Speaking with Coaches

Ways to Directly Contact a College Coach

The reality for most recruits is that they will not have coaches outreach to them. Most recruits find success by contacting a coach directly and expressing interest in their program. Today there are a number of ways to reach out to a coach. But how exactly do you do it in order to represent yourself professionally?

The stages of coach contact

When reaching out to coaches your goal should always be to make it to a point where you and a coach have a relationship. But to do that you must go through stages. Relationships are built on trust, and recruits have to build it. The best ways are to follow this method:

• Introduce yourself with an email

• Speak with the coach on the phone

• Be Responsive to recruitment messages and letters

• Maintain regular contact with the coaching staff

Introduce yourself with an email

It’s all about getting the coach’s attention at this stage. If you send a message directly to the coaches inbox, it gives you the best chance of being noticed by them. This is important because it establishes a professional relationship while allowing you to edit what you will say. Keep it brief, but with links to video and recruiting profiles so coaches can further evaluate you.

Speak with the coach on the phone

Once you are able to contact coaches directly based on the rules for your sport, a phone call is incredibly important. Relationships don’t get more serious until conversations are had. If a coach is willing to take time to speak with you over the phone then they are showing that you matter to them. Remember that every time you interact with a coach is an interview experience and phone calls can really move the needle of how a coach feels about you. 

Be responsive to recruitment messages and letters

You will get e-mail and paper mail from different schools after a while. Once you are being recruited you should always follow up when you have received information from a college coach. Some messages will be generic but anything that specifies you by name should be taken seriously.

Maintain regular contact with the coaching staff

Once you are officially being recruited you will have to juggle time in your schedule to continue building a relationship. In the later years of high school this will be text messaging and phone calling with regularity. If you are serious about a school yo must keep in touch with coaches and never ignore their calls or messages. If you do it sets a bad precedent for your future interactions.

Examples of how a coach may interact with you

All recruitment contact is not equivalent. Coaches have a recruiting funnel so depending on the type of contact they have with you, will determine how serious they are about you. One coach may be ready to get on the phone with you while another will only send generic information via e-mail. Here is what you should expect from coaches:

Generic E-mails or Mass contact messages

These messages are almost like the coach’s way of going fishing. They send information to many recruits and wait to see who expresses interest back. When a coach has a lot of recruits that are “replacement” level, they need to know who will be worth spending more time on. By simply responding to these messages, you tell the coach you are open to further communication.

• Your Response: You can respond to these messages with a thank you e-mail that also provides links to where they can get more information about you. It should be brief but professional since this is still an early stage of contact.

Personalized e-mail

When a coach sends you a message with your personalized name, it demonstrates that you are officially on their target list. The coach is no longer just fishing to see if you are interested, but they are trying to say that they care about recruiting you as well.

• Your Response: Always try to respond to a message like this quickly. Read the e-mail thoroughly and make sure that your response shows that you did and are taking things seriously. If you let the coach know when you are available to talk further it can help accelerate the recruiting process considerably.

A handwritten letter

If a coach is willing to take time and handwrite a letter, then it is a safe assumption that they really want you to join the team. It is not the same thing as getting an offer but it is a very valuable way to gauge that a coach has you high on their target list.

Your Response: You should reciprocate interest with direct contact via e-mail or phone call immediately when a coach takes this amount of time to reach out to you. Even if you are not sure you are interested in the school at the time, it is worth hearing what they have to say, since you are a major priority.

A phone call

Most coaches will attempt to set up a time to speak with a recruit. Depending on where you are in your journey, the call may be their attempt to continue evaluating you or simply building a relationship.

• Your Response: Always prepare for these calls by researching the school and being comfortable answering any questions about your training, and competitions. Also take time to figure out what things you really want in a school and be sure to ask questions about them.

Social media / DMs

Many colleges are now using social media to contact recruits. It is primarily used as a substitute for tracking down an email or phone number. If a coach is serious about a recruit, looking them up on social can be the easiest way to get in contact.

• Your Response: Social media contact should be treated similarly to text messages and e-mails. Coaches expect quicker responses using DMs so you should try to be timely while professional in responding. Generally speaking DMs will be used to direct you towards a phone call or other more official way of communication so be prepared to communicate your availability.

Camp Invites

These can be confusing because coaches host camps for two reasons. Some are simply to make money, and others are to evaluate recruits. You can still use this as a chance to initiate conversation besides getting more acquainted with the program. You will know the invite is more sincere if the coach personalizes details within it.

• Your Response: Like other forms of contact you should send the coach a thank you message. Even if you cannot attend the camp, you should still message to thank the coach for the invite and send other information about yourself for the coach to learn more about you.

