How To Get A D1 Athletic Scholarship
It was a game between Crespi and St.Bonaventure last Friday. I was with a friend watching the game. The story he shared with me was stunningly inspiring and I have never come across another great recruiting story like it. It really changed my perception about the college recruiting process and how one can win in this abstract process of recruiting.
It happened in Southern California where my friend came across a STUD RB back who was not a top prospect with college coaches. Not a fault of the coaches because they were just browsing through his credentials like height, weight, etc. and they had no understanding of his most important accessory, that is his laser-like focus.
They had not seen any film on the kid, so they just assumed based on his paper variables that he couldn’t play at their school. Well, my buddy started working with him on how to get his name out there; they started putting together a highlight video, putting it online and emailing coaches. One of the key components to his story is that when he would email coaches, he would use a UNIQUE subject line in his email…for example:
SUBJECT: “I am the Running Back YOU need”…; “Running Back to help YOUR program”; “CA Star RB to help your program”
The intention of the player was to arouse the interests of the coaches to open the mail sent by him and read it. The email would persuade them to watch the online video so they could begin recruiting him.
He started linking the online video profile to his signature on his emails, at least a few of the coaches would click to view his profile.
In other words, this young lad knew the trick of the trade that he had to do a PR job by suitably empowering his recruiting campaign with PR components. He also got in touch with important people at Scout.com and tried to promote himself. When the hype around him heated up, he succeeded in getting his first offer. Within a few weeks, the number of offers went up to 8 D1 offers. He utilized the first offer for revisiting the other coaches in whom the first offer triggered considerable interest.
The general mentality of human beings is to want to have what is difficult for them to have. This promptly made the coaches extend their offers to this players. Later, when he traveled to North Carolina, he informed all the coaches of all the major universities in the State that he was available to stop by their school. He showed them his profile on the video. When his family drove around the major colleges of North Carolina, the results were amazing. By the end of the evening, he had four offers on his lap.
The tips that can be derived from this story for going from 0 - 8 D1 offers are:
1. Focus on what you want. It should become an obsession in you. You must take suitable and purposeful action for achieving this in life. “Action” is the six-letter word that fires your rocket to reach your goal.
2. PROMOTE, PROMOTE, PROMOTE - this is YOUR PR campaign
3. You should ensure that people watch your profile video and hence it is better to carry DVD’s with you. Treat your DVD’s like your business card.
Tags: Athletics