Written by: Brooke Hamilton, Guest Writer
Parents can be involved in their athlete's college recruiting journey without losing their valuable time and money on recruiting services. With a well prepared and planned timeline, they can learn to think and act like world-class recruiting agents and help their athlete be recruited at the college of their dreams.
The timeline is the most crucial piece of the college recruiting journey, especially for you, the parent, if you want to be heavily involved in the entire process without losing your money, time, and mind.
The college recruiting journey can be extremely complex at the best of times. The most crucial piece to this journey must be planned and prepared in a very strategic way. A timeline that includes effective strategy and processes. The most effective timeline will start from year nine. This allows four years to build a successful college recruiting campaign. Four years to learn the who, where, when, and what comes next.
You don’t need a recruiting service. You and your athlete are the only ones who can give your athlete the best journey they could ask for. Only you can promote and support them like any parent would. No one else can do that.
Build Skills For Life
Your athlete needs the skills and tools that will take them into the future, not just during college, but beyond college. No recruiting agency or other services will give them all the tools and skills they will require to succeed in life.
I Know The Journey
I have been an elite student-athlete, and I'm now the parent of a student-athlete. I know the journey all too well. I know the pain, anxiety, stress, and fear. I know the travel involved and the financial pressures. I know about having a lack of knowledge, accountability, support, and resources.
I saw everything my parents gave me to achieve my dream of being a star track and field athlete. Ultimately, my parents lost their houses and their marriage. That’s hard for me to carry through life.
I Refuse To Let This Be Your Story
Honestly, I refuse to let that be your story too. I want to help because my journey was destined to be so many things but had so many challenges, so many upsets, disappointments, depression, and anxiety. That's not something I want for you, your athlete, or your family.
I know for sure that planning, preparation, strategy, and timing are absolutely everything. That's why I know this timeline will work for you and your athlete. I am about to give you the number one strategies and processes you can use to guide your athlete through those college gates and on to professional sport. They will also enjoy a very successful and lucrative career after college.
Year 9
At the beginning of year nine, you should be arranging meetings with the school’s guidance officer to express your athlete’s interest in playing college sports.
Ensure your athlete will follow the core course curriculum that is National Sporting Organisation (NSO) approved. If they don’t follow the approved courses, they won't get into the sports program they want.
Begin building lists of their hopes, dreams, goals, and aspirations. Please make sure everything you're doing resonates with your athlete's interests and goals.
A crucial step in year 9 is encouraging your athlete to keep a strong academic mindset. Stress the importance of this to them. I know it can be hard around 14 and 15 years of age to motivate them, but it is super important. The best way is to create a vision board and encourage them to look at it every day. Discuss the consequences of not keeping a strong academic mindset, such as not gaining entry into college. They are a student-athlete, not an athlete-student. Whether they're in division one, two, or three, they must have strong academics.
Start building schedules and practicing good time management skills. Every element of your athlete’s life must go into your schedule. Sports, academics, community events, rest, relaxation, training sessions, study sessions, sleep plans, and meal plans all go in the schedule. The only way to effectively prepare your athlete for college is to get their schedules right. The way to assure deadlines won’t be missed is by using an effective schedule and perfecting time management skills.
Next, begin creating your athlete’s list of colleges. You should have a minimum of 25 at this point. And start building a list of potential scholarships and contributors. There are so many places your athlete can find scholarships, grants, funding, and prize money. If you start building these lists now, your athlete will be ready to start approaching them when it's time.
At this point, your athlete should introduce themselves to at least two coaches. Keep in contact with coaches and guidance officers to determine what level your athlete will likely be performing at. From there, you will know what coaches to approach. This doesn't mean if your athlete is level two in year nine, they won't be level one in year 12. Don't let your athlete ever give up on chasing that big fish.
While you are building college and scholarship lists, you should also start building your athletes support network. This is absolutely critical. It's the key strategy throughout the entire journey for you and your athlete. You both need support.
