10 Helpful Articles When Writing Emails To College Coaches
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Transcript of 10 Helpful Articles When Writing Emails To College Coaches
10 Helpful Articles When Writing Emails To College Coaches
Goal: College Athlete
www.goalcollegeathlete.com
Why Email is Crucial To Be Recruited
One of the biggest things I want you to take away from this guide is how
important your email strategy is in your recruiting process. It is HUGE. Why?
Because it is the only way coaches in the majority of all college sports and
divisions can communicate with you before your senior year of high school. For
most sports, coaches can’t call you over the phone until your senior year but they
can start communicating with you via email (and Facebook, social networks, etc.)
starting the first day of classes of your junior year.
The more effective you are at communicating via email the better chance you
have of getting on a coach’s recruiting list and the better chance you have of
getting an offer. This is a great opportunity because I believe the majority of
emails coach’s get from athletes are “All about Me” emails that are irrelevant and
get deleted quickly. This is your chance to create quality emails that are relevant,
attention grabbing and ones that will trigger a response and get you engaged
with more schools and programs.
You can utilize email in so many ways to schedule a next step or gain exposure
with coaches:
• To schedule calls with coaches (they can ask you to call them)
• Schedule unofficial visits
• Let coaches know you will be attending their camps or others in the area
• Let coaches know what showcases/tournaments your will be participating in
• Send them a link to your online profile/videos
• Make them aware of your grades/test scores
The key to get these next steps is creating relevant, attention grabbing emails.
Utilizing the research you have done to hit a cord with coaches in a more
personal way.
In the next section, I will walk through examples of relevant, attention grabbing
emails that will give you a better chance of getting a coach to respond. Use these
emails as a guide in helping you “think outside the box” when you start to
compose your emails and remember: It’s about THEM not YOU.
The Best Time To Send Email To College Coaches
You are putting all of this effort into creating relevant, attentiongrabbing emails
to send to coaches. You should also be strategic in when you send these emails.
This is important. Think about it. I have asked coaches when they most frequently
get emails from athletes trying to be recruited. Overall, they say mostly nights
and weekends are when they receive most of their emails from potential recruits.
Don’t be like most of these athletes trying to get attention: They are emailing the
coach when they (the athlete) are free, i.e. when it is best for them, not the coach.
I go back to it’s about THEM, not about YOU. Think about the Coach’s schedule.
During the week, most coaches practice (or have a game or event) in the
afternoon. In the evening, they do look at email but they also spend a lot of time
speaking with potential recruits, parents and high school coaches among other
things. On the weekends is when most sports have games/events and this is
usually an all day affair for a coach and team (especially if they are the away team
and are travelling). Also, coaches have lives outside of their sport. They are
human beings just like the rest of us and spend time with their families, friends,
husbands, wives, girlfriends and boyfriends, usually on the weekends. After
taking this into consideration, the majority of coaches (not all) are sitting at their
desk between 9:30am and lunchtime going through their emails, recruiting,
putting practice plans together, watching video, etc. This is probably the best
time to send your email. Why?:
• They are most likely sitting at their desk in front of their laptop/computer
• They are not “on the go” so they are settled and have a bit more time
• The majority of other potential recruits/young athletes are not sending their
emails at this time
You might be saying “I am at school, I don’t have the time to send emails on
weekday mornings”? There is a couple of ways around this. After you draft your
emails, you can have them scheduled to be sent out at a time that you choose,
preferably for coaches between 9:30am10:30am. There are services like
Boomerang for Gmail, which is a plugin/extension you can download for free to
make this very simple. Second, if you have a study hall or gym class in the
morning maybe you could explain to your teacher what you are trying to
accomplish and that you would like to spend the class time sending out emails to
universities you would possibly like to attend. This is a reasonable request, I
would think most teachers would understand. I would have the emails drafted
completely so you are just sending emails and not editing and writing during this
limited time.
