How Can I Stand Out at Tournaments and Showcases?

I play for an elite travel team where everyone is good.  How can I stand out when college coaches come to scout our team?

If you’re a softball player, hit four homeruns in a game. If you’re a basketball player, score forty points. But if you can’t do some miraculous feat then you have to look for other ways to attract attention.

When you joined your team you were probably told that one of the advantages of being on the team was the fact that you would be playing in a lot of events and at a lot of venues where college coaches would be in attendance, like the regional and national tournaments and showcases sponsored by National Scouting Report. This, of course, would give you some good college exposure. But, like you mentioned, everyone on the team is good and with so many teams participating the college coaches there obviously can’t scout everyone. And suppose they could. In the short period of time that they were able to look at you, would you be able to do something great that would make them want to recruit you? Chances of this happening would be extremely slim. That’s why colleges don’t come to these events to scout everyone there. And not even your coach can change that fact by passing out your team’s roster with a short résumé of each player. You must remember this, college coaches already know who they are going to scout before they go to these events. They don’t go there to discover good players; they go there to evaluate them.

You have to sell yourself (or have someone do it for you) first before colleges will look at you. Then you have to convince them of your abilities. The first step is the most important and often the hardest and that’s why many of your better athletes are turning to a professional scouting company to promote them. This is the safest and most productive way to ensure that you are on top of the college coaches scouting lists. Of course, college coaches evaluate and compare scouting services like they do prospects – some are better than others. A good scouting service will do a thorough preliminary “sales” presentation of you and your abilities to all the college coaches before they ever get to one of these events. Therefore, if they are even remotely interested in you they will spend some time scouting and evaluating you. This, of course, tremendously increases your recruiting chances when it is done over and over.

A good thought to remember is: Prepare to be scouted and prepare to be recruited. Don’t just wait around and hope that it happens.