Recruiting: How It Really Works

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This Four-Step Process is Consistent for Every College Athletic Prospect

The road to winning a college athletic scholarship is a clear one. Four steps, that’s all it takes. But, it’s how you take those crucial steps that counts.

First, you have to be recognized. No college coach can start recruiting you until he or she knows about you. The key is to understand where coaches find prospects. The short, best answer is from reliable sources.

You, mom and dad are not reliable sources. Thousands of unanswered letters and unviewed videos submitted by well-intended parents and prospects are tossed in the garbage pail by college coaches whose time is better spent accessing potential prospects from places they can count on to provide them with athletes they will want to evaluate.

Recruiting is a top priority task for coaches  and it boils down to the time they spend and activities they undertake while in their process.  They must be productive, or they fall behind other coaches they are competing with for viable prospects.  Coaches want to spend the least amount of time possible to discover the highest quality prospects available to them. This is the essence of recruiting and it should be noted here that coaches can only go after the prospects available to them.  If, for instance, you are not on their radar screen, you cannot be under their consideration.  So, what are the reliable sources coaches depend upon?

• Tournaments and showcases which attract good club and travel teams.
• Information on players sent by high school coaches.
• Historically reliable scouting services.

Tournaments and showcases which attract good club and travel squads give college coaches something which high schools don’t — screened athletes which have gone through a tryout process and are demonstrating by their mere participation that they are more dedicated to their sport than the average high school athlete.  Granted, not every legit prospect has the means to join a club team, but a quick examination of current college rosters will show that a large majority, if not all, college athletes were at some point on club or travel teams.

Data coaches receive from high school coaches is invaluable to college coaches, but in reality this rarely occurs. Prep coaches are well-intended and often claim that they will help, but when it comes down to implementation, they simply do not have the time and resources to produce the materials necessary to adequately promote their athletes. Most high school coaches are terrific at offering background support, and the value of this should not be discounted or overlooked, but initiating the process is not typically one of their strengths and unless history tells a different story with a particular coach, this method should not be relied upon as a first strike tactic.

Long-term relationships between coaches and dependable scouting services offer the most expeditious way for college coaches to receive information on and evaluate prospects. This is especially true when the coaches know that the athletes presented to them have been thoroughly vetted for athletic ability, their desire to play at the next level, academic qualifications, character and the degree of support observed in the family dynamics.  However, only a very few scouting services offer this complete and comprehensive information. Most so-called services are little more than online Web sites where any high school athlete, regardless of their qualifications, may easily upload their profiles.  College coaches do not waste their time on these sites. 

Regretfully, others are worse. These are the telemarketing services posing as scouting entities which never actually scout their prospects but offer families a list of impressive services without the ability to offer college coaches discovery evidence of the prospect’s legitimacy as a potential college student-athlete. We have dubbed them “cubicle counselors” — companies which flash fancy and impressive Web sites and offer initial low-end costs to unsuspecting families.  However, as the families soon find out, these companies’ effectiveness is minimal which is about the same time when the companies return to “hit” vulnerable clients with higher priced packages promised to do the job more effectively.  They essentially have families in a strangle hold with no way out but to put more money on the table or walk away altogether empty handed.  It’s a ploy which, sadly, works more often than it doesn’t.  Their objective is not to help the families but instead to meet quotas and coax families into upgrade charges.  These businesses are a sad reflection on the legitimacy of scouting organizations which from the get-go are up front about what it will take financially to properly promote the athlete to colleges and then perform those services without duping families into further expenditures.

Standing in stark defiance of these methods is National Scouting Report, a legitimate scouting organization which employs actual on-the-ground scouts whose primary role is to scout prospects in person, evaluate their athleticism firsthand, explore their academic histories and personally interview them prior to accepting them for enrollment, or in some cases denying them the opportunity.  As a result, college coaches are confident that  NSR prospects are well qualified to play at the college level because NSR has done the all-important initial steps for them in a reliable, professional manner.  No smoke or mirrors, just real scouting.  There are never any upgrade fees at NSR. And, moreover, local NSR scout are constantly available to advise families as they traverse the frequently bumpy recruiting road.  It is a business model which is not as fancy as the quota-based companies, but it is real, it is honest and it consistently works for families.  It’s worked for 31 years.

The second part of the recruiting process is evaluation. College coaches need current, detailed data to conduct evaluations of prospects. They do not want to spend hours upon hours thumbing over pages of newspaper articles from middle school exploits. They need the gritty info which will allow them to quickly vet the prospect. Reams of paper do not give them this freedom or get them to the heart and soul of the prospect.  Accurate scouting reports, accurate stats and updated grades are needed.  Moreover, video is instrumental in this critical second stage. Without footage which accurately portrays the strengths as well as weaknesses of an athlete, coaches cannot conduct the evaluation and which in turn leaves many prospects in the “wait” pile which too often becomes the “forget” file.

The third part? Comparison. Coaches rate each prospect they have elected to evaluate. From that list they then compare one against the other to determine which ones most closely meet their specific needs, athletically and academically. Those that are matches move forward. Those that don’t make the grade are discarded.  All sorts of peripheral things can impact a coach’s decision making at this point and the attitude of the parents is brought into play.  Cooperative parents are far more desirable than troublesome ones whose agenda is to bully their way through the process.  For college coaches, that spells disaster and they want none of it. 

Fourth? The offer. Coaches rank their top recruits and begin making offers to the best of the best. If the top recruit takes the offer, the others are left behind. Conversely, if the top prospect declines the offer, the coach moves on to make an offer to the second in line, and so on.  It’s a carefully choreographed dance coaches go through much of which is dependent upon the quality of the relationships they develop with the athlete and parents along the way.  Coaches are looking into a crystal ball when they make an offer and the only clear predictor for them is history with the athlete and this is gleaned from a mere dozen or so interactions.  It’s a gamble under the best of circumstances.  

The college prospect’s main objective, then, is to get on as many lists as possible and to develop solid relationships with a lot of college coaches so that the prospect will, in the end, hopefully have multiple offers and choices. In between those four steps a lot happens, too. E-mails, phone calls, visits (unofficial and official), conversations and negotiations. Negotiations? Yes. Since only a few offers are of the full-ride variety, most prospects are faced with negotiating with the coach and admissions office for more funding with the goal of getting as much money to pay for room, tuition, board, meals and books as possible.

Time is the issue which tends to creep up on families more than anything else. When they finally decide to jump into the process, it is common to discover that it had begun months before without their awareness. They are in constant catch-up mode as most coaches inevitably have a number of prospects which have already moved ahead into the second or third stage. Families that believed they had plenty of time suddenly find themselves straggling behind and wishing they had started much earlier.

Archaic thinking is usually the culprit. People with little or no real knowledge of current recruiting rules and trends encourage families to wait, to go it alone or to depend on their coaches. All these methods are traditionally slow to get results, if they get any whatsoever. Meanwhile, families look up and opportunities which could have been theirs have opened and closed their doors. It’s unfair to a degree, but that’s how it works.

So, what’s a family to do? Get in the recruiting process as early as possible. Have a reliable, NSR scout evaluate you. And, assuming that you are qualified, enroll at once. Any delay can mean the difference between receiving an offer and seeing your dreams evaporate.

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