TIP # 1 – Understand Their Circumstances

In order to best deal with recruiting coordinators you must try and understand their frame of mind. A college recruiting coordinator is typically in their late 20s or early 30s. They are working 60 to 100 hours a week trying to manage the recruiting process and develop a successful team simultaneously. They travel 15 – 25 weeks a year and are juggling a lot of moving parts. It is important to realize that some recruiters get sometimes over 100 emails a day while receiving anywhere between 20 to 50 phone calls.

In simple terms, they are often overworked, underpaid, and constantly traveling, leaving them with a limited amount of time and attention span to interact with parents and student -athletes.

TIP # 2 – Keep it Simple

When you send an email, keep it short and to the point. Be sure to provide a clear and compelling subject line (ex. Josh Smith – 2013 – QB – 3.8 GPA – All-League with 20 TD’s). You see how that subject line is like a HEADLINE of the player to grab the attention of the recruiter. We’ve created sample email templates of what college coaches prefer to maximize our families recruiting communication efforts.

If you send them a highlight video make sure it is between three to five minutes in length; make it to the point, easy to identify yourself and quality enough video. Also, remember to always provide them with all of your contact information at the bottom of your email. Their time is precious and they’re looking for efficiency and effectiveness. You need to make it easy for them to recruit you.

TIP # 3 – Keep Them Informed

Lastly, it is really important that you keep the recruiting coordinators informed. You need to tell them when and where you’re going to be playing. For example, if you are playing in an upcoming recruiting tournament or showcase that they’re going to be traveling to, make sure that you let them know what team you’re on, what your schedule is, what position you play and what jersey number you wear. Send them an email with all this information along with a quick update on your athletic and academic status. This will improve your chances of being evaluated by them at the tournament or showcase that they’re traveling to. Most coaches have a list of players they want to see but you can improve your chances of being added to that list of prospects to evaluate.

Another thing for parents to keep in mind is periodically updating them with their son or daughter’s athletic progress. So, let’s say your child was recently named all country or all state. It is a great idea to send an email to the college recruiting coordinator saying, “Hey, you know my son John was named all state and here’s his final season statistics.” After this, provide them with a quick wrap up of some of the highlights from his season.

*For more College Recruiting Tips and specific details on our proven Step-by-Step College Recruiting and Athletic Scholarship system contact one of our college recruiting experts at 858.350.5889 or visit www.sportsforceonline.com

To get started today take advantage of our FREE 30 Day Trial.

Many parents and student-athletes believe that once they receive a letter from a college coach they are being actively recruited. In reality these letters are apart of a large marketing process where college coaches send letters to hundreds and often thousands of other student-athletes and families across the country.

What does being actively recruited really mean?

Typically, being actively recruited means you are receiving PERSONAL emails or letters. It is important to realize the difference between a personal email from a coach and a mass marketed letter to thousands of students. Further, if you receive a call from a college coach after July 1^st of your junior year, you are getting actively recruited. However, if you are a football or basketball player you can receive phone calls in April and May of your junior year. Families and student athletes must realize that just getting letters in the mail does not mean you are being actively recruited.

A SportsForce Story

One of our staff members, Nate Nelson who was the college recruiting coordinator for Stanford and Princeton’s football programs and played football at University of California at Davis (NCAA) fell victim to the actively recruited myth. Nate came out of San Diego and was a very solid football player in the class of 1997. He started getting letters from colleges as a sophomore and junior and thought he was for sure going to get recruited his senior year. Suddenly, his senior football season passed and he was left with nothing. No schools interested, no opportunities, and he had to scramble to find a school that would be a good fit for him.

Nate did receive letters from UCLA and USC his sophomore and junior years but their interest fell off. Bottom line, he wasn’t on their recruiting board. He was NEVER getting actively recruited and was only getting marketed to by college programs. The school that he ended up going to was a Division 1-AA School called UC Davis. It did end up being the exact right fit for him athletically and academically. But, the stress that him and his family had to deal with because he was an unsigned senior is easily preventable.

You don’t want to fall into the same trap that thousands of families do each year during the college recruiting process.

What most student-athletes, parents and coaches don’t realize is that DI offers less than 20% of the college sports opportunities for most sponsored college sports. The reality is most DII, DIII and NAIA recruiting budgets are small and thus the student-athletes and parents have been even more proactive in the process of getting evaluated and recruited.