Start assessing finances and begin a college budget. You need to track what finances you have to begin with and what finance your athlete will still need for a free ride through college. You will need to work out what the cost of college will be. Determine what funding and contributors your athlete already has. From there, each time they gain a new scholarship, more prize money, or another grant, add it and keep track. You have to keep track. We don't want them paying off debt into their thirties.
Now is the time to research the rules and regulations of your athletes top 5 choice colleges. Keep updated on what is required, so you don’t miss a thing. You don’t have to scramble to find the time to research what the rules, regulations, requirements, policies, and procedures are in the spare of a moment.
Encourage your athlete to compete in high school and representative sports and academic teams. Please don't enter them in every major level competition. We don't want them to burn out. They're still growing and need to avoid suffering a serious injury from overuse. My suggestion is to increase performance gradually. Start with two representative teams in year 9, then increase it by one the following year, and so on. When your athlete reaches year 12, they will be competing in high-level tournaments, which will help prove they will be an asset to a coach and his team.
Begin preparing interview questions. What questions will your athlete ask when they attend interviews? Prepare answers to questions they may also be asked. Look at some of the common questions: research coaches and their teams. Think about what questions they may ask your athlete and contact other students to ask what kind of questions they were asked. Your athlete can be prepared for every interview. When it comes to attending interviews, they will be confident, prepared, and ready to go. When they walk in for an interview, first impressions go a very long way. With preparation and practice, your athlete will be confident, positive and walk in with their shoulders back and head held high every time.
Finally, begin preparing the sports portfolio and social campaign. You don’t create a sports portfolio. You build one over time. Prepare it now and add to it as your athlete progresses along their journey. Start creating their social profiles also. Build out their social media profiles, and lock their accounts securely to avoid the wrong audience viewing them. The only people you should include in your athlete's audience are the coaches, scouts, admissions, and anyone who makes up your support network.
Spreadsheets
It's a great idea to keep spreadsheets. You will need spreadsheets to keep track of coaches. What coaches your athlete has had interviews with, and who they have sent emails to. Keep track of the whole progression with every coach. Track which colleges your athlete has approached and the scholarships they have applied for. You will also need spreadsheets to track finances. Get to know spreadsheets so you can keep track of everything.
Year 10
You should keep monitoring your athlete's GPA. They must be maintaining a good grade point average. Encourage them to take pre-college classes to contribute to the sports program and degree they wish to study.
Put together introductory letter and email templates. If you have templates, you can personalize them each time you send them out, and it will save you a ton of time. Build a swipe file of subject lines too. Subject lines have to stand out to catch a coach's attention. I suggest you keep swipe files of subject lines in a document to copy and paste them. It's a big time-saver.
Increase your athlete's target list of colleges to a minimum of 50. Continue adding to the list of scholarships and contributors, whether they are already secured or they are potential contributors, and keep building your athletes support network, in and out of college. Encourage them to join college group forums and chat rooms.
Your athlete should now be taking part in extra competitions and source additional coaching if needed. If they’re not producing the results they need to be; it's a possibility you may need to look at additional coaching. If you recognize signs of struggle or decline in performance and get down on themselves about it, look at what solutions you can develop that will help make the situation better for them.
Start attending college summer camps for extra exposure and skills improvement. There are often scouts hanging out at coaching camps, and you just never know who will see your athlete when they attend. Continue building their sports portfolio and start creating highlight videos. Your athlete should include highlight videos throughout their social media campaign, and will send them off to coaches, add them to the sports portfolio, and include them on their profile pages. Every time you shoot one, put it at the top of each page as the most recent. Coaches can watch the most recent highlight first. They can continue down the playlist to see how your athlete has progressed throughout their journey.
Continue building out social media profiles, and create a schedule that includes thorough research of scholarships. Your athlete should continue researching rules, regulations, requirements, policies, and procedures. As you're going along the timeline, you will learn that you have to research almost everything. The hard work and effort are definitely worth it.