Do you know which college coaches you should be emailing? GCA has partnered with Playced. Playced has a “Matching Engine.” The “Matching Engine” is a technology that provides a targeted list of colleges & teams based on theathletic and academic information you provide. This can save you a lot of time and confusion. Learn more about our partnership and discount here: Playced / GCA Partnership – 10% Discount
I have another piece of advice when it comes to sending emails to coaches. Make
sure to check their game/event schedules (you can find them on the school’s
athletic website). I would recommend not sending a coach an email on a game
day. Coaches are preoccupied focusing on the game that day and getting their
team as prepared as possible. Also, they might be playing an away game and
have a road trip giving them even less time. Overall, most coaches are not
focused on recruiting the day of a game/event, they are focused on their current
team and I don’t suggest emailing or calling them on these days. You should also
be checking when their season is over. For the most part, the few weeks after the
season the coaches are probably going to try to take their mind off of the sport
and if they do any recruiting, it will probably be with recruits they have already
been in contact with and have prescheduled calls and meetings. This is my
opinion and will be different from coach to coach, I just want you to spend your
time and energy at the right time to give you the best possible chance of a
response.
Want A College College Coach To Respond To Your
Emails? Make Them Personal
College Coaches get hundreds of emails a day from high school athletes and
recruiting services. The majority of them never get opened or responded to.
Why? Because they know its going to be some standard, generic email giving
stats and information on a selfproclaimed “great recruit”. They have received
countless emails like these, most of which will not help them.
How do you write emails that coaches will respond to? MAKE IT PERSONAL for
the coach. Find out things like:
What kind of characteristics the coach looks for in a player? (What do they
want?)
How their season is going (i.e. Did they win a big game? Is there one coming
up?)
How many players are they graduating the spring before your freshman year
(can you fill the void)?
Do you know a player on the team or someone who know the coaches that you
can refer to?
If you can find some personal information that the coach and his staff care about
and use that in the subject and the body of an email you will be much more likely
(not guaranteed, but much more likely) to get a response.
Check out the links below for examples of how to write more personalized emails
to college coaches:
Reference a Quote from a Coach
The Team Just Won a Game/Event
Referencing the Program’s Losses to Graduation and how you can Fill the Void
Don’t Give Up After Just One Email
If you emailed or called a college coach once and didn’t hear back them PLEASE
don’t let that be the last time you attempt to contact them! Also, don’t fill your
head with reasons why YOU THINK they didn’t get back to you. You don’t know
the EXACT reason why they didn’t get back to you. Most likely it was because
they were busy doing any number of things: running practices, watching film,
administrative work, travelling to an away game, etc. Like most people who are
busy, coaches don’t respond to every email or call that comes to them. If you
sent a relevant, attention grabbing email or voicemail chances are the coaches
have seen or listened to it. If you follow up with them again it will not only make
them recall the original message but will show them you are genuinely interested
in their program, making them more apt to get in touch with you. Being proactive
is a good thing and it is something that coaches want to see from a potential
recruit.
Don’t let your mind play tricks on you, create a target list of schools and put
together a proactive strategy to contact these coaches via email and phone
multiple times. Stick to this strategy no matter what. A lot of coaches may not get
back to you, other may say they are not interested but if you understand that it is
a NUMBERS GAMES (contact many coaches, multiple times), make it business,
not personal, you will get more coaches to respond to you. In your recruiting
process focus on doing MORE ProActive activity (on what you can control) and
LESS negative worrying (on what you can’t control).
Related articles to help you in the recruiting process:
The Strategy and Process Needed to Be Recruited
Creating an Organizing Your Target List of Schools
Why You Must ProActively Follow up with Coaches
How To Create an Email Signature in GMail
In the ProActive Recruiting I discuss why you should set up a dedicated email
address for your recruiting efforts, why you should add an email signature to
your emails and what is should look like. Today, I want to walk you through how
you can create an email signature in GMAIL since it is a very popular email
service.
