Do you know the most critical step in college recruiting?

Bluntly, you are either up here or down there.  In college sports recruiting, there is no in-between.  In short, high school athletic prospects and their parents can’t survive down there.  The only place to be and win an athletic scholarship offer is up here.

Enough gobligook.  What I am referring to is realizing where you really stand in college recruiting.  You are involved up here, or not, down there.  And middle ground is non-existent.

In truth, most high school athletes aspiring to be recruited are down there.  They and their parents haven’t taken all the essential moves to be noticed, evaluated, contacted, recruited and finally offered by college coaches.  That’s a lot to do, isn’t it?  Surprising?  Thought so.  Yet, families cruise along thinking to themselves: “We’re in travel ball, so we’ll be OK,” or “Our coach is handling it for us,” or “We have an online page, so coaches will find us.”  All these suppositions typically keep athletes down there.

If any or even all of these things aren’t enough to put you up here, the question becomes obvious: How do you ascend from nowhere to somewhere — from down there to up here?

Recruiting is a process — a long, detailed process.  A college coach doesn’t merely show up, see your athlete and make an offer.  To ascend through the process, families must be fully engaged.  Otherwise, there’s little hope that the outcome will be to your liking.

So, how do you ascend?  What specifically do you have to do?  How do you position yourself?  Here’s how:  Point all your efforts toward one thing — being recognized by coaches.

Go no farther because recognition must happen.  It is the one thing that will catapult you into the recruiting process.  No evaluation, comparison with other prospects, visits or offers can or will happen until you are recognized.  Everything in recruiting first rests on this one thing.  So, take heed of these tips:

• Receiving a recruiting letter from a coaching staff or an admissions letter from a school does not mean you are being recruited, so let go of that one.
• Nothing in recruiting can happen until a coach knows you exist and has let you and your parents know it.
• If a coach is truly interested, he or she will quickly connect with you.
• Whether by mail, email, text or whatever is permitted by the NCAA at the time, coaches want the process to begin with you, as soon as possible.  The earlier they know about you the sooner they can contact you.
• Hearsay means nothing in recruiting.  Consider it background chatter.

The more coaches who know about you, the greater your chances of receiving offers.  And if they don’t know about you?  Well, you will be down there until your shot at the gold ring has passed.