Don't begin your communication with a coach with a phone call. Unlike a letter, a call leaves no physical record. Remember, self-recruiting is about doing the coach's work for him. Start him off with a written outline of who you are.

Don't make him write out the transcript of a phone conversation -- he probably won't anyway. In fact, he's likely to ask you to send him a cover letter and resume. Learn more about contacting college coaches.

The issue of college divisions is a source of great confusion. People often talk about Division I in adoring terms. There is much well-deserved prestige associated with playing for a top-tier Division I school. Yet there are actually a number of DII and DIII teams out there that can compete with some DI teams. Learn more about NCAA Division II recruiting and NCAA Division III Recruiting.

Just because a school is DI doesn't mean that its soccer team is top caliber. It's great if your college search leads you to Division I schools. But it's no less of a success if you determine that the overall environment in DII, DIII, or the NAIA is better for you. Recruiting is about finding the right place for you, which may not necessarily be the most well known college. Learn about NAIA scholarships.

In the last issue of Make the Team we made the audacious claim that "recruiting should be fun." Let's dig a little deeper there. When you take control of the college sports recruitment process, it's kind of like learning to drive a car. At first, it's a little bit overwhelming. There are signals to heed, other drivers to avoid, and the radio playing that song that you just have to sing along with at the top of your lungs.

But once you learn how the dynamics of the road work, it's very powerful because you can control the destination and the route. In other words, you can determine where you end up playing and what your experience is like getting there. And to be quite frank, your recruiting experience, when you understand what you need to do, can be incredibly empowering.

So what does it take to learn how to take control of the recruiting process? It takes two things: determination and organization. By determination, we mean that you need to be steely-eyed and say to yourself, "I'm going take control of this thing." Organization means that you have to be willing to put a few minutes every few weeks into getting the job done. The good news is that it really doesn't take that much time or effort.

Some people choose to use CaptainU or other college recruiting services to learn about NCAA recruiting guidelines. Others just decide that they'll feel it out on their own. Either way, you have to be determined and organized to learn. It's the same as when you learned to drive. You knew that you wanted to do it, so you did it. There's your determination. You also needed to go to driver's ed and put in a little time at the wheel, which required some organization.

Let's be honest, you have to be a glutton for punishment to enjoy driver's ed. But everyone loves the control and freedom that you get once it's done. The same is true with recruiting. It takes a little bit of determination and organization at first. But once you understand the process, you have the power to control your college sports destination.

Throughout the process, file all hard-copy correspondence and literature in a crate or set of file folders. Also, take notes in your recruiting log on your CaptainU Colleges page. This is where college recruiting services can be particularly helpful.

Self-recruiting is a lot like applying for a job in that when you communicate with a coach, you should be knowledgeable about his team. By being organized, you will be able to discuss a team's schedule, roster, game results, and so forth. You'll also equip yourself with the tools you need to talk with the coach about the upcoming game. You'll be able to ask about the recent nail-biter. And you'll be able to discuss college athlete recruiting matters, like which roster positions will open up for your freshman season.

The coach will more than likely be impressed with your knowledge. It will demonstrate your genuine interest in his team.

The goal of the college recruiting process is to be guaranteed a spot on the roster at a college that is right for you as a student and as an athlete. Long before you arrive on campus, you should be certain that you love the college and that a place on the team has been set aside for you.

People are often surprised by this answer. Conventional wisdom says that recruiting is all about getting a scholarship at a Division I school. Yet the reality is that each year there are many DI scholarship athletes who are very unhappy. Some don't get the playing time they expected. Others find that the college is a bad academic or social match.

The point is, doing a good job with recruiting isn't just about scholarships and Division I. Rather, success in the recruiting process is about getting on the roster at a college that is a great match for you academically, socially, and athletically.

One way to learn if a school is right for you is by visiting the campus. Don't hesitate to embark on NCAA unofficial visits, or perhaps, NCAA official visits.

The problem is, college is really expensive these days and Division I is very appealing. Unfortunately, the allure of these two things often forces people to make bad decisions. Of course, there's nothing wrong with getting a scholarship to a Division I school -- but only if that college is the right match for you.

There are two really important factors working in your favor. (1) There are a lot of colleges out there, which means that you can find a handful that are the right fit; and (2) There are a lot of other ways (and often better ways) to pay for college like countless non-athletic scholarships, financial aid, and loans. It's been said that the average DIII athlete gets more money for college that the average DI athlete.

As you market yourself to college coaches, remember the goal and don't be distracted by scholarships, idle talk of Divisions or colleges with famous sports teams, or where your friends are going. It's all about finding the situation that's right for you. And that means being offered a spot on the team at a college where you are going to thrive as a student, socially, and as an athlete.

