Volleyball Recruiting: How First Impressions Impact Offers

First impressions in volleyball recruiting can make or break your chances with college coaches. Whether it’s your highlight film or how you present yourself on the court, those first few moments are often all a coach needs to decide if you’re a good fit for their program. While skill development and growth are important, never underestimate the power of making a strong first impression during the recruiting process.

Let's talk about two specific instances where this seems to come into play the most.

Film

Your email and highlight film is quite often going to be where you make most of your first impressions. Not Instagram and not Twitter. Remember that college coaches are not "finding" you. At least we don't want to rely on that happening because it leaves too much up to chance. When it comes to your highlight film you will really often get about 30 seconds or less to make an impression on a college coach. What are college coaches looking for? A college coach is asking one question when they watch your film and that is, "can she help us win?" That's it. That's the standard. If they don't see someone that can help them win matches in those first couple of swings, sets or passes, then they are more than likely moving on to the next email. You may get 30 seconds or you might get 15 seconds. A lot depends on what they are looking for, what they need and what you are going to add to the program. Remember, we are cutting out 95% of high school volleyball players across the country. College coaches are going to keep looking until they find what they are looking for.

Live Matches

This is your next option. Now it's possible that a coach stumbles across you while you are playing, but I never want to assume that is going to happen. Most college coaches are going to watch athletes live that they have already watched before or they are going to watch the athletes that they have evaluated over film and WANT to watch live. In many situations, your first impression here matters as well. Are you playing / starting? What is the reason that you aren't? One of the things we run into is that college coaches aren't always willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.

"I need to evaluate this athlete; she isn't playing? That's a bummer. We will go watch someone else."

Maybe they come back and maybe they don't. In a lot of ways it will depend on their overall eval on you as the athlete. Even then, I get asked ALL THE TIME during the club season, "why isn't so and so playing?" If you aren't on the court it can be considered a red flag. How often do you get set? How are your swings when you do? Are you the same on film? Different or better? Your impression in live situations really matters. The other thing to consider is that you might only get one qualifier to get evaluated by a specific school (this is also why FILM is important). How much of an impression can you make at one qualifier in one weekend? Coaches can't always go to every single event. Many just don't have the budget for it.

You get film. You get at least 1 live evaluation (hopefully). That might be all the chances you get. Ideally you get more before you have to choose which camp to attend or before you hop on a phone call with a school. This is why your first impressions with your film and with your play on the court is so important.

Final thing: When college coaches are coming to your court to watch you play live, they are ALSO evaluating you as an individual. How you interact with your teammates and coaches matters a great deal. Rolling your eyes or ignoring your coach when they are talking to you definitely doesn't make for a great first impression.