3 Quick Tips to handling the DII, DIII and NAIA recruiting process:

1. RESEARCH: Research which schools offer the academic and athletic fit you are looking for at the DII, DIII and NAIA. There are plenty of great college programs at these levels. Use these two websites to help:
   1. College Coaches Online – www.collegecoachesonline.com (Contact us about a discount to their membership)
   2. College Board – www.collegeboard.com
   3. NCAA Rules & Regulations – Click HERE
2. KNOW THEIR LIMITATIONS: Since smaller programs don’t have a large recruiting budget you have to make sure you provide them an opportunity to evaluate you. A highlight video is critical for them to evaluate you as well as potentially attending one of their camps. Also DIII does not offer any athletic scholarship money. However they can put together a great financial package using financial aid and academic scholarship money.
3. BE PROACTIVE: Create a list of target schools and market yourself to those schools. Be pleasantly persistent and make sure you provide them a completed resume and highlight video so the coaches can easily evaluate your skills. Your goal is to get evaluated and know where you stand with each school you are interested in.

To accelerate your education on the college sports preparation and recruiting process I recommend signing up for our FREE SportsForce College Sports Recruiting Guide.

* FREE Sign up click HERE

SportsForce premium members have an over 80% college sports success rate with an average of more than $50,000 in college scholarship & financial savings per family.

Click HERE to learn more about our programs.

Article courtesy of SportsForce, Home for professional and affordable College Sports Recruiting Tools, Tips, Online Profiles, Highlight Videos and Premium Services.

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Winter break is coming up fast, and many of us need the break from school, work, and even sports. But, breaks and school vacations are also a great time to check in with yourself and your college sports journey and evaluate where you are and where you need to be. Follow our tips below for some guidance during your time off.

Make Decisions

Juniors, winter break is a great chance to take time to make decisions regarding what colleges you are seriously interested. For juniors, this may be the beginning of the process, making a complete list of the colleges and athletic programs you’re interested in, and the likelihood that you will be able to play your sport there. Now is the time to reach out to the coaches of the programs you are interested in to learn more and set up some unofficial visits.

Seniors, your list should be much more refined. You should have a top 3 or top 5 colleges and know where you stand with recruiting with each college program. You can narrow down your search or add new options based out what you liked about each school and how interested/ how active they are in recruiting you. Now is a great time to take an official visit or set one up if you have not already.

For more information on recruiting time lines download our free recruiting guide HERE

Make a Game Plan for the Rest of the Year

Juniors, be sure you have an online resume and highlight video (like those at SportsForce) that it is up to date. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to register with the NCAA. Something else important to register for is the SAT or ACT. You want to take these tests early to give you ample time to take them again to improve your scores if needed.

Seniors, your SAT/ACTs should be behind you, but now is the time to follow up. Be sure all the colleges you have applied to have your scores and everything they need to evaluate your application. For the future, mark down the date after you graduation as a reminder to submit your final transcript to the NCAA.

Maintain Performance

It’s pretty easy to let your performance and training regimen go over winter break. If you’re on a team that breaks over winter just like school does, it’s time to become your own training coach. Many athletes need a bit of a break from training between seasons, and that is definitely a good idea. However, don’t break for too long. A week or two should be a good break to let yourself recharge but not let all of your previous training get erased. If you don’t have a gym membership, running and calisthenics are always a great way to maintain your performance level. Breaks are also an excellent time to work on weaknesses you may have noticed during the season. Check out our partner SKLZ for some great training work outs that require minimal equipment.

Have Fun

Lastly, have fun over break! Like we said, a break can definitely be good for you and give you some time to recharge. Rest up, enjoy those cookies, but maybe go for a run or do some pushups before lounging in your pajamas eating Christmas left cookie all day so all your hard work doesn’t go to waste!

La Costa Canyon’s Mike Riis recently committed to the University of Denver to play for their Men’s Lacrosse Program. We caught up with Mike to do a little Q&A to see how he got where he is today and the advice he has for others on the same journey. See what he had to say below.

What factors made you decide on the University of Denver? First of all the academics, I plan on majoring in business and the program they have there is great. I also liked the location of it being close to home yet I am still playing big time Division I lacrosse. I was very impressed with Coach Tierney and his entire staff and I look forward to being coached by them over the next four years.

Were there any other schools you were seriously considering? The other schools that I was seriously considering were Drexel in Philadelphia as well as Air Force and Chapman University in California.

What are you most looking forward to most about playing for the University of Denver? The biggest thing that I am looking forward to about playing at Denver is the lacrosse games versus big time schools such as Syracuse and Duke. Those games will be huge for me because I have watched those teams play on TV all of my life.

