Helping Your Athletes Through the Recruiting Process

by: Joe Hornback
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A football scholarship will change your life. If you are fortunate enough to get one you will have an opportunity to play in fantastic stadiums in front of thousands of people and earn a degree free of charge or at a reduced rate. The contacts you make as a student-athlete will help you in life after football as you make a life with a degree you earned. Football is the avenue that many kids use to make a better life for themselves as they barter their skills for a degree. As high school coaches, we play an important part in helping our athletes get to the next level. Here are three things you can do to help your athletes as they go through the recruiting process.

#1. Recruiting Resume Help them make a recruiting resume. The recruiting process should be viewed like a job search. Any of us that have ever looked for a job know that is impossible to do without a resume. A sample resume is enclosed. This resume can also help the high school coach be productive with his time. When you receive the recommendation forms from colleges you can simply write on it, “See Enclosure” and attach a recruiting resume of the athlete you think can play at that level.

#2. ACT/SAT Prep and Academic Checks There is nothing more depressing in recruiting than when you have an athlete that is capable of playing at a school, and the school offers him a scholarship, but he cannot accept it because he does not qualify academically. Try to identify your freshman and sophomores that have college football potential and start talking to them about academics in a meaningful way. Set a meeting with them and their parents after each season and talk about where they are at academically and what they need to do to get to the next level. Encourage them to take the ACT/SAT every time it is offered during their junior year. There is no penalty for taking it multiple times and their score should go up each time they attempt it.

#3. Call on College Summer Camps Prior to an athletes senior year in high school they will get invited to attend a lot of college camps. These camps are an evaluation tool for colleges and should be viewed as a tryout to the players. As a high school coach communicate with your players to see what camps they are interested in attending. Then make a phone call on their behalf. Call they college sponsoring the camp and ask the coach this question, “Do you think you are going to offer ____________ a football scholarship?” If they say “yes” or “no” then the player should not go to the camp. If the answer is “yes” then all you will do by going to the camp is risk an offer. If they say “no” then spend your money at a school that is interested in offering a scholarship. They only way you should consider going to the camp is if the school says “We don’t know. We have to see him in person to make a offer, but he is a guy we would offer if he had a good camp.” Then he should only go to the camp if he is a player that will test well and passes the “Eyeball Test.” The number one question an athlete should ask himself before attending one of these camps, “Will going to this camp increase my chances of getting a football scholarship?”

High school coaches play a big role in the lives of the young people they coach. One of my players told me he learned in his sociology class the two people that had the most impact on a young man’s development is his father and his high school football coach. Do everything you can to help your players fulfill their college football dreams and reach The Next Level.

Joe Hornback was an Academic All-Big Eight player at the University of Kansas and a two time high school All-State player. He has experienced the recruiting process from all sides as an athlete, player-host, and coach. Currently a high school coach, Hornbeck has written a book on his experience's: 'The Next Level: A Prep's Guide to Recruiting.' He can be reached at joseph.hornback@dmps.k12.ia.us.

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