Tag Archives: sports recruiting

The Real Importance Of High School Sports Today

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High school is a time to make friends, get good grades, participate in activities and prepare for the future. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts, some schools have opted out of high school sports, believing that money would be better spent on academics. I understand that academics come first, but sacrificing high school sports lessens every child’s high school experience, their ability to perform at optimum academic levels and develop into a well-rounded adult.

The Importance of High School Sports Can Be Found in Elementary School

During a child’s elementary school years, children typically lose their recess privileges as a consequence to poor behavior. This consequence can have the opposite of the desired effect. Recess is the place where kids let out their aggression and release frustration and anger, allowing the children to better cope with the aspects of school they do not enjoy.

High School Sports Promote Bonding and Encouragement

What many administrators, teachers and parents fail to realize is that high school sports offer teenagers the same outlet. Participating in high school sports is important for motor skill development, maintaining a healthy exercise program and provides for a release of anger when the academic stressors become overwhelming. When youth participate in high school sports they release endorphins which helps decrease depression and increases energy. Most high schools, if not all, require at least a C average to participate in these sports, which provides the child with accountability. High school sports increase bonding between children and their parents when parents help with skills and come to games to cheer their child on.

High School Sports Boost Overall Morale And Support

High school sports offer a release that is needed for every student. High School Sports enables the entire school to come together, whether playing, or observing, to cheer for their school. If your child is having difficulty making friends encourage them to join a high school activity or to go to a game and cheer for their school. It boosts school morale when students meet to cheer for their team. While offering an enjoyable distraction from the stressors of school, teenager’s negative perception of school as a place akin to a prison is replaced with increased school pride. This increased interest in school generally results in increased enjoyment in academics, resulting in better overall test scores and grades.

Adults Look Back on High School Sports Fondly

When adults look back on their time in school many do not remember their teachers, classes or grades but they do remember the high school sports they participated in or observed. They often look back on these memories fondly and look forward to their children having similar experiences. Encourage your teenager’s high school to keep high school sports around so every teenager can have a better overall high school experience.

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Does a college recruiting service help?

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Does college recruiting services really help?  This is a serious debatable question because of what college recruiting services can do and cannot do or have trouble doing.  For a long time I ran a college recruiting service where I charged parents a fee for services.  Basically, what my recruiting service did was to sign up student athletes who were not being recruited at all by college coaches.

When you really think about it if these players were being recruited, there would be no need for recruiting services.  In some situations, recruiting services do work and have been a huge benefit to high school student athletes.  Many do believe that recruiting services are a total waste of time and that most parents can do their own recruiting.

There are thousands of individuals out there who all want to be college recruiters but I would bet that most of these individuals have no real understanding of what this business is all about.

College recruiting services can work if they find the right players who are being under-exposed and have the talent to play at a higher level college program.  These high school student athletes do not necessarily have to be totally overlooked to benefit from a college recruiting service.

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3 things you should know before becoming a college recruiter

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For those of you who may not know, I started my professional career as a college recruiter back in 1989.  I thought it would be a great professional business opportunity for me to get involved with.

I played basketball on every level so I thought with the knowledge I had, I could use it to help other student athletes reach the college level.

Back then, there was basically no information available on how to become a college recruiter. There were no college courses to take, no information on the Internet, basically there was nothing available.

There are so many people out there who are fascinated with the entire process of being a college recruiter that I wanted to provide my perspective on the things you will need to do to become a college recruiter.

GO TO CAMP.  One of first things I did as a college recruiter was go to camps. I started out with basketball because that was the sport I played all my life.  By going to camps all over the country, it helped me to get a greater understanding of what parents are seeing and thinking about when it comes to their kids and college recruiting.

Going to camps also helped me gain exposure to college coaches and build up a strong network.  I felt that if these coaches knew who I was, then I could develop some kind of professional relationship and a level of trust.

I believe it’s critical for all new college recruiters to be seen by parents, players and especially the college coaches. This will help build your reputation as a college recruiter.

LOOK THE PART. Being a college recruiter is just like any professional business; you need to look the part.  If you’re serious about being a college recruiter then get yourself some clothes that represent the fact that you are a college recruiter.

