THE PROBLEM
After years of national network recruiting services sending volumes of emails of unqualified student-athletes, college coaches now block, ignore or simply delete a high percentage of these email profiles. As a Managing Partner at one of these companies, it became crystal clear to me that the majority of the student-athletes we were meeting with nationally were not prepared or qualified academically +/or athletically to compete at the next level. In most cases, for those student-athletes who were qualified to play in college, they were the “baby who got thrown out with the bath water.” They were never seen or evaluated by the right coaches.
THE SOLUTION
After working with hundreds of student-athletes I decided to test a theory on my own two boys who were high school football players. I started with my oldest son who was a sophomore at the time. Instead of mass emailing his profile out to every college in the county (which we tried numerous times with literally zero qualified coach responses), I put together a target list of schools broken down with the following approach:
My son and I then created and tested numerous introductory emails and subject lines with a link to his most recent highlight video and tailored the message to each school and college coach. Every communication was tracked and ranked in a spreadsheet. The response rate from college coaches was a little bit better but we were still flying 100% completely blind...we still had no idea which college coaches opened the email and if they watched his highlight video or not! If the coach responded back that he "loved his film" and invited him to their junior day or camp, did he actually watch his highlight video or not? If he asked for his transcripts or SAT/ACT scores, did he open the email and look at them? This was the WOW moment for me founding Game Ghanger. My mission became to open the black box to the recruiting process where parents and student-athletes can see real-time data on every single email communication to a college coach. No more guessing or false assumptions...no more having to ask your "salesperson/scout" what they have been doing (or not doing), and what is happening? All recruiting activity is tracked and 100% transparent in real-time. Game Changer shall be held accountable. My data shows us that the coaches who have viewed your son's highlight video(s) and evaluated your student-athlete multiple times are the same college coaches who reach out and make a recruiting contact to your student-athlete (via email, phone, text, or social media), therefore beginning the recruiting process with that particular coach and college. On the flip side, if a college coach has viewed your son's highlight video multiple times and you don't get a response or contact, then maybe they are not interested in recruiting your student-athlete. In either scenario, having this data is critical in terms of knowing where your son stands as a potential prospect with that college, and if you should spend the money and time to visit there.
What I discovered is that the personal relationships that my son was developing with college coaches was the fuel he needed to keep the positive momentum necessary to not only get on the “Board” early, but stay on that board throughout his recruitment process. Like most families, graduating from a good academic school was equally as important as competing at the highest level (it’s a 40 year decision, not a 4 year decision).
I evaluated my son as a D1AA (FCS) athlete with the potential to play D1 (FBS) at a handful of specific schools. That being said, we wanted to ensure that he had the opportunity to attend a good academic school and play football so we also marketed him to targeted schools at every other division level across the country who recruited him as well. It boils down to having good options!
After a long process he received two D1 (FBS) offers, plus multiple opportunities to evaluate at every other division level. He was fortunate to be one of the few kids who had some choices and got to make his decision based on the competitive level of play and academic excellence.
I learned two major things during his recruitment process:
This is unheard of in college recruiting, especially at the D1 (FBS) or D1AA (FCS) level. The reason this happened is because we sent out updated highlight film on such a consistent basis to coaches who were sincerely recruiting him and he had a solid relationship with. So I discovered the secret sauce…be strategic about how you approach the recruiting process, nurture the coach relationships you have developed over many months or years, and continue to be relevant by feeding them small doses of updated academic and athletic achievements, including lots of new highlight film which they can easily and quickly digest and “sell” internally to the other coaches on staff (especially the Head Coach).
I then followed the same strategic process with my youngest son who was a HS freshman offensive lineman at the time. He received his first offer from UCLA his freshman year and had 15+ D1 offers prior to committing to Oregon in early March 2014 before his senior year including; Oregon, Notre Dame, UCLA, California, Washington, Miami, Arizona, Utah, Arizona State, Oregon State, Washington State, Kansas State, and Mississippi State. He graduated HS in December 2014 and became an early enrollee at Oregon in January 2015.
