While performance and execution are a fundamental necessity for the child when it comes to getting recruited to play football at both a high school and college level, it is not the only way to get recruited. As a parent, there are five important ways that you can help your child best position themselves to get on the radar by college coaches.
Create a database of coach contacts
A beneficial approach is to organize your child’s experience for college coaches to access it easily. This can be done by creating a Hudl account for your child. This way, you can organize your child’s contact with college coaches while collecting field films to present to prospective coaches. College football scouts constantly track their contacts and films that other student-athletes submit. You need to do the same to stay ahead of the curve and increase success for recruitment.
Register for NCAA Clearinghouse
NCAA Division I and II levels are big leagues, with many student-athletes attempting to get into. Because of this, you need to create the best and most aggressive plan of attack to ensure that your child is noticed if you want them to try for one of these divisions.
The best way to do this is to register them with the NCAA website. Make sure to go to www.ncaa.com to register on their clearinghouse to have your child certified with the NCAA. This process is a must-use. Although there is a small fee to register, it will pay dividends in the long run if your child can crack into the division, especially with the ability for scholarships for playing.
The benefit of the NCAA Clearinghouse is it holds as an additional place to store film and increase exposure for your child. Even if they plan on playing Division III or are undecided about which level they would like to play, you can still create an account for them on the website and boost that level of exposure for them.
Ultimately, when addressing the ways of recruitment, there is no such thing as too much exposure to become a football recruit.
Don’t Get Too Involved
When helping your child get recruited, there is importance from the difference between being involved and getting too involved. While it is crucial to involve yourself within the recruitment process as a parent with your child, it is also essential for your child as the frontrunner with their recruitment. College coaches are continually looking at the parents’ involvement when recruiting. If the coaches feel that the child doesn’t want to play the sport or get recruited by a program and it is primarily the parents’ choice, they will notice this immediately send out a cautionary red flag.
Often, the overarching level of involvement from the parent is a negative factor towards the student-athletes success. The best approach to attempting this is to sit down with your child, find out their top picks, and help motivate them to continue the front-running in their recruitment process while addressing the backend part.
Help them Decide Which Division Level is the Best Fit for Them
Talking with your child about what division they may be interested in and what division they are the best fit for is critical to ensuring that they are putting their best foot forward.
Most student-athletes are only aware of Divison I and II of athletic programs because of the media push from these programs. It’s important to encourage your child to assess their strengths and their end goal. Developing around a well-built Divison III school may mean that your child has more playing time than a Divison I or II school. Along with division leagues such as the NAIA and NJCAA, which have competitive athletic programs, athletes can earn scholarships and have a lot of playtimes.
Building the complete sports resume
After discussing their division expectations and hopes, it is also important to create and finalize their sports resume around their strengths.
Like a career resume, this will showcase their accomplishments and goals during their high school career. This can be done through both a paper application and a digital one. The benefits of this could allow you to add on your child’s Hudl and NCAA account that you had created in the earlier steps.
This way, you can have a running list that shows both facets of your child as a student and an athlete. Most people only look at the athletic perspective for recruitment, but the significant factor has an athlete who is also focused on their sports. When creating the resume, don’t limit it to strictly athletic endeavors; be sure to include academic accomplishments as well.
After you have accomplished each step in this article, you will have a good get forward to helping your child become a success story for football recruitment. The more effort and material you give the recruitment team, the better your child will have with a potential offer.
Be sure to also sign up for a free profile to access the largest network specifically designed to connect athletes to opportunities.