Step 1: Login to GMAIL and go to your Inbox
Step 2: Within your Inbox go to the Top Right Corner and Click on the Circular
shape with ridges and a dropdown menu will appear. In the dropdown menu
click on “Settings”:
Step 4: First, make sure you select the circle below “No Signature” so your
signature will appear in your emails. Next, start creating your signature by adding
things like your name, high school, year, position, GPA and standardized test
scores (see example below in Step 5). Also, if you look in the menu, just above
the text box you are typing in, you will see a link symbol. If you have a highlight
video on YouTube or an Online Athletic Profile you can use the link button in the
menu to create a hyperlink so a Coach is one click away from learning more
about you as an athlete, student and person. Just click the link button and paste
the URL to the video or profile you want to link to.
When you are done just click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page and you
will be directed back to your Inbox.
Step 5: Now, in your Inbox, click on “Compose” to write a new email and you will
see your email signature readytogo at the bottom:
That’s it, pretty easy. Now you have a professional looking email signature within
your emails while also providing college coaches an easy way to contact you or
find out more about you. Remember, you can always take things out of the
signature while composing the email or go back into “Settings” and turn off email
signature.
Hope this helps and best of luck!
Related articles to help in your recruiting process:
Why Email is Crucial to be Recruited
The Best Times to Send Email to College Coaches
Examples of Relevant Emails to College Coaches
How To Follow Up With College Coaches After
Attending a Prospect Camp
If you have attended a showcase or prospect camp hosted by a specific
university and program that you may want to play for in college make sure to
follow up with the coaching staff after the conclusion of the camp. Why? Well,
you have met the coaches personally and they have probably scouted your ability
during the camp. Now is your chance to build upon that initial relationship and
show your respect and appreciation for their program. It can put you in a more
positive light when it comes to your character and how you are as a person –
something highly valued by college coaches.
After the camp, you can send a concise email to all the coaches and staff you
met. It could include things like:
● Thanking them for their time and invitation to participate in the camp
● The experience and what you got out of it (facilities, information, the
competition from the other prospects)
● What you liked about the program’s vision and where they want to be
(shows you were listening at the camp)
● What you are going to do over the next 12 months to improve
physically, mentally and educationally (your plan to get better)
● That you would love to be a part of their program and ask for advice on
what you can do to get there
If talentwise you are neck and neck with other recruits sometimes it is doing little
things like this that give you the edge and the eventual offer.
Related articles to help you in your recruiting process:
Examples of Relevant Emails to Send to College Coaches
Why You Must ProActively Follow Up with Coaches
Be Respectful to College Coaches and Staff Members
2 Things To Conside Before Sending Automated Email
to College Coaches
By Steve O’Brien – Goal: College Athlete
Are you using a recruiting service that sends automated emails to college
coaches on your behalf? Is this service your only method in trying to contact
college coaches? While there can be benefits to this strategy, I wanted to make
you aware of a couple of issues that can arise from sending automated emails to
college coaches:
1. Automated Emails Are NOT Nearly Personal Enough For College Coaches
With all the recruiting services and other companies trying to sell to coaches, automated
emails are like “white noise” to most college coaches and most of these emails either get
ignored or deleted. Very few get opened and even less get responded to. Even if you are a
great athlete who would be a great fit for a program, the probability of your automated emails
even getting looked at is probably low because it looks just like the hundreds of other
automated emails college coaches receive.
The college coaches I have spoken with tell me they want to here directly from
the athlete on why they want to be a part of their program. The best way to do this
is to research the coach, program and school and send themrelevant, attention
grabbing emails.
