College Recruiting Top Ten Do’s and Don’ts

 10. When narrowing down your schools, have a few schools in each category (dream/reach school, great school, safety/fall-back school), this way you are safe all the way through the process.

9. When you e-mail or write a coach about your interest, make sure you include your home address, email, cell number and home phone number, as well as what your cumulative GPA is. (Be sure to give the most accurate GPA, do not estimate or round up because this will give a false assessment of your academic ability.)

8. If you decide to take an unofficial visit with your parents on campus or a coach comes to your home, let the player do most of the talking and answer the questions, not the mother or father. Remember first impressions mean everything!!

7. When you play in tournaments where you know there will be a lot of college coaches, make sure that your coach has given the tournament directors the correct numbers and names of the players so the college coaches know who they are evaluating. You want the college coach to be evaluating you and not someone else because of an incorrect roster. When you arrive at the tournament check the roster to make sure you are represented properly (jersey number, address, age, year in school, etc…)

6. Be pro-active in finding out about a school, and don’t believe what your friends say or what you read on the Internet.  Your recruiting process will be different from everyone else so don’t follow others lead; it could lead you down a dead end.

5. When a coach calls you, ask questions to the coach that you think are important and don’t freeze when it comes time to ask them. Everyone has different dreams and needs and sometimes you go to a place as a freshman and it’s not what you expected. This often not the coaches fault, but rather the recruits for not doing all their homework on the school.

4. If you decide to send a coach a highlight video, of you playing, make sure you send an entire game as well. The perfect video is a short highlight of your ability coupled with a full game tape. Make sure the video is of high quality and your jersey number is clearly seen. Make sure you list your number and jersey color on the DVD or VHS tape.

3. When you are competing in front of college coaches, you are being evaluated on a lot more than how skilled you are as a lacrosse player. Your attitude, how you treat your teammates, how hard you play and how you adapt to adversity are as equally as important as anything else.

2. During the recruiting process be completely honest with coaches. If you commit to a school, go out of your way to let all of the other coaches know you have committed so they don’t waste time on you and can move forward.

1.  When you decide to take an official visit to a school. Remember that you are not only evaluating the school you are visiting, but also the coaches, the players and the program. Also, the current players are evaluating you yourself. Be a standup person and carry yourself in a way that is respectful and courteous to those around you. No matter how good a player you are, if the players and coaches don’t like you, they will stop showing interest in you.

1. Remember D-I, D-II, D-III are all distinctively different when it comes to recruiting rules and process. Make sure to visit the NCAA website (www.ncaa.org)  to read up on each ones rules and regulations.