There are thousands of college recruiting services that exists out there but are they trying to eliminate high school coaches from the college recruiting process?
Yes and no would be the best way to answer that question.
On one side, you have student athletes with talent to play at the college level but their high school coach may not be doing all that is necessary in assisting that student athlete with the recruiting process.
On the other side, there are the dedicated high school coaches who are doing everything in their power to help student athletes get to the college level.
Recruiting services only exist because there’s a void in the college recruiting process.
The simple argument could be that if high school coaches were helping student athletes and keeping parents totally involved in the process, then there would be no need for a college recruiting service.
I’m sure high school coaches would argue that they are doing everything within their power to help get their athletes recruited and are keeping parents involved in all aspects of recruiting.
College recruiting services are out to make money; they are businesses and they’re in business for one reason: to provide a service and to make a profit. They’re also out to help student athletes get recruited for college. Those are the main reasons for their existence.
If somehow all the recruiting services that exists could sign up all of the under-exposed student athletes, then many recruiting services would end up being multi-million dollar companies. In the common sense approach of business, it is to the advantage of recruiting services if there were more high school coaches who did not help student athletes.
If more parents and student athletes felt that high school coaches were not going to help them at all with recruiting then they would use a college recruiting service to avoid any college recruiting disasters.
I don’t think recruiting services are deliberately trying to undermine anything a high school coach is trying to do to assist their student athletes.
What happens if you are a talented high school ball player and your coach is doing little with recruiting to help you? As a student athlete, do you sit back and wait for something to happen because the longer you wait, there are many college scholarship opportunities that may disappear.
If the college recruiting process is starting to slip away from you, then chances are parents and student athletes will be proactive in searching for a college recruiting service to help fill any college recruiting shortcomings they are having.
The problem I have with some of these college recruiting services is their lack of professionalism and experience. Many of these recruiting services are started by individuals who have no understanding of what it’s like to be a high school or college athlete. Because of their lack of experience and true knowledge of the recruiting process, many parents end up being taken advantage of by these wannabe college recruiters.
In my opinion, to be an effective college recruiter you should have played high school sports and gotten recruited into college. The best way for a recruiting service to relate to student athletes I think is to have the experience of being recruited themselves. Former athletes can always relate to current athletes because you have lived that college recruiting experience.
The facts still remains that college recruiting services do exist and they’re not going away as long as there is this major void in the recruiting process.
There should not be a monopoly in the college recruiting process; it should be open to whoever can get the job done. High school coaches should always be given the opportunity to help their student athletes with recruiting. If these high school coaches fall short of assisting student athletes then absolutely there should be other alternatives.
You only get one chance to go from high school athlete to college athlete and I believe parents and student athletes should do everything necessary to reach the college scholarship level.
As a high school coach, I do my best to share advise and experiences to my young athletes and parents. I went through this process with my brother who played for VA Tech, and who was recruited by many other major basketball programs. My mother was also a guidance counselor at the high school level, so my experiences are valid. Even though I share my "free" advice, it seems like people think they are getting better advice when the "pay' for it. It is fine with me, because the goal as a coach, should be to help the student athlete as much as possible. In my experiences, the advice I gave my players was not any different than the advice of a recruiter. I think it's important for everyone involved to understand the role of the individuals taking part in this adventure, and once everyone knows "what they are getting" from each person, or "what each person will be getting" then it will work out for everyone.
Excellent points, I think its import for high school coach’s players and parents to work together on the recruiting process. Sometimes if parents don’t like what they hear from a high school coach there more than likely to go with a recruiting service I think sometimes that’s unfortunate but it does happen. Every one should work together to help student athletes get to the college level.
Recruiting services cannot guarantee that you’ll be accepted to any of the colleges you’re interested in attending, nor can they guarantee that you’ll be offered any sports scholarships. Some recruiting services claim to have a success rate as high as 90% for getting athletes scholarships; many times, these services include academic scholarships offered to student-athletes in their success rates.