How To Keep In Contact With College Coaches?

Maintaining a balance between communicating too often and too little with a coach is a bit tricky, but taking some of the advice provided below will help you navigate this challenge.

Keep in contact with a coach by reaching out with informative and engaging recruitment information. While coaches value building a strong relationship with their recruits, they want more than just small talk in their conversations. Be sure to inform them of any pertinent recruitment information consistently, so that you maintain their interest in you as an athlete.

Included below is some detailed information on what you should be contacting a coach about, which modes of communication to reach out through, and some things that you should avoid doing when contacting a college coach.

What Should I Contact A Coach About?

When talking to a college coach, make sure to try and discuss fresh, relevant content. While it’s okay to discuss things irrelevant to the recruitment process when reaching out to the coach, focus primarily on recruiting information.

New Highlight Tape: When you have a new highlight video, be sure to share it with college coaches who are actively recruiting you. Ultimately, the recruitment process is based on your skill and athletic ability, and providing coaches with new film will allow them to gauge your talent. New information or footage such as this should be shared, and serves as a great way to maintain consistent contact with college coaches.

Congratulate Coach Or Team: Reaching out to congratulate a coach on a specific achievement is another good way to maintain consistent communication. For one, congratulating them on a recent win is a conversation starter and makes reaching out to them much easier. In addition, if a coach receives any honors, congratulating them shows your genuine interest in their program.

New Final Grades Or Test Scores: Grades and test scores are another facet within the recruitment process that you should keep coaches consistently updated on. As you are a prospective student-athlete, there is obviously much more to the recruiting process than your athletic success. Achieving high grades as well as improving standardized test scores are a great way to display your effort in the classroom as well as your work-ethic. Be sure to update them with any new important academic information on a consistent basis.

Ask For Advice: While you may not think to do this, asking coaches for advice can be very beneficial. It may be in terms of what camps to attend or what facets of your game you should work on, but referencing a college coach provides you with an immense amount of knowledge. Most coaches have a lot of experience, so asking for their advice can be extremely helpful in your development as an athlete.

These are just a few ideas of what you may want to contact coaches about and there are plenty of other things that you can discuss with coaches. Just make sure your conversation with a coach is informative and not a waste of his/her time.

Forms Of Communication To Reach Out On

There are many different forms of communication used to communicate with college coaches, but for the most part you should stick to these.

Email: Emailing a coach is regarded as one of the more formal types of communication with a coach. When first reaching out to a coach, use email because it allows you to share a lot of information at once. In addition, you may also receive generic emails from college coaches about camps and other events. While it may seem great to have a coach reach out to you, it’s most likely a general email opposed to a personalized one. If you’re being actively recruited, expect to see personal emails and for coaches to reach out on other communication platforms.

Phone Call: A phone call is a great way for a prospective student-athlete to reach out to a college coach. Phone calls are particularly well suited to building a relationship with a coach because you can cover a lot of topics in a short amount of time. Also, if a coach is actively reaching out to you by phone, this is a good sign you are one of their top recruits. Be sure to be courteous and respectful when talking with a coach on the phone and to be yourself.

Text Messaging: Text messaging is one of the most informal modes of communication used by coaches. If a coach has given you their mobile number to keep in contact, you are far along in the recruiting process. Update the coach of your progress as an athlete and a student via text message. That way, you will maintain consistent communication with a coach and improve your chances of receiving an offer.

Social Media: While social media isn’t used as often in the recruitment process, it can still be an integral method of communication. Coaches may not be allowed to post messages on your accounts publicly, but they may use social media to directly message you. Respond to personal messages promptly, and use it as yet another outlet to have consistent communication with a college coach.

Avoid These When Contacting A Coach

While it’s important to communicate with college coaches, keep in mind that their time is extremely valuable. The names of hundreds of recruits cross their desk every day, so make sure the contact you have with them is meaningful, informative, and personal.

Communicate Consistently But Not Pointlessly: While a good chunk of the recruitment process surrounds building a relationship with college coaches, it’s important to remember that coaches want informative communication. Be sure to include relevant information rather than just seeking to start a random conversation.

You Do The Talking: The recruiting process is all about you and your potential, so it’s important that you do the talking, not your parents. While most coaches don’t mind if a prospective student-athlete’s family is involved in the recruitment process, they are still trying to develop a relationship with you as an athlete. Additionally, letting your parents do all of the talking over either remote or in-person communication can shape a coach’s perspective on you as an athlete. If you can’t take the reins of the recruiting process, how can you be an effective leader within a locker room of other highly-skilled athletes?

Don’t Send Mass Emails: As a prospective student-athlete, you should not be sending emails to more than one coach at a time. Believe it or not, coaches have quite a keen eye for what a generic email looks like. Make sure to personalize the email with both the coach's name, and the school they are affiliated with. Doing this will help show coaches that you are serious about your interest in their school.

Be Respectful and Cordial: When communicating with a coach, it’s important to be respectful, especially if you’re interested in that school. With that being said, when digitally communicating with a coach, avoid doing things such as referring to him/her by their first name. You want to be as professional as possible. Additionally, communicate with them during business hours and avoid reaching out excessively.

Things To Keep In Mind

Be Consistent: When being recruited by a college coach, try not to let too much time go by without communicating. A lack of communication may be seen as a lack of interest. Communicating infrequently will only put you at a disadvantage as plenty of other athletes will be regularly reaching out to coaches.

Communicate Meaningfully: While you don’t always have to have some new achievement or score to discuss, try not to solely make small talk with a coach. You shouldn’t be communicating with them as you would with your friends. Always make your communications meaningful. Try to bring up new developments within your academics and athletics, as well as anything happening regarding the coach or team recruiting you.

Read The Situation: While it would be great for every player a coach communicates with to be offered a scholarship, that is simply not the case. A coach may at one point during the recruitment process express quite a bit of interest in you as a student-athlete. If coaches begin to respond to you less frequently or even not at all, don’t bombard them with messages of your newest achievements and honors. Be aware of the situation and understand that they may have lost interest. With this being said, this isn’t the end of the world, there are plenty of other opportunities to play college athletics!