If you missed part 1 of this blog, click HERE!
Recruiting
Relationship based vs social media based.
One of the biggest reasons that I started this business in 2018 was because I had watched the recruiting world from this side for a year and noticed that the majority of athletes were sitting on their hands waiting for things to happen. Not only were the athletes that I was getting on campus a part of the 1.2% playing D1 volleyball, but they were (in a majority of situations) proactive in their recruiting approach. Waiting for your recruiting to happen was NOT the way to go about your recruiting journey and I saw that manifest itself. So I started pushing for education and an understanding about scholarship, recruiting rules, timelines and plenty of other topics. There are plenty of ways to do "reactive" or "passive" recruiting. You can let Sports Recruits or NCSA try and do the recruiting for you; you can sit and wait until a coach finds you and likes you (this one is really popular); or you can post a video on social media and magically hope that the right coach will see it at the right time and you'll get a scholarship offer. Now the kicker is that none of these things are in and of themselves bad. Just like pepper isn't bad or choosing not to pepper is bad. The issue is whether or not the thing I'm doing is going to help get me to where I want to go. Sports Recruits, NCSA and even social media can be really good tools, if used correctly, in your recruiting process. But none of them are going to bypass or replace you putting in the work to get recruited. I can post on social media 100 times a day or I can even email Texas Tech 100 times...but it takes more than that to get recruited.
My foundation from the beginning was structured around relationships with college coaches. I don't rely on thousands of likes or views on social media. I rely on direct communication and relationships with college coaches in order to get athletes in front of them. I also think that educating parents and athletes on how the recruiting process works helps the athlete in their process more than just going, "post some videos on Instagram and coaches will find you." Will you get lots of views and likes? Maybe. But is anyone you want to watch going to watch? Are the wants that are going to be really interested in you going to watch? Your highlight is a huge part in your recruiting process, but who is seeing it? If you're hoping that a coach will see it on Instagram or Twitter, then it's not really any different from hoping a college coach stumbles across your court at a qualifier because they stopped to tie their shoe and watched you do something amazing. There are ways to make sure you're getting in front of the right coaches. Are you willing to make sure that happens, or would you rather just hope that it happens?
I can understand why athletes and families are fine with just putting their film on social media or NCSA and then hoping things work out. I can certainly disagree with that approach, but I understand it. The "if you're good enough, college coaches will find you" is still a recruiting system that's out there. I don't want things left up to chance though. You're talking about being in the top 4% of your sport if you're playing college volleyball. Do you really want that to be left up to an algorithm? I'm not willing to take that chance. I will instead trust my ability to pick up the phone and make a phone call. I think I have a better chance of connecting with that coach.
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