Over the years, we've seen a great deal written by college coaches, high school coaches, and "experts" about the best way to be recruited into a collegiate track and field and/ or cross country program. The truth is, there is no perfect way to do it, every athlete and coach will have a different set of expectations they are looking for, and even if a kid does everything right, he or she still simply has to be good enough to make it happen. I've compiled 10 pieces of advice, taken from conversations with various local and national college coaches from all levels and divisions. I'm no expert, and athletes can take my advice or leave it, but these are straight from the horses' mouths, so feel free to heed the call, and good luck!
1) BE PERSISTENT- College head and assistant coaches have literally hundreds of emails, recruit questionnaires, and online forms to sift through before deciding whom to contact to join their team in the following seasons. Not to be a jerk, but many high school kids think that they are the center of the Universe, so I'm going to crush your dreams really quickly- you are not the center of their Universe. In fact, they might not remember you at all, unless you do something to positively stand out from the crowd. The best way to do that and be remembered is to keep at it. If a coach doesn't respond to your first email, send another. Pick another coach. The worst thing that will happen is that they won't respond again. Fearing rejection isn't the best attribute to possess during the recruiting process. At some point, coaches will begin to remember who you are, and if you fit their needs, they will show some interest. If at first you don't succeed...
2) BE REALISTIC- I've had athletes who really wanted to run in college in past years who struggled with what that meant. The truth is, there are VERY few student-athletes that will be provided academic and financial assistance by a track and field program at the Division I level. Most DI schools fall far short of the NCAA maximum number of scholarships, so the "full ride" you think you're getting to Harvard... well, you might be better off getting a job there as a janitor and completing math problems you find on the walls. If you are among the top 1% of recruited athletes, you might be in line for a four-year full scholarship from a handful of schools (XC kids get first dibs in many instances, since they are three-season runners and often save the track program from having to dip into its own funding). The next group of athletes, a sizeable one, have a choice to make. Do I get assistance from the coach of a school I might not have the merit of being accepted to without track, or do I get financial assistance, in the form of an athletic scholarship, from a school I probably would get into on my own? A tough choice by all means! The last group is the largest, these are kids that get a small amount of athletic aid, packaged with need-based financial aid and academic scholarships. While not the most exciting prospect for some, this is often the most common path to being able to make it all work. Look, we'd all love track to be like football- 80 full rides and all, but it ain't. Track is like track, and if a coach is going to bat for you with the admissions office, and setting you up with financial aid, and getting even just a few thousand bucks to package together for you from the athletic program, he's not trying to insult you. This is often what he or she can do for you, and be careful before you look a gift horse in the mouth. If this is the best athletic, academic, and social fit for you, it might be worth it to put your ego aside for just a minute, and take out a few loans, and go to the school of your dreams.
3) BE-LIEVE IN YOURSELF- One of the best things about track and field at any level is that there is truly a place anyone who wants to work hard and improve his or her time, distance, or height. That place might not be Oregon for everybody, but there's a place nonetheless. Start early on by talking to your high school coach about whether he or she believes you have what it takes to compete at the next level. The only kids I would flatly discourage are the ones who can't really dedicate themselves to a high school program, since the time commitment at the next level is even greater. I also steer kids who aren't very serious about their commitment to the sport- kids who might party their way off of the team , etc.- from wasting their future coaches and teammates' time. With that being said, it's all about finding the right fit. A GREAT track team might have 3 or 4 Division I athletes on it, so others will have to find a fit in a DII or DIII program, and not all of those will fit either. Around here, Williams or Middlebury would go toe-to-toe with most DI schools nationwide, and they aren't exactly easy to get in to. I try to tell kids that, unless they can not picture themselves doing anything but running for the next four years, they should apply to the perfect school for them, and then decide how running would fit. However, after all that is said, even many DI schools take walk-ons, and will give a chance to a borderline athlete willing to work his or her way on to the team. Heck, some even give walk-ons a chance to earn a scholarship later on. Ultimately, your division is sort of irrelevant in many ways, since you will be competing against all sorts of teams at invitational meets. Find the right program, the right teammates, and the right coach, and you can tell your grandkids you won the Millrose Games... they won't know any better.
