will not allow you to gain acceptance and/or play for certain programs, your video for that particular coach will be wasted. This is perhaps the most challenging aspect of the recruiting process and the one that causes parents and student-athletes the most angst. It is extremely important to identify programs where you think you can compete at and you have to build a relationship with the college coach in order to determine whether it’s an opportunity worth pursuing. As always, we recommend that each family purchase a copy of The Making of a Student-Athlete so they can better learn about how recruiting works and what their role and responsibility is in the recruiting process.

5 – Be realistic. While many coaches have recruited players off of video and recommendations, other coaches still need to see you play in person. Video is often the first step into getting a college coaches attention and getting them interested in making an effort to see you play in person. It doesn’t happen for every athlete and every coach and there will be instances where a coach will not pursue you further even when you have provided them a compelling video. Remember, the coach is in contact with hundreds of recruits and if they do not feel you are a match or do not feel they have the ability to see you play in person, your recruiting process for that school may come to an end.


 
 
 
 
 
.

Copyright © 2007 - New England Interactive
.