Dear Hanai Family,

We wanted to assist our club athletes by providing you with the resources to play in college. As you constantly hear our coaching staff, the decision to play in college is solely dependent on your work ethic and desire to reach the next level. What a lot of high school-aged athletes fail to realize is the various levels available to continue their athletic careers. We will go over these independently to gain a better understanding however, one thing that is important to note is that pursuing a collegiate career is not only to provide you the opportunity to continue playing but for you to receive a quality education in the process. Your skill and volleyball abilities allow you earn a degree to assist in your long-term career goals. If you are completely distant from the idea of continuing your education, college ball may not be something for you and that is completely okay. As a Hanai family, our job as coaches is to provide you coaching that allows you to grow indecently in all aspects of life, and whatever your decision is we are here to support you in getting there.

Sincerely,

The Hanai Coaching Staff

How to build a target list

Prior to starting any planning you must be honest with yourself and find out where you stand in terms of ability and what level of college sports is realistic for you to participate in from an athletic and academic standpoint. This might take some pride swallowing, but in the end, will save you a lot of time and enable you to be more focused on the planning and execution of your recruiting strategy. Ask around, you may be surprised what your teammates, coaches, and others may say. It could be awkward asking around but its essential to start that target list.

(See video link in box, "Building a target list of schools")

After you complete your self-evaluation, asked others what level they believed you can play at, and gone over your academic profile, you should be able to build a list of schools to pro-actively prospect and follow up with: informing them of your desire to be a part of their program and academic institution. Building this list should be done in a organized way (i.e. spreadsheet) and you should have a minimum of 15 schools (the more the better at the start) on this list. To get this list started, go to each school’s athletic website and identify the names, titles, emails and phone numbers of each head and assistant coach in your sport and import this important into its own individual column on a spreadsheet.

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What is a athletic profile?

Creating an online athletic profile page is one of the most important tools to maximize your exposure to coaches. An online athletic profile is basically a webpage(s) highlighting your athletic and academic achievement. It gives you the ability to promote yourself, show coaches how serious you are about playing college sports and the passion you would bring to their programs. It also provides details of your academic record and standardized test scores. Similar to creating a Youtube Channel, an online athletic profile provides you a website link to your profile which you can use in your email strategy. When coaches receive your email they can just simply click on the link to your profile and get a much better understanding of who you are as a student-athlete and person.

BUILDING A TARGET LIST OF SCHOOLS - PRO-ACTIVE RECRUITING

Creating a Dedicated email

You should also have a dedicated email account so you can insert a strategic email signature into all of your emails that you will be sending to coaches. Why do you need an email signature? First, it makes your emails look more professional and it is also another symbol to coaches that you are serious about this process.

Most email service providers (i.e. Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) enable you to create and add an email signature to your emails. You should add information and links to the signature that you think is relevant to coaches. This information could include: Your name, Year of Graduation, Position, High School (or Club Team), GPA, SAT and ACT scores, Link to Online Profile, Link to Youtube Channel, Link to Game Schedules. etc.

Let’s do an example: Daniel Velasquez-Wilson is a junior libero from Mojave High School in Las Vegas Nevada.. He is graduating in 2020. His email signature might look something like this:

Daniel Velasquez-Wilson '20
Junior | Libero | Mojave High School
GPA: 3.3 | SAT: 1400 | ACT: 86
Volleyball Profile (Hyperlink to your Online Athletic Profile)
Video: Highlights and References (Hyperlink to YouTube Channel or Videos)
Phone: 888-555-1212

This signature would appear at the bottom of all of Jennifer’s pro-active emails to college coaches. It is just another way for coaches to quickly learn more about you and hopefully take action to engage with you in the recruiting process.

Coaches want to hear from you!

The biggest piece of executing this strategy and process is the person driving it. If you want to get noticed by these coaches and programs YOU MUST BE THE PERSON DRIVING THE PROCESS. Not your parents, not your coach, not a recruiting agency………YOU. The one common theme I hear from all coaches in regards to recruiting is that they want the actual high school athlete contacting them, not their parents. They WANT to know that you WANT to be a part of their program. This is a BIG DEAL and not one to be overlooked or to say “It doesn’t really matter.” Picking the right recruits is one of the biggest and toughest jobs a coach has and if he or she is not hearing from you they really can’t measure how much you want to be a part of their team and will probably select someone else who is showing that passion and determination for their program.

The important part- academics

The last research/homework I want you to do is write down why academically you would want to attend a particular school. Now, some of you may know exactly what you want to study or major in when you get to college. If you do, write it down and why. Then find out what the name of that particular course of study. For example, the business school at the University of New Hampshire is called the Whittemore School of Business and Economics. If you are not quite sure (don’t worry, most 16-18 year olds are not) do some research into what courses of study your target schools offer and see if any draw your attention and interest.

No, you don’t have to know your major or what you are going to study right this minute but before you even try to engage with a school or a coach you should have a general understanding of what they offer from an academic perspective. Trust me, if you do end up meeting with the coaches they will ask you “What are you thinking about studying?” and giving them an indication that you know what the school offers academically sounds a lot more professional than “Uh, I don’t know.” You know what I mean

Do your research!

Before you contact a coach you have to do your homework. You have to start thinking about the coaches needs before your own. Most young athletes trying to get recruited send emails, leave voicemails and email videos that are all about themselves and never even mention anything about the university, the specific athletic program or the coach. Before you attempt to send any messaging (calls, emails, video or direct mail) make sure you know something about the program and have a clear, concise message on why you would like to play for that program and how THEY will benefit from what you will bring to their team.

What should I major in quiz