2. College Coaches Don’t Like Click Tracking Emails
Click tracking emails are emails that have embedded links within the email that if
the coach clicks on one of them, that click gets reported back to the recruiting
service or athlete signaling that the coach has looked at the email and took action
(i.e. clicked on something) to find out more. This knowledge can be very valuable
to the athlete if used in the appropriate way. For example, if you noticed a coach
clicked on an email to view your athletic profile, you could follow up with a
personal email or phone call which could result in a meeting with the coach. The
problem is, in most cases, the click tracking is used to trigger more automated
(not personal) messaging. For example, a coach might click on an email to view a
potential recruits profile. Then, a couple days later they get another automated
email saying “I see you looked at my profile…….would you like to connect.” This
is very impersonal and in some cases disrespectful to coaches. Due to examples
like this, coaches are starting to realize that if they click on these automated
emails (or on links inside an athletic profile) they might be tracked and inundated
with more automated emails. This is not a good thing for you, the athlete, if this is
the only way you are trying to connect with coaches.
Automated emails can be beneficial if used appropriately. If you are using a
service that sends automated emails on your behalf to coaches, my advice would
be to know exactly what is being sent to coaches and to understand how the
entire process works. You want to know the answers to questions like:
● How many emails are being sent on my behalf?
● What coaches are getting my emails?
● Do I have access to see what actions (clicks) have been taken on these
emails? (i.e. do I get reporting on this)
● Do I have the authority to stop the automated emails and follow up
personally with a particular coach based on the reporting?
In the end this is your process, not the recruiting services. To actually be
recruited, you must take control at some point and start to build a personal
relationship with coaches, something no amount of automation can accomplish.
Related articles to help you in your recruiting process:
Examples of Relevant Emails to Send to College Coaches
Why You Must ProActively Follow Up with Coaches
Be Respectful to College Coaches and Staff Members
How To Find a College Coaches Email Address
Do you want to send an email to a college coach letting them know you are
interested in being a part of their program? First thing you have to do is find their
email address.
This is pretty straightforward actually because most college coach’s emails are
publicly accessible on their universities athletic website. Most athletic websites
have a staff directory page where they list all coaches, for all sports along with
their contact information: phone number and email address.
I think the easiest way to find the staff directory for a particular university is to do
a Google search. For example, if I want to find the emails for the coaching staff of
Lake Erie College Men’s Basketball I would go to Google and type in the search
box:
Lake Erie College + Athletic Staff Directory + Men’s Basketball
My search results look like this:
As you can see the Lake Erie College Staff Directory is the first link. I would click
on that link which would bring me to the staff directory and then I scroll down to
Men’s Basketball:
As you can see the coaches are listed with their phone number and email
addresses. You can do this type of search for almost any sport and school. You
should be able to find the staff directory and coach’s information and emails very
quickly.
As you find coaches emails I recommend copy and pasting the information and
keeping it organized in a spreadsheet or file. I wrote a blog post you can check
out on how to use Google Drive to keep your coaches contact information
organized.
Also, when you are emailing college coaches make sure to send them a relevant
and personalized email and never spam them with a generic message. Here is a
post on why and how you can draft emails that are more personal and why these
types of emails are more likely to get a response from coaches.
For a stepbystep plan to help you get college coaches attention and on their
recruiting lists please check out“The StudentAthlete Guide to Be Recruited” on
this website.
How To Use Twitter to Write College Coaches Better
Emails
If you have read the StudentAthlete Guide To Be Recruited or some of my other
blog posts on recruiting and how to get a college coach’s attention you may have
noticed that I put a lot of emphasis on sending messages that are personal and
relevant to the coach (instead of sending some generic/spammy type message). I
feel if you send a more personal message it will not only resonate with the coach
but also it shows the coach that you have been doing the research and are
genuinely interested in their program. I believe coaches appreciate and will
respond to these messages at a higher percentage than generic ones.
Now a tough question is where do I find this information about these coaches to
send a more personal message? I provide some information within the
StudentAthlete Guide To Be Recruited here but I have recently come to realize
that Twitter can also be a great place to find out more about coaches and what
they are thinking. Many college coaches now have Twitter accounts and are
Tweeting on a regular basis. If you start to read some you can get a good
understanding of their mentality and what they like when it comes to their sport
by what they are Tweeting or reTweeting.