This is also a good time to gather references and recommendations your athlete will add to their sports portfolio. References and recommendations are massive. Anyone who has worked with your athlete in some capacity can provide one. You'll find many people are happy to give out a reference. You can’t have too many references and recommendations. They are people who can back up your athlete’s story.
While in year 10, begin making introductions to coaches. Start with 15 or more coaches at this point, and double-check all spreadsheets are up to date. Check them weekly because you don't want to miss anything.
Year 11
Let's look at the year 11 timeline. Your athlete should begin the exam and essay preparations. Encourage them to take practice tests regularly. I encourage our clients to start doing this step sooner than year 11 because they have so much going on already that to start the exam and essay preparations in year 11 won't be as effective as preparing them earlier.
Review your athlete’s academic goals and ensure they are still taking the appropriate courses.
Additionally, review the recruiting process for your athletes target colleges and levels. Ensure the recruiting process is the same, and you are up to speed with everything, such as when exams and deadlines are upon them.
Ramp up your athlete’s social media campaign, and spend time building out their brand. This is super important. Your athletes brand and logo become their identifier. They become known by placing it everywhere. When an email lands in a coach's inbox with your athlete’s logo on it, they will already know who your athlete is.
I also suggest creating a website. We help our clients build a website because it's an extra place for coaches, admissions staff, and scouts to go. It an extra place to view your athlete’s profile and switch out of social media. You can create a beautiful website and highlight your athlete’s entire journey.
Join college chat groups and forums if your athlete hasn't already, and contribute to discussions. It will help your athlete become known in the college community.
Research all colleges, coaches, sports programs, and styles of the college community. Wherever your athlete plans on going to college, ensure that the community will be a good fit for them. You don’t want your athlete to be stuck somewhere that doesn't fit. They won’t have fun and will likely struggle. The community must be exactly what they’re looking for.
Encourage your athlete to increase competition levels. Add one or two higher-level tournaments, and begin studying the desired sports team they want to be part of. Study their history, stats, and coaches. Have your athlete start attending training sessions and tournaments those teams participate in.
I suggest inviting coaches to also see your athlete perform. They like to show up and check out what the talent is like in person. You may not know they are there, but make sure they always know where your athlete is competing. Give them dates and places so that the coach can watch them in person.
Begin scheduling unofficial visits now too. Get them into your athlete’s schedules, and start ramping up community involvement. Motivate your athlete to build employability skills through volunteer work, fundraisers, charity work, and community projects. Choose activities that aren't going to require a big-time commitment, and your athlete can achieve results from.
Double-check, your athlete is registered with the correct National Sporting Organisation and build a profile page. You will use a profile page for their social media profiles, and they will include one in the sports portfolio. After they're registered with the correct NSO, you will want them to continually build that profile page.
At this stage, I would suggest reviewing your athlete’s pre-prepared interview questions and check they're still applicable. It's crucial they are ready and prepped to go. Keep updating the tracking sheets and start considering the level of interest your athlete is receiving from coaches.
Continue checking all spreadsheets are up to date and begin re-ranking your athlete's list of colleges. They may have changed their mind on a few things over the last two years. They’re teenagers, after all. Re-rank the list of colleges and ensure they've still got the ones they really want to go to at the top of the list. Review all funding, scholarships, and grants your athlete has already received, and review and touch base with those contributors who have shown interest.
Continue building a strong support network. A strong support network is everything, which is why I include this step every year. You must keep building on that network. Your athlete's going to need support, and so are you. Make sure you both have support everywhere you turn. At this stage of the journey, it's my suggestion you start prepping your athlete for college life routine. I help my clients do this through my SNORES Method, which I created to help parents build a healthy life balance for their athletes. I help athletes prepare for college life routine by balancing sleep, nutrition, organization, relaxation, education, and sport. It's a great method for you and your athlete. It's super important you're looking after yourself also.
