Helping Student Athletes in the Recruiting Process: Involvement of Coaches

Helping Student Athletes in the Recruiting Process: Involvement of Coaches

As student athletes enter their senior year of high school, it can be one of the worst or best years of the prospect’s life. Whether the athlete is highly or moderately recruited, problems can arise in the recruiting process. Potential problems can include NCAA violations and major disruptions in the prospect’s life. Nearly all recruiting violations are preventable, and by having high school and travel ball coaches aware of their student athletes academically and athletically can help the ensuing process be done by the books.² Besides the more visible recruiting problems that occasionally result in an athlete losing all or part of his or her NCAA eligibility, some prospects suffer through a poor recruiting process.

In order to prevent some of the violations that may occur during this process, a few steps can be taken by the high school or travel ball coaches to ensure that the student athlete is in good standing. First, coaches should prepare the prospect academically.¹ Coaches need to sit down with each of their athletes to discuss what courses they need to take to complete their core curriculum and also what score they need to have on their ACT or SAT.

Second, coaches should develop a specific set of recruiting guidelines.¹ These guidelines should include contacts made with college coaches, emails, a list of games for coaches to attend, and requested information to be provided on unofficial and official visits. With this information student athletes can be aware of what all they have done or what needs to be done in the next step in their recruiting process.

The last step that high school and travel ball coaches should take is to monitor activities in the recruitment.¹ Yes, it is the prospect’s business on what they choose to do, but how many student athletes actually keep up with rules that need to be followed? As a result high school and travel ball coaches should step in and monitor their student athletes as a service to them.

Regardless of the relationship that high school and travel ball coaches have with their athletes, coaches should play a role in the recruiting process. This assistance will not only help the college coaches, but will also help the prospect with any problems that may occur.

 

¹Hewitt, P. M. (2009). The Recruiting Process. College Student-Athletes: Challenges, Opportunities, and Policy Implications, 37-52

 

²Paule, A. L. (2008). The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Examining Intercollegiate Athletic Recruiting.