Chances are LeBron James never had much of a problem receiving calls from potential colleges. But for most student athletes, being recruited isn’t so easy.
The Internet has aided potential collegiate athletes who aren’t the “elite prospects” that get offers thrown at them left and right. Sites, such as beRecruited.com, allow student athletes the ability to promote themselves to potential colleges.
According to beRecruited.com’s “Why Register” page, users “have access to school and team contact information,” allowing for easier communication between student athletes and colleges.
Web sites provide tools for student athletes and coaches to find out information about one another. For student athletes, they provide information about schools, including: majors available, NCAA (if applicable) level, and general statistics about the school, such as student-to-faculty ratio.
College coaches can create profiles for their respective universities and sports, which allows coaches the option to contact potential student athletes who show interest, as well as “bookmark” athlete pages and view information updates.
Membership at beRecruited.com is available in two formats: free and deluxe. The difference being that deluxe adds exposure through the site’s “Featured Athlete” section as well as the ability to view the coaches who have looked at a potential student athlete’s profile. But do student athletes and collegiate coaches even use such sites?
Brian Stephenson, graduate assistant track and field coach at Texas A&M University – Commerce, prefers more traditional methods.
“We go onto [Web sites such as] TexasTrack.com and look at performances and [student athletes’ grade] classification,” Stephenson said. “We don’t use any online recruiting sites.” According to Stephenson, other resources used to find out about potential student athletes include local newspapers and Internet sites that feature performance statistics.
Sometimes coaches aren’t even the ones who initiate contact with potential athletes, either. “We get around 10 to 15 athletes [per year] contact us initially,” Stephenson said.
Michael Williams, an undergraduate track and field athlete, said, “When I decided I was going to school at A&M – Commerce I wanted to play a sport and track gave me the best chance to be able to play. So I looked up Coach Lawrence on the [university’s athletic] Web site and sent him an e-mail with my race times and contact information.”
Some student athletes don’t determine whether or not they’ll participate in a sport in college until after they’ve determined where they want to go based on academics.
Guidelines also make recruiting harder for coaches. Track and field athletes can’t be contacted until the first day of July going into their senior year. Athletes also have to register with the NCAA clearinghouse before they can accept a letter of intent.
According to Stephenson, before even talking to potential student athletes, A&M-C coaches first attempt to contact the coach, followed by the NCAA compliance officer, at the student’s high school.