Most college coaches have similar goals, philosophies, and priorities when recruiting athletes for their program. In short, they want people, athletes, and players who tangibly have sports skills to improve their team and intangibles that fit the culture of their program. Whether on video or in person, they want to see someone who is or has the potential to be better as a player than what they currently have on their team while at the same time has the character traits to persevere through any adversity on or off the field/court and to synergize the team to be better than it thought it could be.
In the past, this process could be summarized as coaches seeking people who fit who we are and who we want to be and players who feel the same about them and their program. Unfortunately, today, this is not enough. Once coaches successfully recruit players to their program, they must re-recruit them to stay with the program.
Why? The players are allowed to be paid to play. And the services of the players are available to the highest bidder. Players who are not starters will transfer without losing eligibility to a college where they will play more even if they are not paid more or at all. Many players who are starters will transfer simply to get paid more at a program of similar quality.
This monetizing mindset of players begins in their youth. From a very early age, many players obsessively train for and play sports year around chasing trophies and championships to the exclusion of a balanced life. The priority of athletic skill development supersedes the development in every other part of their life.
Most elite athletes today spend many, many more hours training to be better players in multiple sports than they do studying to be better students in multiple academic and non-athletic disciplines. Most will never hold a regular job nor do charity work on a regular basis. They will certainly pull few, if any, weeds.
When it comes time to choose a college, they will simply participate in tournaments or talent showcases to see what colleges will pay the most to have them play for their program. The amount of money they are willing to offer and the quality of the athletic program are, by far, the most important factors to players when choosing a college. Any consideration of the quality and fit of the academic side of the school are a far distant second, assuming the player has discerned what career they may want to pursue and that they and their parents even know how to properly evaluate a school in this regard.
To be fair, college coaches and private trainers feed this misguided approach by constantly advocating for multi-sport athletes while ignoring the reality that simply participating in multiple sports will not develop most players to be elite. To achieve elite status, most players will need to train regularly as players and as athletes for many hours outside of the sport. Furthermore, most sports programs will require that to be on the best teams a player must participate in the sport in months outside the regular season.
There are only so many hours in a day. But is there a better approach?
What if every year in high school, a student-athlete who wanted to play a sport at the highest level in college trained for and participated in that sport for four months, held a job (3 days) and trained as an athlete (3 days) for four months, and spent an equivalent amount of time in the remaining four months of the year mastering skills in and outside of school in technical areas and the fine arts and doing charity work?
Arguably, if the same dedication, work ethic, and discipline were applied by the player to this approach, they would have both the athletic and sport skills, as well as, the intangibles the recruiting coaches would be looking for. More importantly, the player would choose a college with the proper priority of academic excellence and fit to provide education and job opportunities toward a career of self-actualization and life-long happiness.
The player would also have the most persuasive intangible a recruiting coach could possibly ask for, i.e., no need to re-recruit them. They could honestly tell the coach that whether they start or play at all, they are not leaving the school because they chose the school first as a student.
Coaches talk all the time that they have many choices of players with relatively equal tangible skills, but the deciding factors are the intangibles. Is there a more powerful and potentially decisive recruiting factor than for a player to tell a coach they are not going to transfer no matter what happens in the sport?
In the past, this process could be summarized as coaches seeking people who fit who we are and who we want to be and players who feel the same about them and their program. Unfortunately, today, this is not enough. Once coaches successfully recruit players to their program, they must re-recruit them to stay with the program.
Why? The players are allowed to be paid to play. And the services of the players are available to the highest bidder. Players who are not starters will transfer without losing eligibility to a college where they will play more even if they are not paid more or at all. Many players who are starters will transfer simply to get paid more at a program of similar quality.
This monetizing mindset of players begins in their youth. From a very early age, many players obsessively train for and play sports year around chasing trophies and championships to the exclusion of a balanced life. The priority of athletic skill development supersedes the development in every other part of their life.
Most elite athletes today spend many, many more hours training to be better players in multiple sports than they do studying to be better students in multiple academic and non-athletic disciplines. Most will never hold a regular job nor do charity work on a regular basis. They will certainly pull few, if any, weeds.
When it comes time to choose a college, they will simply participate in tournaments or talent showcases to see what colleges will pay the most to have them play for their program. The amount of money they are willing to offer and the quality of the athletic program are, by far, the most important factors to players when choosing a college. Any consideration of the quality and fit of the academic side of the school are a far distant second, assuming the player has discerned what career they may want to pursue and that they and their parents even know how to properly evaluate a school in this regard.
To be fair, college coaches and private trainers feed this misguided approach by constantly advocating for multi-sport athletes while ignoring the reality that simply participating in multiple sports will not develop most players to be elite. To achieve elite status, most players will need to train regularly as players and as athletes for many hours outside of the sport. Furthermore, most sports programs will require that to be on the best teams a player must participate in the sport in months outside the regular season.
There are only so many hours in a day. But is there a better approach?
What if every year in high school, a student-athlete who wanted to play a sport at the highest level in college trained for and participated in that sport for four months, held a job (3 days) and trained as an athlete (3 days) for four months, and spent an equivalent amount of time in the remaining four months of the year mastering skills in and outside of school in technical areas and the fine arts and doing charity work?
Arguably, if the same dedication, work ethic, and discipline were applied by the player to this approach, they would have both the athletic and sport skills, as well as, the intangibles the recruiting coaches would be looking for. More importantly, the player would choose a college with the proper priority of academic excellence and fit to provide education and job opportunities toward a career of self-actualization and life-long happiness.
The player would also have the most persuasive intangible a recruiting coach could possibly ask for, i.e., no need to re-recruit them. They could honestly tell the coach that whether they start or play at all, they are not leaving the school because they chose the school first as a student.
Coaches talk all the time that they have many choices of players with relatively equal tangible skills, but the deciding factors are the intangibles. Is there a more powerful and potentially decisive recruiting factor than for a player to tell a coach they are not going to transfer no matter what happens in the sport?
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