A player only gets one chance to make a first impression in the recruiting process. Unfortunately, many players do not understand the value of making a good impression and get left behind in their search for a college program.
If you want to get recruited by a college coach, you just start out by recruiting that coach. Meaning that you need to market yourself to the college coaches that you are hoping will have an interest in you as a player. E-mail has always been an important part of this process and with all the limitations created this year by coronavirus it has become even more important.
You must invest time into writing a great e-mail. You must catch the eye of that college coach right away and keep their interest throughout. You have to work hard to write a good e-mail. The first e-mail you send is your first chance to make a good impression. Be sure you make it!
A couple really good ideas:
- Be sure you have the correct name, spelling, school name and mascot.
- Be careful with the cut and paste. Mixing up coaches and schools is embarrassing.
- Connect on a personal level.
- Get to the point but be sure you make it. Long e-mails are bad but an e-mail that doesn’t deliver your message is worse.
- Respond in a timely manner. If a coach asks for a schedule, video, profile or additional information be sure to respond right away.
The horror stories of bad e-mails are never ending. When I coached at Tennessee Tech I often got e-mails that started off something like this:
Dear Coach Dabney: – which should have been okay except that Coach Dabney coached at Tennessee State.
I usually responded with an an e-mail asking that player if she would like me to forward her e-mail to Coach Dabney since he and I were friends. I usually never heard back.
Make a good first impression! You only get one chance!