Maybe get a polo shirt or some kind of athletic-looking gear that has the name of your company on it.  Also get your fat, out of shape ass in the gym and at least look like you played sports by having an athletic body or something close to it.

I’ve been all over the country to many tournaments, exposure events and camps and have seen many of these wannabe college recruiters who look like they’ve never picked up a ball in their life.  Get in shape! Look like something out there.

GET THE EQUIPMENT. To be taken seriously as a college recruiter you’re going to the need a blog.  I would choose a blog over website because you can update your blog with NAIA news and fresh information all the time and it’s easier to use than the old-fashioned websites.

Get a domain name that says you’re a college recruiter and then your company using something that’s short and catchy.

It’s important to get all the necessary tools and equipment to be taken seriously as a college recruiter.  Get business cards and hand out to every athlete and every parent of an athlete.

Also your email should be off of your domain name and not one of those freaky mail services. Again, it’s all about professionalism.

Technology is critical so get a cell phone with plenty of minutes on it so you can be available to your clients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Computers are, of course, just as important as anything you would ever need in your business. Go out and get the best computers available, in your price range of course.  I believe it’s important to have at least two desktop computers and maybe later a laptop or Ipad.

Your computers are the engines for your business because this is where you will write your athletic profiles on high school athletes, email back and forth with college coaches and your prospective clients.

For me personally, I have two desktop computers that I use in every aspect of my business.

GET BUSINESS TO COME TO YOU. It does not matter how smart you are, what college you went to or even what college coaches you may know. If you cannot get businesses to consistently come to you every day, then you’ve got nothing.

Just because you want to help high school athletes get into college doesn’t mean a damn thing if you cannot get a huge number of student athletes to talk to each and every week.

You must advertise your business in order to get business, you must find out online and in the newspapers where the student athletes and their parents, who are most critical in this process, will be.

I believe it’s easier to reach a larger number of parents of high school athletes over the Internet because that’s where they’re going to look for information on how to get recruited for college.

One of the best resources available to market your business is on the Internet. Message boards that talk about high school sports or websites or blogs that talk about high school sports are the best places to advertise your business.

The most important things to remember is you DON’T want to spend your advertising dollars on a message board or website that has very little traffic and little exposure. You want to advertise on message boards that are extremely popular with the parents of high school athletes.

You are marketing your business to the parents of high school athletes because they’re the ones who will pay for anything their child needs on their way to getting recruited for college.

IN CLOSING. I believe these are very important steps in the process of being a college recruiter.  When I first started, I went out to camps and exposure events for years. Even though I was a former high school athlete, a college athlete and then a professional athlete, I felt I needed more inside information on how the college recruiting process worked.

Keep in mind, there are no college courses available on how to become a college recruiter.  What I did was go out and I talked to people.  I talked to the parents at the camps that I attended, I talked with the players at the camps and I made a point to get as much information as I could from college coaches.

My opinion of the college recruiters out there today is that many of them do not know what they’re doing and they only care about the money and not about getting the kids in college.

I think it’s important to think about how you can best help the parents and the student athletes get into college and you will make a lot of money because you will have a great reputation of service to others, so you will get paid.

Recruitng, Recruiting, Recruiting

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I would bet that if you talked to a thousand high school players, all of them would say that they’d like to play at a college somewhere.

The problem is recruiting.

In the college recruiting process, many parents and high school student athletes leave it all up to the high school coach.

The high school coach is there to coach that sport. It’s up to the parents and the student athletes to figure out what direction they should go in recruiting; what methods they should use for college recruiting.

There are a huge number of high school athletes out there who are not being recruited for college right now, and most of them will just be college students. Their playing career is now over. Do you want this to happen to you? Without having the right plan in place, you will end up without a college program.

Recruiting is about exposure.

The more college programs that know about what you can do over and over again are the ones that will recruit you. The more information a college program has on you, the more they can recruit you. The more they see your name on their list of players to be recruited by college programs then the more chances that they will recruit you. If college programs like what they see in you they will make an offer to you.

Recruiting, Recruiting, Recruiting.

If you don’t want to pay a college recruiting service to help you with getting placed with a college program, then don’t use one. But of you decide to go with Woods Recruiting you’ll be glad you did!