Delivery method used to send profile info to college college coaches is vital for high school athletes

Okay, here’s the scene.  Let’s say for a moment that I am a college coach.  Three packages, or emails, say, arrive on my desk.  I will open them in order, but which will be first, second and then last, and why in that order?

Time?  It’s a precious commodity and I don’t have much of it.  So, identifying quickly who sent them is important.   The time I spend in the office has to be productive just like practices and recruiting trips.  The dress code may be casual in the athletic department, but my focus is anything but casual.  Office time is work time, plain and simple.  Efficiency is everything.

Back to the stuff that’s arrived.  One is obviously from a parent.  The name is unfamiliar.  That one goes on the pile in the corner if it’s a package and in the file called Other Prospects.  My assistant will get to it when time permits, but she’s busy, too, so when its contents are known is, well, unknown.  She’ll either get to it or she won’t.  I’ve told her that those are low priority.  Why?  Parents are not reliable and the ordeal we have to go through to get what we need is not worth the hassle.  It’s usually disorganized and the important stuff is hard to get at which, again, wastes too much of our time.  Got it?  This will get opened last, if at all.  Sorry, folks, but that’s life.

The second one is from a recruiting service.  But when I look at the sender, I know that it’s another waste of my time.  The kids in this group will not have been seen or scouted in person.  This company is like a puppy mill – they just keep pumping out the kids without any real sense of quality.  No in-person scouting.  No personal interaction.  Just call ’em and sign ’em.  Don’t get me wrong, they do a great job of trying to get me to open their stuff, but I’ve been bitten too many times by these guys.  No more.   If I get hard up for recruits, I might go down this road, but it’s so tough to find qualified athletes that we know going in that it’s a chore.

The third one?  Now, this one I’ll open.  This is also from a scouting company, but the difference?  These guys actually scout their kids.  They do what I do.   They identify good athletes, check them out for grades, stats, all that, then they go see them play.  They study their athletes, meet them, meet their parents, interview them, get to know them and when they know that a prospect is a real, college prospect, they work with them.  That means that when I get a package or email from this company, I open it.  No hesitation.

This company saves me and my staff time and a lot of front-end work.  They’re almost like my advance scout team.  They help me lock onto legit prospects.  And when their info comes to me, it’s all right there in the format that I want and need to make a quick call on moving ahead or not.  And there’s video which is the final step that I have to take before deciding to reach out to a prospect.

Put yourself in my shoes, would you?  What would you do?  Look, people can talk and talk and talk about how things work, but I’m here to tell you that when it comes to recruiting, for me at least, it’s all about time, efficiency and reliability.  When a coach lines finds those three things, life is good.