Recruiting questionnaire message

These forms are sent out by coaches to gather information on potential recruits. You can almost always find these on the website for the college on your own, but the coach sending it to you means you have done something that has gotten you some degree of consideration.

• Your Response: In general the simplest way to respond to a recruiting questionnaire is to fill it out. Coaches will be checking for recruits who do so and are likely going to respond quickly if they want to talk to you further. Emailing to follow up is also a good step if you are intent on letting the coach know you are interested in the school.

Getting prepared to talk with coaches

Before you talk to coaches you will need to have an athletic resume. You will be sending out the same information repeatedly so making a recruiting profile so that you can have a link to send coaches often helps with the process.

Always be sure to include the following:

• Athletic stats from recent seasons

• Competition highlight film and training/skills video

• Academic Info, including your test scores and GPA

• Personal Contact Information (If you don’t fill this out it will be impossible for them to get in contact with you)

• Competition Schedules

In addition, these are the things you should study to be able to ask questions to coaches and narrow down your list:

• Your preferences for the college itself, the program, the coaching style, and how you’re your family can afford to pay for school.

• Study the school and team you will be speaking with.

• Write down a list of questions to ask coaches and take notes whenever you are on a phone call.

Coach contact made easy

Create your own list - Coaching contact can get very overwhelming because you will have to juggle speaking with many coaches all at once. It is important to narrow down your list from the start to about 10 schools based off of your research. You may subtract and add schools to that list based on how your conversations go. If you work directly with me, you can use the SCA Scope to create a target list of schools that are likely to be serious about recruiting you so that you can talk to coaches with serious interest in you.

Initiate Contact – Once you have a list of schools then you should email coaches directly and fill out questionnaires yourself. Most coaches will not randomly find you, but if you properly communicate you can get many schools to show interest.

Leverage Social Media – Optimize your social media presence in order to make it as easy as possible for coaches to get in contact with you. Coaches use social media to find recruits they are already interested in, more than to discover someone they’ve never heard of. Make your profile with your real name, your grade class, high school, and content that is sports related.

Make Phone Calls – Making cold calls does not often work well, but if you have already contacted a coach another way, and received at least some communication back, it can be worth it, even if you have not set up a designated time. So long as you have prepped for the call with questions it can be a great way to stand out from the crowd.

What coaches should you contact?

Contacting the right coaches is based on two variables. One is what types of schools are you interested in. The second is which types of schools are interested in you. Though it is not too hard to research what you want, it is a lot harder to find schools that want you. I created the SCA Scope for this exact purpose, to make it much easier than it has ever been to know which schools want to recruit you. Working with me directly you can create a list of schools from around the country that are likely to be interested in you, and choose from there who to contact.

There are still many ways to figure out who to contact. Consider the following information when you start reaching out:

Look for a recruiting coordinator or position coach – If the program is D1 there are likely multiple full-time coaches. The descriptions of each coach’s role on the staff directory should help you know which person to contact. If you see a recruiting coordinator, then you should contact them first. Position coaches who have recruiting listed in their job description are also a good option. If a coach does not have a phone number extension listed, than you should probably not message them since they likely are not full-time.

Aim for assistant coaches first – The head coach is often the last person you will get to talk to. Assistant coaches do talent evaluations for recruits and often bring those to the head coach. If you mistakenly send it to a head coach first, and they are not the only person to contact, they will probably end up forwarding your message anyway.

If a program really does only have a head coach as a point person, that can be both good and bad. It is good because the person who is the primary decision maker is the one who you get to contact directly. But that person is also has less time available. Recognize that head coaches are very busy, and if they are the only person to contact, they are essentially doing the job of multiple people. They may take more time to get back to you but their calls are more valuable than those with assistants.

How to find the coaches contact information

It’s pretty simple to find coaches’ contact information on the athletic website for their program. If you check the coaches bio on the team website it should be listed, but if not, you can also find it on staff directories that are on the site. In the unlikely event you cannot find the information on the website the program may be going through a coaching change and you can reach out to one of the assistant athletic directors for assistance. This is almost always a problem only at very small schools.

Can high school athletes contact college coaches?

In short: yes. Unless you’re one of the top athletes in the country, you’ll need to be proactive to get recruited by college coaches. There’s a common misconception that high school athletes aren’t allowed to contact college coaches until their junior year of high school. Athletes can reach out to coaches any time they want—NCAA rules only limit when college coaches can contact recruits. Even when college coaches can’t directly respond, they can still read your emails and follow you on social media.

When are coaches allowed to reach out to you?

The short answer is after your sophomore year. But there are a few details you should be aware of. There are two dates the NCAA uses depending on the sport to determine when coaches can reach out directly to you.

