At the beginning of my freshman year of college I was blessed with the opportunity to receive a new coach. It is weird to suggest that my freshman year was a “new” coach to me, considering all freshmen in college are joining a new team with a new coaching staff to them at least. But what happened for me is an all too familiar incidence in college athletics. The event/position coach who recruited me to Lafayette College transitioned to a new job that was better for him and his family. This meant that a new coach whom I had no prior relationship with would oversee my track and field career. My first collegiate practices I remember the sheer excitement of being a “Division 1” athlete. It did not take me too long to realize that I was not in my neighborhood anymore. I was on a team with sprinters from all over the northeast, and even some from states as far as Georgia and Florida. All of us were the best at some point in the distant past, and now expected to fight for spots on the same relay team!

My new coach elected after a few weeks of training to do bio motor testing of his athletes. Consider this the track and field equivalent of taking a job interview for your new coach. Of course, he could research our past performances on his own, but what I didn’t understand was that he needed to assess my talent for himself. The areas where I was strong, and more importantly the areas where I was weak. Never mind the fact that during the several days of testing I came to realize I was not the “best” athlete on my team, I was given the first real assessment of who I was as a sprinter. Coach called me over to him after we were about halfway through the testing drills, and says:

“David, I’m pretty sure I can tell you what happened throughout most of the races in your high school career. Correct me if I am wrong, but you were quick out of the blocks and generally ran away from your opponents in your league meets. You were far ahead more than halfway through the race and did not get challenged much at the finish line. In larger competitions you probably found that you could get out with the other fast guys, and even hold your own through the first half of the race.  But as things got towards the end you started to fatigue pretty rapidly and would find them starting to pull away.”

To say I was quite shocked is an understatement. I was shocked first because he had adequately described what essentially all my high school races felt like. He had also managed to give an assessment of those races without ever actually watching me race. It was clear that he knew what he was talking about and new how to assess talent. Not only did he know how to assess it, but he knew how to coach it. Unbeknownst to me he spent the next 2 years of my career tinkering with me as a runner like a sports car. I transformed into someone who broke the second team national elite standard in the 100m and 200m dashes while also getting individually ranked in the Mid-Atlantic Region of NCAA Division 1. I even grew to help the team win back-to-back relay conference championships. Remember, assessing talent, is not just about defining your limitations. It is about knowing what they are so that you can push past them.

The sad thing is that I was resistant at first to my coach’s assessment. I thought of myself as a future Olympian. I thought I was a pretty good athlete already and I was just in need of a little bit of help to excel at the next level. Looking back on things years later, I realize it was a miracle I even went Division 1 as a recruit by the numbers. I was not ranked top 20 in my state in my event as a senior in high school. Nor did I have the versatility as a sprinter most college coaches crave between the short sprints, long sprints, and hurdle events. The truth without photoshop is that I was the bare minimum level of good that I would have needed to be, in order to get recruited at any Division 1 school in the country. For this reason, I reached out to more than 60 colleges looking for scholarship offers, and fewer than even 10 of them responded. Most of those responses were not particularly interested in me being much more than a walk-on candidate, if anything at all.

Assessing your level comes down to brutal honesty. Coaches are recruiting athletes across the spectrum that is high school athletics in the country. Coaches will not be fooled anywhere near as easily as a high school student or parent. They know just how many talented athletes there are, and are often competing to get the very best ones to commit to their programs. Study what other athletes your age are doing. If you are in high school, research who the best athletes are already in your sport. The internet has made it easy to scout even the top middle school aged athletes. You can pretty easily scrutinize how you perform on film in comparison to what other kids are doing. Until you perform the way that those with clout already are, it is unfair to expect you will get the same results in return.

Recruitment level is not the same thing as one’s potential. It is simply where you would stack up based on your performances at the present moment. Many athletes can and will improve if they are willing to put in the proper work. Likewise some athletes are more capable than their performances seem to indicate. This is precisely how some athletes go overlooked every year. Their recruiting level in the eyes of a coach is actually lower than their actual talent indicates. C.J. McCollum proved this when he attended Lehigh University after being ranked far outside the top 100 basketball recruits in the country. However, he went on to win Conference player of the year for the Patriot League, as a Freshman in Division 1. He also would lead the NCAA in freshman scoring. The fact is that how other coaches in college viewed him did not match his actual ability. But brutal honesty allowed him to acknowledge that Lehigh was the best fit school for him to reach his goals. The road to success is paved with humility. Therefore, brutal honesty is often the key to developing yourself as a recruit towards reaching your ultimate goals in recruiting.

This excerpt is taken from the book “Winning the Ship: How to Win the College Athlete Recruitment Game”

KNOW THE GAME. WIN THE GAME.

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