- 1st: Division level I believed he could play at (check the ego here)
- 2nd: Academic reputation of the college (you have good grades and SAT +/or ACT scores, so these are the colleges you would like to attend as a student and get a great college degree from...even if you didn't play football there)
- 3rd: Location - you need to be open to opportunities nationally...you then decide what the "best-fit" is academically, athletically, financially, location, weather, campus size, urban or rural, etc. (remember it's about having choices)
My son and I then created and tested numerous introductory emails and subject lines with a link to his most recent highlight video and tailored the message to each school and college coach. Every communication was tracked and ranked in a spreadsheet. The response rate from college coaches was a little bit better but we were still flying 100% completely blind...we still had no idea which college coaches opened the email and if they watched his highlight video or not! If the coach responded back that he "loved his film" and invited him to their junior day or camp, did he actually watch his highlight video or not? If he asked for his transcripts or SAT/ACT scores, did he open the email and look at them? This was the WOW moment for me founding Game Ghanger. My mission became to open the black box to the recruiting process where parents and student-athletes can see real-time data on every single email communication to a college coach. No more guessing or false assumptions...no more having to ask your "salesperson/scout" what they have been doing (or not doing), and what is happening? All recruiting activity is tracked and 100% transparent in real-time. Game Changer shall be held accountable. My data shows us that the coaches who have viewed your son's highlight video(s) and evaluated your student-athlete multiple times are the same college coaches who reach out and make a recruiting contact to your student-athlete (via email, phone, text, or social media), therefore beginning the recruiting process with that particular coach and college. On the flip side, if a college coach has viewed your son's highlight video multiple times and you don't get a response or contact, then maybe they are not interested in recruiting your student-athlete. In either scenario, having this data is critical in terms of knowing where your son stands as a potential prospect with that college, and if you should spend the money and time to visit there.
What I discovered is that the personal relationships that my son was developing with college coaches was the fuel he needed to keep the positive momentum necessary to not only get on the “Board” early, but stay on that board throughout his recruitment process. Like most families, graduating from a good academic school was equally as important as competing at the highest level (it’s a 40 year decision, not a 4 year decision).
I evaluated my son as a D1AA (FCS) athlete with the potential to play D1 (FBS) at a handful of specific schools. That being said, we wanted to ensure that he had the opportunity to attend a good academic school and play football so we also marketed him to targeted schools at every other division level across the country who recruited him as well. It boils down to having good options!
After a long process he received two D1 (FBS) offers, plus multiple opportunities to evaluate at every other division level. He was fortunate to be one of the few kids who had some choices and got to make his decision based on the competitive level of play and academic excellence.
I learned two major things during his recruitment process:
- He developed invaluable personal relationships and rapport directly with all of the coaches recruiting him (not with a 3rd-party national network recruiting service)
- None of the schools that were recruiting him ever asked for full game film
This is unheard of in college recruiting, especially at the D1 (FBS) or D1AA (FCS) level. The reason this happened is because we sent out updated highlight film on such a consistent basis to coaches who were sincerely recruiting him and he had a solid relationship with. So I discovered the secret sauce…be strategic about how you approach the recruiting process, nurture the coach relationships you have developed over many months or years, and continue to be relevant by feeding them small doses of updated academic and athletic achievements, including lots of new highlight film which they can easily and quickly digest and “sell” internally to the other coaches on staff (especially the Head Coach).
I then followed the same strategic process with my youngest son who was a HS freshman offensive lineman at the time. He received his first offer from UCLA his freshman year and had 15+ D1 offers prior to committing to Oregon in early March 2014 before his senior year including; Oregon, Notre Dame, UCLA, California, Washington, Miami, Arizona, Utah, Arizona State, Oregon State, Washington State, Kansas State, and Mississippi State. He graduated HS in December 2014 and became an early enrollee at Oregon in January 2015.
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Methodology is a good fit for you and your student-athlete. Apply Here >
Questions? Call 805-807-8046
Methodology is a good fit for you and your student-athlete. Apply Here >
Questions? Call 805-807-8046