by Ellen Sawin, NCSA Athletic Recruiting
One of the most important aspects of recruiting is building a relationship with your recruits. The spring presents you with the opportunity to truly connect with your non-senior recruits, and it’s a chance to coach these athletes and their parents about “what’s next.” Coaching the recruits in this way shows that you care about their future and that you’re invested in them. It also gives you the chance to show your recruits and their families why they’ll want you as their coach in the future.
This bit of advice comes from Randy Taylor, a former football recruiting coordinator at UNLV and UCLA. Taylor was named the nation’s top recruiting coordinator by ESPN.com during his college football coaching and recruiting days. In his current position as Director of Recruiting at NCSA Athletic Recruiting, Taylor now shares his high level of experience with the coaches in the NCSA network.
How exactly can you “coach” your recruits?
Read the rest of Randy’s advice on this topic and get more help from him and other experts in recruiting by becoming a part of the network:
“So, what’s next for most non-senior recruits is a spring evaluation of their athletic ability, but for all prospects “what’s next” is an evaluation of their academic status before the summer begins. As their possible future coach it’s vital that you use this spring to coach them about where they stand academically and what they can do this summer to improve as a recruit.
Even if an athlete is a good student, a check up on their core classes and their progress towards initial eligibility is a great topic of conversation for calls and correspondence in the spring. If a recruit is border-line in the classroom, this is a perfect time to help them put together a plan to improve their academic standing – which could mean summer school to improve their core GPA, or other options you help them come up with.
If you can call your recruits, prepare a script and have their transcript in front of you (if you don’t have a transcript then have some notes of the prospect’s academic status that you’d made from earlier conversations, or do some research with their high school coach, counselor or parent to learn about their academic standing). When you’re coaching them over the phone, a great tool to use is a core course calculator or some type of a worksheet that you can send to them later. Fill this out while you’re talking to your recruits on the phone and then send it to them afterwards. This will not only help you track their academic standing, but it will help them as well.
If you can’t call your recruits, in a letter or email, you can send them a core course worksheet to help them grasp their academic standing. This method also gets your school’s logo in the recruit’s hands, reminding them of your interest in their success, not only as an athlete, but as a student. Make it so they can put it on their refrigerator to get their family involved, or on the wall in their room so that they’ll see your logo every day.
Whatever kind of evaluation you’re making during the spring it’s all about coaching the athlete about what’s next in their career as a prospect. Get the athlete and their family to take your coaching now so that they’ll want you as their coach in the future.”
Like Randy’s advice? Want more help with recruiting this next class of student-athletes? Join the NCSA Athletic Recruiting Network for free and get the help and recruits that you’re looking for heading into this next recruiting class.