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Today is a good day...
- Jason
- Oct 10, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 9, 2025
...to send some emails!
With a long weekend and no school, now is a great time to get started on those emails. Time is valuable, I totally understand that. It's hard to get time away from school, volleyball matches/practice and homecoming events. But with a long weekend for most athletes and potentially even some colleges taking a day off, now is a great time to connect with some college coaches, or at least spend some time researching schools and focusing on your list.
Sending Emails
Just getting started is often the hardest part. Yes, it does take time. It's why I always encourage athletes that are just starting out to send 5 emails. If that's all you have time for, great. This also eliminates a lot of the stress that builds up after you've been sitting at your desk for an hour or two and you're on email 55. Break up your emails into a few each day. Just spend 15 minutes on it. Over a long weekend you'll have more time to send emails out to more schools and you'll even have time to personalize a big chunk of them.
Making Your List
If you haven't started doing this yet, now is a great time to start. If you're just starting out with your recruiting journey, I always encourage you look up the D1 Volleyball RPI list and start looking and adding schools to your list. You might not want to add EVERY school on there, which is part of the point. If you don't have any interest in a school, don't add it. If you've never heard of it, then look it up and see if it might be a really good fit.
It's always good to have an idea of WHERE you fit. If you aren't part of the 0.23% of high school athletes that are able to play in the Power 5, then don't spend a ton of time emailing those schools (To see where I get these numbers check out my Playing In The P5 post). Talk to your high school and club coaches to get an idea of what schools SPECIFICALLY would be a good fit for you and go from there. Remember "D1" has varying degrees of talent school to school and conference to conference.
Researching Schools
This is one step that often gets over looked in the process. Figuring out exactly what you're looking for can be difficult. Be careful not to cross schools off just because you've never heard of them or because the student population isn't exactly what you're looking for. Sometimes you don't know that you LOVE a school until you go there. That was the case for us multiple times when we were recruiting athletes. Once we got them on campus they fell in love with it. I had an athlete visit multiple camps over the summer. Originally a "D1" school was at the top of her list. By the time the summer was over it dropped down to #3 on her list, behind "coaching staff" and the "vibe of the town." Keep schools on your list, even if they don't check ALL of your boxes. I think you'll be surprised at which schools end up standing out to you.
Regardless of how much work you get done over a long weekend, just be sure to accomplish something! Small steps matter. Lots of small steps = big steps over time. It can be a long journey. Stay focused and keep up the work!
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