Boys Recruitment Information
Here at Momentum, we want every player to have access to all the tools and information necessary to take their game and education to the next level. We had huge success last season with this process. 14 of our 15 eligible players received college offers! We have compiled some links below to sites that will help provide some recommendations on how your player can begin their recruitment process. This is not required and there are several other ways to get recruited. This is simply a starting point for those of you looking to begin the process.
Keep in mind, we have college coaches from local schools such as ACU and Ottowa, and players who currently play at GCU and other local colleges on our staff who can help as well!
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Get Video of full games. Usually a team parent can record all the games and put into a shared drive for everyone. (Feel free to edit the show your own player highlights. Most of the time, coaches want to see the whole game, not just highlights)
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Find a Site to set up a free athlete profile - This will be where coaches search for you and find your volleyball resume. Keep this profile updated. Including adding new video as much as possible.
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Use the college board website to filter what colleges athlete would like to potentially play at based on gpa, location, athletic program, financial assistance, etc.
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Contact/Email those programs personally and provide link to volleyball profile with video clips.
Resources:
1. Set up a FREE Athlete "Resume" or "profile" through one of the the below options. (NCSA, BeRecruited, University Athlete...Sports Recruits has a fee) These sites will allow the player to add all personal and player info, videos, and get a link to their profile so they can share it with college coaches. These sites are the top rated ones for connecting student athletes with colleges.
Each site has a paid option as well. Please read through all of the materials and resources each site provides before making a decision. Some of the paid options may be beneficially to you. A majority of the paid subscriptions will give you video editing options, details about whether a coach has viewed your profile, include you in additional recruitment sites, brochures, or magazines etc.
We want you to know that you can do the work on your own, save your money, and still get opportunities if you put in the work.
None of these options are affiliated in any way with Momentum Volleyball Club.
Top Athletic Recruiting Services
Note: It is not recommended to pay for the upgraded versions on these sites or use their extra paid services as college coaches do not place much value in them. It would be better to just do a FREE profile on the sites that offer that and do the rest of the process on your own or with the help of a trusted advisor who knows your sport well.
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NCSA – NCSA has loads of free information both on the general athletic recruiting process and for sports-specific criteria and tips. Your student athlete can also create a profile for free. NCSA offers fee-based services also. Once you create a free profile, you will be targeted for fee-based services. These aren’t for everyone. Make sure you are full educated before signing up for any services.
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SportsRecruits.com – SportsRecruits is a site focused on connecting student athletes with college coaches. It costs $249 per year for the student athlete to sign up for the minimum level of account with 3 other levels up to $999 per year (prices as of January 2017). The basic difference is whether or not you get a recruiting consultant and how much they do for you and whether or not the site produces your highlight video. For the base level, you are on your own. You create your profile, upload videos and have the ability to search for schools and email schools. You can also see what schools have viewed your profile and/or video. Some sports clubs partner with this site to offer it to their members. For example, my daughter’s volleyball club includes the basic SportsRecruits membership as part of the yearly club fee. We have found the site to be very useful and really like that we can tell when a school views her profile and video. The site has a Blog with some helpful articles that non-members can access.
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BeRecruited -BeRecruited is another site that offers a free profile and also offers 2 upgraded options. Again, options vary by how much personal interaction you receive. The $299 lifetime access level gets you game film evaluation, a 60 minute consultation and a personalized scouting report.
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A Great Free Resource
Have you heard of the University Athlete site? It is the most used resource by college coaches to look up and evaluate student athletes. Best of all, the coaches pay to use the site, not the players! I can’t speak specifically to other sports, but in club volleyball, this tool is used at all tournaments that college recruiters attend. It is a connection tool. There is no selling of athlete information or promoting of athletes involved. Your student athlete can register for a free profile, very much like the sites I listed above, but there is actually a greater chance that the recruiters will actually be using the same tool. You can provide a link to a video. You can also spend $49 per year for the ability to search schools, take notes on them, and send emails to coaches. I found this to be worthwhile. There is a great email writing system where your student can compose a generic email indicating where to insert school specific information. It makes it easy to send multiple emails prior to an upcoming tournament or showcase. You can also see who has viewed your email. Unlike the SportsRecruits site I described above, you cannot see when someone has viewed your profile. -
NSR - National Scouting Report is another resource I wanted to include because you will most likely see them at future tournaments. They have reps that are available to speak with in almost all states at all tournaments. From what I understand, they charge a one time (Lifetime Fee) for the player and have flexible payment arrangements. The services would be unlimited for the entire time the athlete is eligible. They include services like full video editing and have magazines and additional resources and contacts to help with the process. We don't necessarily recommend them if you are looking to not spend money for this, but if money is no issue, and you want to pay for an all-out service, I would recommend checking out NSR.
2. Narrow your search for colleges! Use this free tool called College Board to see what Colleges you want to spend your time reaching out to! Start by getting a filtered list of the colleges that match your criteria (IE: Financials, Test Scores, Location etc.) and focus on reaching out to them directly.
Feel free to email blast all colleges that you have access to within the Recruitment Site you set your profile up at. This will probably work for Div II or Div III Coaches. However, Div I coaches usually don't even waste their time reading mass distributed emails.
Here is a great article about why sending mass emails to colleges might not be the best way to reach out: https://patch.com/california/danville/real-talk-about-recruiting-a-college-coaches-confessional
3. Reach out! Still use the free recruitment tool you signed up for to get in contact with colleges. Even if that means email blasting all of them. However, if there are specific schools you are really interested in, we would recommend having a more personalized approach.
In closing, you will only get out of this what you put in. In most cases, the student athlete should be learning how to put together their own "resume/profile" and continually add and update it. Add new game highlights, new positions or awards they have earned, stats/measurements etc. Narrow the search of colleges using College Board and send personalized emails, spend some time to make it good! Remember, they need to separate themselves from the other 100 emails that coach received in the morning.
More tips:
GO TO UNSIGNED SHOWCASES!!! At Nationals Tournaments, they will usually have unsigned showcases. They cost around 75-100 bucks. Players get an opportunity a day or two before the national tournaments to play in front of hundreds of college coaches from around the country! This is so important! Ensure you have your athlete resume/profile link available to provided to coaches. This is the time to really sell yourself and be prepared to speak to college coaches about on and off the court topics, including academic performance!
What usually happens at the Unsigned Showcases?
-Volleyball skills testing in front of college coaches
-College coaches evaluating during testing
-Recruiting seminar for parents
-Player information & results e-mailed to every college in the country!
And More!
Create simple videos that clearly identify the player on each play. Don't waste your time making crazy animated intro's and music mashups. They dont care. They want to see the player perform.
I posted a link on the bottom of this page that will help with creating videos and emails. If you don't want to deal with video editing, some of the subscriptions above have options where you can pay and they will do the video editing for you. Please review all options above to see which one best suits you and your player. The sites above also have great resource articles you can read through about the recruitment process.
Keep all full length game videos. We will try and see if a team parent can video all of the games and post them on a shared site like youtube. Most coaches will certainly watch a highlight reel first, but once they are interested, they will want to see the full game tape. Always have those handy.
Go to youtube and review other player recruitment videos for ideas. Go to the above athlete sites to review other players profiles and get ideas as well.
Good luck to all of you! If you ever need anything from our coaches, please feel free to ask. A lot of them have been through the recruitment process and will be glad to offer any advice to help you get there.