Double-check your athlete is keeping track of their GPA and have all application paperwork ready to go. It's good to be prepared. Any documents your athlete will need for a college or scholarship application, have them ready to go at any moment.
Year 12
Keep building your athletes sports portfolio throughout year 12, and make sure the entire document has page numbers, section numbers, and sub-section numbers that exactly match the contents page.
Continue building a strong support network, and go full force on your athlete’s social media marketing campaign. Seriously ramp it up. It’s time to increase your athlete’s visibility and exposure. This is where it all counts. This step includes highlight videos also. Your athlete will have changed physically, mentally, and emotionally over the last four years. No doubt they are producing magical results, which is why it's extremely important that you consistently update their highlight videos.
By now, your athlete should have secured some great funding, but don't stop there. Keep going, ramp up the scholarship search, and contact those previously interested contributors to check they are still on board.
Now your athlete is getting to the nitty-gritty of the journey. Big decisions need to be made. Narrow the target list of colleges to 15 serious choices, with at least five of those currently heavily recruiting athletes.
Stay in college chat groups, and ask questions that are still unanswered.
Send out applications to the top colleges on your athlete’s list, and start scheduling official, unofficial, and game-day visits.
Encourage your athlete to consider their responses if they’re extended an offer for an official visit. This is a really crucial time because your athlete doesn't want to waste their time, nor do they want to waste a coach's time. Encourage them to consider what their responses will be.
Continue taking exams and finalizing essays, and upload scores to the eligibility center for your athlete's NSO. Keep researching rules, regulations, requirements, policies, and procedures.
Look at your athlete’s finances and determine what they still need in scholarships and funding. What is still needed to achieve a full ride? What’s still needed for your athlete to earn six figures in scholarships? Make sure all finances have been sorted. You don't want your athlete to end up having to pay college debt into their 30's. I suggest you work out what scholarships your athlete does have and which ones they will need to maintain. What scholarships will they need to reapply for every 12 months? Put them into your athlete’s plan and schedule for college. When they start college, they will already be living by a college schedule. There will be no nasty surprises. They will be prepped and ready to go. It’s extremely important the scholarships they need to reapply for are included in their schedules throughout college to avoid missing deadlines.
Your athlete should be mimicking a college life routine. This is super important. Encourage them to live by college routine. It will help reduce feelings of stress, anxiety, and loneliness when they enter college.
Continue sending out applications if there is no decision yet, and encourage your athlete to keep working in the community and look for leadership roles. They should be developing skills and abilities they can take into a leadership role in college. Leadership skills are a massive asset in the eyes of any coach. They want your athlete to know how to lead.
Finalize all scholarships, grants, funding, and prize money and ramp up your athlete’s presence in college chat groups and forums.
It's time to get serious and encourage your athlete to consider all offers and make a decision. It's a huge decision. This will be the biggest decision of their life so far. They may struggle with it. However, you need to help them consider all offers and make a decision.
Lastly, prepare for entry to college and watch your athlete absolutely crush it. They will have an amazing career in sport and career after sports. The best part, they won't accrue college debt. Even if your athlete's not division one on a full-ride scholarship, it doesn’t mean they can't get a full ride. They can accrue as many scholarships, funding, prize money, and aid as they possibly can.
To recap, the college recruiting timeline must start from year nine to effectively help your athlete stay on track with preparation, planning, and strategy. How do you take your athlete through the complexities of a huge life-changing journey? By having a plan now! Encourage them to build and improve their skills and abilities.
Keep your athlete’s marketing campaign moving throughout the next four years, creating exposure and growth. Their progression will be mammoth. The main elements required to make the journey a smashing success are research, preparation, dedication, motivation, and communication, persistence, organization, and support.
If you want to be part of your athlete's journey and be alongside them enjoying the experience, it's crucial you start with creating that timeline. Once you have a planned and prepared timeline, you will achieve results beyond imaginable belief without losing your time or money.
By Brooke Hamilton CEO, PEAinternational