What advice would you give to other student athletes looking to play in college? The main advice I would give is just to work hard. The main reason I am going to play lacrosse in college is from countless hours playing wall ball and shooting at the school nearby.

Congratulations again to Mike and his family! Check out Mike’s SportsForce highlight video below to see him in action.

As part of the SportsForce recruiting education, we often mention the difference between being actively recruited and receiving a blanket mailing from a coach or program. Below we have included an email from a coach to a potential college athlete, so you can see a great example of an athlete, in this case women’s soccer player, being actively recruited. We edited the email down a bit, and changed the athlete, coach and college name to protect those still involved in the recruiting process who shared this with us. Enjoy and feel free to leave any questions in the comment section for us to answer!

I hope this email finds you well. My name is Coach, and I have been the Head Women’s Soccer Coach at State College for the last three and a half years. I saw you play at the Texas Shootout, and you can be a goalkeeper for a lot of teams in this country. Selfishly speaking, I hope potentially for State:-) You are one of the few goalkeepers who plays functional defense, meaning you play high when your team is defending in the middle third. You have great instincts when to come out, you have a quick feet and smooth hands. In short, you would be an impact goalkeeper for us starting your freshman year.

In my first three recruiting classes and for the incoming class this fall, we were able to recruit the first NSCAA High School All-American, the first Regional Team player and numerous players from the Top 20 club programs in the nation, including the # 1 club program at that time. For this 2011 class we already have three verbal commitments. One player is from the Dallas Texans 93G Red team (she picked us over Penn State), the second player is from the D’Feeters 93 team (we were the only DIII team she looked at) and the third player is from the U17 Bethesda SC Dragons team (again, we were the only DIII team she looked at). All three players come from Top 10 nationally ranked club programs.

Our ultimate goal is to win a National Championship. We are very close to being a Top 20 program in the nation, and we received votes last year already, despite being a very young team. With 7-8 players starting for the last three years who were only freshmen and sophomores and finally a few strong juniors this past fall, we were able to beat and tie nationally ranked programs. This fall our goal is to be a nationally ranked program and to start competing for National Titles (all players this fall will be my recruits). We would love to have you help us with such a quest.

Having listed a few pros (there are many more), I am asking you to consider State as a college choice and to be part of something new and exciting in the quest of winning Conference Championships and even more exciting, a National Championship!

For all the above reasons I would like to start communicating with you about your possible interest in State and our Soccer Program. I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to give you a better picture of State, about the potential of gaining a top education and being part of a successful soccer program. We are a top ranked school academically in the country, and we are very close to matching that rank with soccer!
Sincerely,

Coach

Head Women’s Soccer Coach

State College

We here at SportsForce stress the importance of starting the recruiting process as early as possible. However, we know that sometimes you can lose track of time and enter your senior year with no options or offers. If you find yourself in this predicament, don’t worry, you still have a chance to be recruited. Below are some tips on how to get your recruiting process underway in a limited amount of time.

Have Realistic Expectations

Your chances of getting into a Division I school have diminished drastically by your senior year. There most likely are still some options, but you shouldn’t put all your hopes and efforts into that one DI school. Don’t worry though; there are still plenty of opportunities to play your sport at the college level. Most of these opportunities will be in the form of NAIA schools, NCAA Division II and III schools, and junior colleges. These options will still give you the experience of playing a college sport and will be sure to give you an enjoyable time.

Be Proactive

College coaches may not necessarily have their radars on high school seniors. This is because they figure all the good ones have already been recruited. That is why it is crucial for you to be the proactive one in the recruiting process. Be the one to make initial contact with the coaches, send your highlight videos out, and express your desire to play at that college. Using a tool like SportsForce to actively market yourself is the best way of doing all of these things.

Don’t Get Discouraged

Because of how late you are starting the recruiting process, you are more than likely to hear your fair share of “no’s.” Don’t let this discourage you. If you really want to play at the college level, keep contacting coaches and expressing just how much you want to play. You are bound to find the right fit for you if you stay positive and don’t give up.

The dates to sign a national letter of intent for the early period are coming upon us very quickly. If you are offered to sign a national letter of intent, it is important to know what exactly you are signing and all the rules that come along with signing it. For this reason, I have listed below some of the basics about national letters of intent.

What exactly is a National Letter of Intent?

A national letter of intent is a binding contract between a player and a school. Once you have signed a letter of intent, you must attend school there for at least one year. It is basically a way to establish that you are done being recruited and have chosen the program you want to be a part of.

