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By: Jerry Grasso - Wilmington University One of the best resources for a student-athlete is their school counselor. The school counselor can help the student-athlete with signing up for the NCAA Clearinghouse and help with other NCAA requirements, including providing official and unofficial transcripts. Coaches will sometimes request an unofficial transcript with the permission of the student and their parents. The school counselor can also assist the student-athlete in enrolling for the SAT or ACT, help with discussing college options, identify career goals, and be an advocate in many other ways. Prior to visiting a college, it is important for a student-athlete to research the college, making sure the college offers a variety of majors of interest. An initial email to both the head coach and his/her assistants is critical. The head coach does not always do all of the recruiting; they may rely on assistants. Keep the email short and to the point. The email should include your full name, high school and head coach, phone number, positions you play, your travel team's name along with the head coach. A short resume, with all of this information is helpful. Accolades are nice, but not as important as a good video; a coach can evaluate your skills in the first few minutes of your video. Some Popular Online Recruiting Resources for Student-Athletes:
Your five-minute video skills tape should include fielding, hitting, and baserunning; keep it short. Game clips are not as valuable as a skills tape. Additionally, every college has a recruiting questionnaire; go to the website and complete this questionnaire. Yes, it's time-consuming; but coaches will use this tool to get in touch with you. Attending camps is great, but can be expensive, so pick out your high-interest schools in order to be seen by those coaches. We love using this tool because it gives us a preview of the athletes, we may be interested in bringing to WU. It allows us to see first-hand your hustle, attitude, athleticism, and more. Take the initiative, and do not wait for college coaches to find you. There are thousands of student-athletes who have the same interest as you being recruited! It would not hurt to have your head softball coach or travel ball coach reach out to college coaches as well. Get into as many quality travel ball tournaments as possible. As far as scholarship money is concerned, every school has a budget. Many NCAA Division II schools are not always able to give out full scholarships, but they can provide a nice financial aid package to cover tuition. On that note, always look into the school's academic scholarships as well. This information is available from the admissions office. Lastly, when writing to coaches, be sure to send them your tournament schedule. If anything changes on the schedule let the coaches know in an email. Good luck using some of these resources and never stop communicating with the collegiate coach. Be active and ask questions. |
Being Recruited Guidelines: Jerry Grasso – Wilmington Univ.