4) BE IN CHARGE- Your coach and your parents should have as much of an influence on the recruiting process as you would like them to have, but ultimately your new coach wants to see that YOU, the athlete, are the one that wants to be there. If your mom or dad, or even your coach, is the only one they ever really hear from, they will likely develop the feeling that you aren't all-in, and that you're being persuaded by others. When push comes to shove, if you end up running at dad's alma mater or the place where your high school coach really wanted to start a nice little pipeline, they aren't showing up on September 1st to run that preseason hill workout, YOU are. A coach once told me a story about a recruit of his that he was about to package a huge amount of money for, but he went back to check the email and phone records to find out what he feared the most, the last 10 times he was contacted about this athlete was by the mom. Thinking ahead, he wondered if this would carry over into the next season, and his instinct told him it probably would, but the athlete was so talented he went ahead with the package. Four years and about 400 more parent phone calls later, the nightmare was over. In the end, the lesson was learned- we coach athletes, not parents, and that coach senses a huge red flag when he hears from a parent much more than the athlete.
5) BE HONEST- With everybody involved, be honest, but mostly with yourself. Look, track and cross country have this wonderful tool that if used correctly, always tells it like it is- it's called a watch. Or, in the case of field events, a measuring tape. During your junior year, start looking at meet results from the same time frame as your own, and begin realistically developing a list of potential matches. If you throw 85 feet in the javelin, and a school has six kids who throw 120 feet or better, they might not come banging on your door. Find programs that fit who you are, not who you think you might be if all of the stars align perfectly. And, to go even a step further, look up what this program's athletes were doing when they were your age, or at least before they left high school. We all have goals for our athletes, but you are who you are, not who you hope you might be. Own your PR's, don't hide from them. If you're a 196 foot discus thrower, don't tell a coach you've thrown 200. They got the internet now, Bea. If you ran 5:04 in the mile, don't tell him you're a sub-5:00 kid. You're not, and it's going to appear that you don't believe you will get any better, because you're embracing somebody else's PR. But like I said before, don't stop believing in yourself, Steve Perry, just be realistic about what you can do.
6) BE ENTHUSIASTIC- You might never have even heard of the track team of the Savannah College of Art and Design, but when the coach calls you, you have a poster of the SCAD Bees in your bedroom and its been your lifelong dream to be a Bee yourself. OK, perhaps I'm exaggerating a little bit (I did just tell you to be honest), but why close doors unless you are sure it won't work for you. And, please, if you are REALLY interested in a school, don't be afraid to show it. I will never forget a story of an athlete of mine when I first started coaching who was the top recruit of her #1 choice and was almost ensured of going there, but she was almost enigmatic when speaking to the coach. In fact, when asked if she was interested in any other schools, she mentioned that she was going back and forth between the school and its archrival as her #1 choices. Long story short, she didn't get in, and when I caught up with the coach later, I asked what went wrong, and he said, "to come here, you need to breathe it- we don't take kids who KIND OF want it". Far too many kids today, and I understand I sound older than 34 when I write this, have too much cool, too much "swag", to understand what that means. I want come to this school as much as I want to breathe air. Ed Gerety, a motivational speaker for youths, cites studies that kids who have a poster of a college in their rooms growing up are 20 times more likely to go to that college than those who do not. Chances are, if it's not cool to want something tHat badly, it's worth it. Don't "big league" your potential college coaches, take the time to let them know how honored you would be to run for them. That will go farther than you could possibly know.
7) BE YOUR BIGGEST ADVOCATE- Times don't lie, and neither do first impressions, typically. Coaches know who you are and what you've done on the track, so there's really no need to throw your resume around to them. When being interviewed, or even simply when speaking to a coach on the phone, they want tot know why you will make a great addition to their program. One thing that too many athletes struggle with is being confident without coming off as cocky. The fact is, most coaches, high school and college alike, can read the difference more easily than you think. Say things, if they are true, like, "I think I can come here and be a positive contributor to the team because of my work ethic and my willingness to push my teammates". You've just told me something about yourself that makes me excited about you, but doesn't make me think that you're full of yourself. This is an art, and way too few athletes have mastered it.
