Is Your High School Coach Hurting or Helping?
May 27th, 2009 - by
Imagine this scenario…
As a family, you have done everything expected of you in the recruiting process.
You have developed a list of realistic colleges that your student-athlete has qualified for.
You have built an athletic and academic website to house your student-athletes qualifications.
You have created a properly edited and enhanced highlight video to display your student-athletes skills.
You have connected your student-athlete’s information with the list of schools and managed to become part of a recruiting list.
Due to all your hard work, a college coach has placed your student-athlete on their recruiting list. In an effort to initiate a relationship with your student-athlete, the college coach reaches out to your high school coach…What happens next?
Let’s start with a one-question quiz…A college coach contacts your high school coach through phone, email, or a personal visit to express an interest in your student-athlete. What does your high school coach do?
Is it…
A. Explains to the college coach that your student-athlete would not be a good fit for their program based on their ability
B. Holds all letters and signs of interest from your student-athlete until they feel the time is appropriate (i.e. senior year or after the season is over)
C. Immediately communicates the signs of interest from the college coach with your student-athlete.
D. I have no idea because I have never asked my high school coach
The answer is….it depends!
As we discussed last week here, your high school coach will play an important role in the recruiting process as an intermediary between the college coach and student-athlete. The reality is that every high school coach has a different policy regarding how and when they alert a student-athlete that a college coach has expressed interest in them. Unfortunately, this lack of uniformity has always been a source of frustration for thousands of families going through the recruiting process. Each year, families find themselves uttering sentiments similar to the following:
“My high school coach held 15 letters from college coaches until after my senior year and ruined my chances of playing college sports”
“My high school coach failed to let me know that a college coach had come to the high school to meet me or watch me play”
“My high school coach never told me that 5 college coaches called and requested my game film”
First and foremost, let me be clear: In most situations, the high school coach has admirable intentions. Unfortunately, they might be severely hurting the student-athlete’s chances of playing at the next level by withholding interest from college coaches. So why would the high school coach ever fail to communicate interest from a college coach to one of their players? I asked our resident recruiting expert, Former DI Recruiting Coordinator Randy Taylor why this might happen…
“Holding college mail is really an old school idea which some high school coaches still practice. The reasons I have heard are:
- The HS Coach is worried the player will get a big head and think they have it made and might not work as hard
- The HS Coach is worried the letters or interest from a college coach will distract the athlete
- The HS Coach may want to be in charge of the process and doesn’t want to be bothered until the end of the
season - The HS Coach doesn’t want the college coach to have direct impact with the player in a way that might undermined the team’s goals
- The HS Coach may believe that until the player has completed their sophomore year there isn’t any guarantee that the young man is truly a prospect
Regardless of the reason, the high school coach is most likely hurting the student-athlete by interfering with the process.”
Imagine this scenario…
One student-athlete discusses recruiting regularly with their high school coach and the coach in turns passes along any interest from college coaches for the athlete to pursue…
One student-athlete never discusses recruiting with their high school coach only to find out months later that multiple college coaches had expressed interest.
Which student-athlete will be more successful?
So what can you do?
The key is to communicate with your high school coach. For a full outline of how to develop the proper relationship and establish recruiting responsibility with your high school coach, click here.
The first step is to clearly state your desire to play collegiate athletics with your high school coach. The next step is to simply discuss what your high school coach’s policy is about recruiting. Does he pass along letters immediately from a college coach? Does he traditionally hold that type of information? The only way you will know is to talk with 
your coach and do so in a professional manner. Remember, even if you do not fully agree with your high school coach’s policy, they will be directly talking to college coaches on your behalf…so don’t give them anything negative to tell the college coaches.
I encourage you to open the lines of communication with your high school coach early in the process and find out how they approach the recruiting…it will impact your success!