• September 1 of a recruit’s junior year – baseball, softball, men’s & women’s lacrosse, women’s basketball

• June 15 at the end of sophomore year – Other sports

• January 1 during sophomore year - Men’s ice hockey:

Coach Rob’s Note: NAIA schools have few restrictions on recruiting. But they also tend not to recruit as early as NCAA schools so you are less likely to hear from them prior to these dates.

When is the right time to contact college coaches?

Early recruiting is a phenomenon in today’s world, but the truth is that it is an exception that applies to very few recruits. Most recruits will need time to develop. And the right time to contact coaches directly is whenever you have begun to perform at a level that shows them you might be a good fit. This starts with studying up on what colleges are out there and learning what types of players they like to recruit.

If you are playing on a varsity sports team and contributing, it is likely that there are some coaches who would be interested in recruiting you at that time. This means that if you are in high school and not yet a varsity athlete, you would do best to wait on contacting schools until you are. In general by the end of Junior year you should be reaching out to schools to show interest.

Use the NCAA recruiting calendar

The NCAA has specific recruiting calendars for various sports. If you know what type of contact coaches are allowed to have with recruits based on the calendar, it can guide you towards what times are best for you to reach out to coaches. Typically 4 to 6 months before a coach’s competition season starts is when they are at the peak of their recruiting efforts. However, summer is always an active time for all coaches because they don’t have any competitions to travel for. If you are having conversations with coaches, you should make them aware of your summer competition schedule.

Coach Rob’s Note: Remember that coaches cannot directly contact you in most cases until the end of recruits sophomore year. But you can still be proactive if you believe you know a school may be a good fit earlier than that. Even if coaches cannot email you back directly, it doesn’t mean they are not reading your messages and planning to reach out in the future.

How to communicate interest to a college coach

Showing interest in a school can feel awkward at first. But the reality is that most college athletes will end up going to a school where they had to make the first move to start the recruiting process. Consider the following information when you reach out to schools.

College coaches don’t always respond to email messages, primarily because they have a lot of responsibilities. The more competitive a school is, the more students there are showing interest, so coaches rarely respond when they have many recruits contacting them in one day. The best ways to get a coach interested enough to respond to you are:

• Professionally address the message to the coach with a formal greeting

• Give a proper introduction of your name, graduation class, and very brief athletic bio so that the coach learns who you are.

• Be clear about why you want to go to the college.

What do you do if you are not interested in a school?

You should not string a coach along if you are seriously uninterested in their college. It is best to be polite yet direct about your intentions to consider other schools. Coaches can be persistent when they are actively recruiting. The message does not need to be long but clearly state your desire to look elsewhere. If you and a coach talk regularly on the phone then that may be a good way to tell them, but if that feels too awkward, an e-mail should work well.

Coach Rob’s Note: If you have an actual offer from a school, then it is best to phone call to decline their offer. You should run your recruiting process in such a way that maintains positive relationships because the coach of a school you don’t like can become the coach of another school that you do like, or may even end up transferring to.

What questions should you ask a college coach?

The questions you ask a college coach should be based on what things you need to be clear on before you could accept an offer. College fit often comes down to the cost of the college, the campus life and academics, the program itself, and the coach’s long term plans for you. Build your questions around any of these four components in order to get clarity on your choice.

What questions will a coach ask you?

Think of a coaching conversation as a job interview that lasts across months and years. Coaches will want to know what you view your strengths and weaknesses are, what your short and long term goals, and of course your level of commitment to your sport. Be prepared to explain why you are a good fit for their program, and more importantly why you would want to go there.

Why parents should not contact coaches

The college recruiting process is designed to help a coach figure out which recruits will be successful college athletes. If a parent inserts themselves into a discussion on behalf of their child with a college coach, it doesn’t allow for that adult relationship to grow. Parents are a guiding force in the recruitment world, but they should not be thought of as agents for their kid. The athlete should always lead conversations, not a parent.

How do you know when to stop talking with a college?

So long as a coach is reciprocating interest, you should keep talking with them. Depending on the coach and time of year, it can take up to two weeks for a coach or respond to a message so don’t panic. But there are moments when you should stop talking with a specific coach.

Your recruitment process belongs to you, so if you can determine the school or the program  is not a good fit for you it is best to immediately let the coach know that. Sometimes the financial aid packages a coach discusses are not within the range you and your family are willing to pay and that is another good reason to conclude conversations with the coach. Of course, if the coach has told you they are no longer interested in you it is time to shift your focus elsewhere. As a recruiting coach I specialize in helping you find schools that want to recruit you, so that you don’t waste time getting ignored by coaches. The secret to getting recruited is to build a target list of schools that will seriously consider recruiting you today.

Coach Rob is a recruiting expert and the Founder of SCA Recruiting. He is also the author of the book Winning the Ship: How to Win the College Athlete Recruitment Game. Available now on Amazon.