8) BE COACHABLE- Bad-mouthing your high school coach might make logical sense ("I'm pretty good, but I have had crappy coaching for years, so when I get to you, the sky's the limit"), but chances are, it's as much, if not more, of a reflection on your ability to be coached. Not all high school coaches are very good, it is true, but most coaches can harken back to a time when they weren't all that good themselves, and will be at least a little bit sympathetic. In fact, cross country and track coaching is a sort of secret society, a fraternity of sorts, albeit a bi-gendered one. We have all, every one of us, dealt with a kid who is simply either too stubborn or too full of himself to be open to new coaching techniques and ideas. By trying to undermine your old coach to your new coach, he or she will simply see him or herself as the next coach you'll probably find some reason to bad-mouth. As I said, not every kid has the best high school coaching experience, and that's more than OK. It's best to either leave that coach out of the discussion altogether, or find a way, if asked, to be nice about it. "Coach K is a really nice guy, and I think he's done a lot to help me get to this point" is a simple, direct way to avoid roasting your high school coach unnecessarily. Chances are, your recruiter will figure it out and some things are best left unsaid.
9) BE A TEAMMATE- We high school coaches tend to bad-mouth the college game at times because it's perceived to be too individual-based for us, we of the dual meet-a-week, rah-rah mentality. The truth is, even if the conference meet is the only scored meet of the season, most college programs do believe in a team-first mentality in many, many ways. Especially in cross country, but also in track, coaches need to see that you can interact with the team in a positive way, and that you won't be a problem for THEM to deal with if you join the program the following year. The recruit visit is a huge chance to show this. Be aware of your surroundings during this visit, especially if its over night. While this is a great way to see if you can get along with your potential new team for a weekend, be yourself. If you get into a social situation you're not totally comfortable with, don't act out. Overindulgence, if you catch my drift, is highly discouraged, since you could easily get yourself into an embarrassing situation that WILL, by the way, get back to the coach. Often times, college athletes are told to let the recruit dictate where the weekend will go. If you are B-lining it for the nearest party, you've just told a group of kids who might be your future teammates that this is what you value about the experience. Understand what that says about you, and if you're comfortable sending that message, then so be it.
10) BE A MODEL CITIZEN- Keep your grades up, do your community service, be respectful, invest your time for all four years of high school, be a good person from your core out, and good things will happen to you. College coaches are no different than employers, they want to know that the people they are choosing to work with will be worth the investment of their own. This is going to be the person you spend the most time with than any other for four years, so rather than trying to blindly impress him or her, decide if you are the right kind of person that fits right in to his or her program. Running in college is a huge commitment, and it will dramatically change the course of your next four years, but the positives will greatly outweigh the negatives. If you see it as a burden, no matter how good you are, don't do it. Many years ago I had an athlete recruited by Ivy League schools who decided, upon acceptance to one, not to run. I was so embarrassed that I called the coach to apologize and beg his forgiveness, so he didn't hold it against me in case I had future recruits to his school. He was very reassuring, and told me, "Coach, this could end up being the best case scenario". I said, "how's that", and I'll never forget his answer. He said, "I could have wasted four years and found out she never wanted to do it in the first place, I'd much rather find that out now!" Wise words indeed.
So, heed my advice, or ignore it, it doesn't matter to me. But trust me when I say this, more than a few coaches will be annoyed that I let you behind the curtain, and enough of you read this, they will be inundated by recruits who do everything exactly the way I told you to, and it will be simply impossible for them to decide which recruits are for real. Or, and this is a much more likely scenario, all of six kids will actually read this, and it will have a very minimal impact on anything. Either way, I feel I've done my civic duty for the week.