Verbal Scholarships and National Letters of Intent are NOT the Same

It is important to not confuse national letters of intent with verbal scholarships. Unlike a letter of intent, verbal scholarships are not binding. With verbal scholarships, you can tell a school you are committing to them, but still be actively recruited by other schools. A verbal scholarship basically states that if you decide to enroll at the given school, the school will give you a scholarship to play there. Also unlike letters of intent, verbal scholarships can be agreed to at any time.

What if you have a Change of Heart?

One important thing to know about national letters of intent is the penalty you receive if you ultimately decide to opt out and attend a different school instead. When you sign a letter of intent, you are contractually obligated to attend the given school for one year. If you break this agreement, you are penalized by not being allowed to participate in any sports for one season. Also, you must attend at least one year at your new school, no exceptions. This is why it is so important that you are one hundred percent positive on what school you want to attend before signing a national letter of intent.

What Else you Need to Know

Other than these basic facts about letters of intent, there are still plenty of important features about them you need to know. Different sports have different signing dates. Some sports, like soccer and field hockey, give you a six-month period to sign a national letter of intent. Others, like basketball, give you as little as one week to sign. Also, letters of intent are only given out by NCAA division I and II schools. But, some schools, like the Ivy Leagues, cannot give these out. It’s important that you do your research on schools and sports you are interested in when it comes time to start committing to schools. See the table below for this year’s dates.

For more important information about National Letters of Intent, including next year’s date, visit nationalletter.org

Stress is a part of life that everyone has to deal with, including student athletes. We all get to a point where we feel we have too much on our plate and don’t know what to do. The important thing is to not let it overcome you.Read on for a few tips to help you when your life feels stressful.

1. Do stress relieving activities

When you feel stressed, it can be very helpful to just take a few minutes time out to do an activity that calms you. Some ideas for stress relieving activities include taking slow, deep breaths, thinking calm thoughts, repeatedly tensing up and releasing your muscles, and exercising. Such activities help take your mind off of your situation for a few moments and will let you recollect your thoughts.

2. Talk it out with friends or family

Bottling up your stress and emotions can be very detrimental. Talking out problems with a close friend or family member is very helpful when coping with stress. You should always have at least a few trusted loved ones that you can talk to for support and help during stressful times.

3. Make time to have fun and relax

Sometimes it is very easy to get caught up in all the different aspects of your life. While it is important to stay on top of your game in academics, sports, etc., it is equally important to take some time out to do things you love to do. This can include socializing with friends and family, playing sports and games for recreation, reading, music, art, and whatever else you can think of that you enjoy doing.

4. Don’t procrastinate

This is one of the easiest ways to become stressed. When you wait until the last minute to complete a project or activity, the time crunch you face causes a great amount of stress. It will be so much easier and stress-relieving if you complete assignments in small doses over an extended period of time.

5. Be realistic with how much you can handle

Sometimes we take on too much of a workload to prove to ourselves and others what we are capable of. By taking on too many projects, not only do you become overly-stressed, but each project will not be as thorough because you have to concentrate on so many other things. You should pick and choose projects that you want to do the most. It is okay to say no sometimes.

The reality is most of us won’t be recruited by the college sport powerhouses like Duke and USC. But that doesn’t mean you should give up on your aspirations of playing sports in college and beyond. There are many reasons why the NCAA Division II and III schools, as well as the NAIA schools, could end up being the perfect fit for you.

These Schools Get More Exposure Than You Think

These divisions may not get the same amount of spotlight as the Division I schools, but they definitely still grab the attention of the all the media outlets. Games from all these divisions are covered by sources like ESPN and CBS College Sports. These divisions also get some big name sponsors like Russell Athletic and US Bank. The coverage from such media outlets is a great way professional scouts are exposed to athletes in these divisions.

You Could be the Next Scottie Pippen

That’s right; THE Scottie Pippen did not play basketball for a Duke-caliber college program. Pippen actually was a walk-on recruit at a school in the NAIA division, the University of Central Arkansas. He wasn’t offered any scholarships and even contemplated whether he wanted to continue playing ball at the college level, but with the hard-work and dedication he put into his sport, he ended up becoming a two-time All-American college player and was the number 5 pick in the 1987 NBA Draft. And now, of course, Pippen is known for being a six-time NBA world champion and just recently being inducted into the basketball hall of fame.

The Fun Continues

The main reason we all play sports: to have fun. So why should you stop just because you didn’t get recruited by some Division I powerhouse? Most athletes who play for NAIA or Division II and III schools play solely to keep having a good time. Playing for a school in one of these divisions could prove to be one of the best experiences of your life. As long as you are still having fun with something, you should continue pursuing it as long as you can.