For example, if you were researching Creighton’s Men’s Basketball Coach, Greg
McDermott, and went to his Twitter account you would find a couple of
Tweets/reTweets like the ones below that can give you a better understanding of
what is important to him (he ReTweeted the 2nd one):
Here is another Tweet from Eric Pogue, Head Coach of Oakland University Men’s
Soccer:
Now when you write an email to these coaches you can be more personal and
relevant. For example, if you were emailing Coach Pogue you could start the
email with something like this:
Hi Coach Pogue,
My name is Steve O’Brien and I’ll be a junior this fall at Boston High School in Boston, MA. I have dedicated my life to soccer, have a tremendous work ethic, am extremely coachable and want to get better everyday. I know these qualities are important to you and are reasons why I want to be a part of your program.
I am attending the Fall Showcase in New York and was hoping you or your staff would have time to meet with me………
I believe writing emails like this consistently will give you a better response rate
and engaged with more coaches and programs.
Coaches also post Tweets to their videos, interviews and information about their
program, athletic department and University so if you have a coach on your list to
contact make sure to take a few minutes to see if they have a Twitter account and
see what they are posting……..it can only help.
Best of Luck!
Steve
Related Links:
● The Best Time to Send Email to College Coaches
● Don’t Give Up After One Email
● Want a Coach to Respond to your Email? Make it Personal
Your Not Emailing Multiple Coaches With The Same
Email Are You?
I have been reading articles and watching videos where College Coaches discuss
what high school athletes can do better in the recruiting process. On more than
one occasion I noticed college coaches getting irritated when receiving an email
from prospective studentathletes with multiple college coaches email addresses,
from different schools, also on the email. Please tell me you are not doing this? If
you are doing this: PLEASE STOP!
You are putting together a generic email, finding a bunch of coaches email
addresses, sending it out and hoping to get coaches to respond. You are thinking
this strategy will save time by hitting a lot of coaches with the same message.
What you are not seeing is that this strategy is alienating a lot of coaches and
hurting your credibility.
College Coaches are the experts when it comes to recruiting emails, not the
prospective athlete. Some college coaches get hundreds, if not thousands, of
emails on a monthly basis from high school athletes. They can see right away if
the recruit put a lot of time into drafting an email or if they put together a generic
one to send to multiple coaches. College Coaches become irritated with mass
emails like this because they are not personal at all. They become even more
irritated when they see many other coaches receiving the exact same email. It’s
disrespectful to the college coach because you are not showing them that you
care about THEIR school and THEIR program. They feel that you are throwing
spaghetti on a wall and hoping something sticks. In my opinion it’s just a bad
strategy that will hurt you a lot more than it will help you.
College Coaches want to see emails discussing THEIR program, THEIR school
and why YOU want to be a part of it. They want it to be more personal and
relevant. Do your research:
● Learn more about the Coaches and their backgrounds ( i.e. check out
their bios on the team’s website, articles, YouTube videos)
● Learn more about their style of play
● Check out how the team is doing this season
● See how many athletes they will graduate prior to you being a freshman
● Check out the Majors offered at the school to see what interests you
You can then reference this research to write more personal and relevant emails
to college coaches. Many high school athletes are not putting in the time to write
personalized emails like this so your emails have a better chance of standing out
and having a coach respond to you. It’s not easy, it will take some time but you
get out what you put in. If your goal is to be a college athlete then it is worth the
time.
Find examples of how to write more personalized and relevant emails to college
coaches here
Stop sending mass/generic emails. Start doing your research. Be relevant. Be
Personal. Be ProActive. Don’t Quit. Good luck!
Questions? Don’t be afraid to shoot me an email: [email protected]
All the best, Steve & Julia O’Brien
Goal: College Athlete