Time (Doing it Yourself) vs. Money (Using a Recruiting Service)?

For those that are just really starting to get into the recruiting process (Most likely juniors or sophomores), there will be one big decision that you will eventually have to make. Do you have more time to handle your son or daughter’s recruiting or enough money to be able to use a recruiting service. I have talked about using a recruiting service before (Click here for that article) but it can help you.

If you are going to take the time and effort to do it yourself, you will need to again make 100% sure that your children want to play a chosen sport at the college level. That is something I cannot stress enough because if their heart is not in it, they are going to quit early and make it seem like all of your time was completely wasted. So talk to them and make sure there is a love for the sport at the next level.

As a parent, you will have to be the one doing it. No offense to high school athletes who feel they are organized enough to pull this off, it just won’t happen. I certainly did not have the ability and skills needed to really follow the recruiting process and I was barely recruited. For those athletes that have a great deal of schools recruiting you, your parents will have to step in and use their time to follow things.

You will need to have the time and skills needed to do it. While there are not qualifications that make one parent better than another, you need a great desire to see your son or daughter receive a college scholarship. And if that is going to save you thousands of dollars per year, than it would definitely be worth it. And as always, before going into it, make sure to get non biased views if your child is scholarship material at the college level. I am sure my mom thought I was a Division I potential player as the tenth man off of the bench in high school. Must parents do not have a realistic view (I have seen it over and over again) of what it takes to play scholarship sports so talk to your coach and anyone you would consider an expert in that area. Sometimes it is hard but you need to be realistic.

If those experts feel that your child has the potential, you will need to track mailings, visits, calls, and anything else that comes up with recruiting. Your first step is to put together a recruiting profile (Click here for that article) that showcases your child’s accomplishments and skills. If you see read the article linked above, make sure that they have varsity experience under their belt. Do not waste your time or money putting together a highlight video of sophomore or freshman games to send out to coaches. It just won’t work.

Being able to edit video would be a plus but again, is not something that is needed. You can have others make highlight videos for you for a low price but it will cost you. Also, see if your high school coach has the ability to put one together as well. But keep in mind that I have seen many coaches and people around the program promise parents that they can put together a highlight video. And in the end, those coaches don’t come through. So keep your options open in this area as well.

You will also need to follow recruiting and handle when and where to send out those tapes. Colleges throughout the country will be requesting these videos so make sure to stay on top of this. If you as a parent get extremely busy during work, see if your spouse will help you as well. The family I saw do this best had both the husband and the wife handling different parts of the process and working together to help their son get a scholarship. That is the best way if the time is there.

If you have skills to put up a website, that would also be an advantage. Having that online with your stats, accomplishments, and video will give you a step up over a variety of other recruits. That does not mean scholarship offers will come flying in but you are giving college coaches the best opportunity to see your son or daughter as quickly as possible. This is a great advantage to have.

If you decide to take the other route and have it all done by a recruiting service, I don’t really blame you. It takes a lot of time and a special amount of attention to do it by yourself. But the question now is how do you pick the recruiting service?

That definitely is a tough question to answer but I would not look at a service that promises to send information to all college coaches in the country. The amount of coaches that throw these lists away is a lot higher than you think, especially at the scholarship level. I have heard this first hand from two Division I coaches that they don’t even look at these information sheets. They are so busy that they don’t have a chance to see these recruiting sheets.

I would advise talking to a handful of recruiting services and talk to other players who have went through the process before. It may be tough to swallow but these recruiting services do many times cost thousands of dollars. So it is your call if it is worth it or not. But if you find a good service, it will help you during the process. But how to find a good service is a question that you must answer.

Think about both scenarios before making a decision. Is it better to save the money and become more informed about the recruiting process (This could be even more beneficial if you have younger athletes with college aspirations in sports) or pony up the money and get someone to do it for your? Look at your time, ability to stay organized on these matters, and if it will be worth it in the long run. Neither is easy but your financial situation may also help provide you with an answer as well.