3 tips on what to do during the summer before you go to college:

• Update the coach regularly throughout the summer before your freshman year


• Get fit!


• Maximize your chance to walk on if the coach has not already offered you a spot on the roster

In determining the right type of school, you have to take academics into account first and foremost. Do not compromise on your academic experience just to play sports in college. Recognize that it's not all about sports scholarships.

The odds of playing professional sports after college are slim. It's far more likely that after college you'll have to take your smarts out into the world and get a job.

That said, you might be someone who values sports so much that you are only willing to go to a school where you'll be able to play. It may mean compromising your Ivy League academic qualifications to play soccer at the University of Jupiter's Twelfth Moon.

The good news is that colleges are so numerous and diverse that if you look hard enough you can find the right mix of athletics and academics. For example, if you're qualified for schools within a certain academic tier, but aren't the greatest athlete, you might have to consider the weaker teams within that tier.

If this is the case, you should research conferences comprised of schools with strong academics but less-strong athletics.

It takes guts to email a college coach.

The mother of one of our customers shared a powerful story with me this week. Her daughter just signed with a Division I team. But things didn't always look like they'd turn out this well. At first, her daughter was very tentative about emailing college coaches. The question "Why would they want to hear from me?" kept coming up on the ride home from practice.

She got over the initial hurdle and started contacting college coaches, but she didn't hear back from anyone immediately. She dusted herself off and sent another round of emails. Ever so slowly, the responses started to trickle in. And then the trickle became a flood. In some cases, she was receiving contact from coaches who hadn't responded at first. Her confidence surged with each response and she was emboldened to send more.

This is a great story. It shows that writing the first email is tough, and that there are setbacks along throughout the recruiting process. And it demonstrates the importance of taking the risk to contact college coaches and being persistent even when they don't respond.

One thing that struck me so much about this particular story is the point about confidence. Let's face it, cold-emailing a college coach and saying that you want to play for him/her can be a bit humbling. If you don't hear back, it can hurt. It's easy to see how some players get deterred from contacting college coaches very quickly.

But here's the upside: persistence pays off in a big way. When coaches don't write you back, it's okay. The first time you hear back from a coach, it's thrilling. You feel a surge of confidence that says, "Yes, I can do this." Ride that wave and send five more emails. The more you write, the more responses you'll get. And the more responses you get, the closer you'll be to a great college career.

Let's face it: sending emails to college coaches can be intimidating. But emailing a college coach is important, for a variety of reasons. Not only does it put you on the coach's radar, it also shows the coach that you possess valuable qualities: persistence, assertiveness, boldness, etc. Every college coach hopes to find players who match this description.

You know the flashing red light from Men in Black? The one that makes you forget everything you've just seen? FLASH! Everything you have heard about college recruiting has been wiped clean!

Now that that's out of the way, let's start with a clean slate and focus on one earth-shaking reality: COLLEGE RECRUITING CAN BE FUN!

Forget all the gloom and doom you've heard about NCAA rules and the complexities of the recruiting process. Those are minor details that can be dealt with along the way. The most important fact about college sports recruitment is this: you want to make a college team, and college coaches want you on their teams.

That simple fact is incredibly powerful. It means that college coaches are looking for you and that you're looking for them. When you find the right match, and college coaches start to shower you with attention, it's thrilling. And this experience isn't just limited to the top 2% of high school athletes. Any reasonably accomplished athlete can have this be their recruiting experience. It takes a little work up front to find the right college teams and to start communicating with college coaches. But once you set the ball in motion, college coaches will help you roll it forward.

Athletes who use CaptainU's Online Guidance have found that before long, you reach an inflection point, where the college coaches you have found and communicated with, start coming to you. It's an awesome feeling. The best thing is, they're coaches at colleges that are right for you, not random schools that have nothing to offer you other than a sports team.

You've spent your whole life developing your athletic ability, and now you deserve some recognition for that. If you communicate with coaches in the right way, you can get the recognition you deserve which is incredibly rewarding, empowering, and fun. Learn more about NCAA Division I recruiting.

I feel your pain. There's an email from a college coach in your inbox. You open it, excited to see what it contains, and then, BLAM! It's another coach asking you to attend his college recruiting camp.

This can be pretty frustrating. You've put a lot of effort into emailing coaches and all you seem to get are impersonal responses asking you to spend $500 to attend their camp.

So what do you do?

This may not be what you want to hear, but recruiting camps during the summer are an increasingly important part of the recruiting process. They serve a very important purpose in that they give coaches an extended period of time to observe players -- not just how well they play, but also what they're like as people.

College recruiting camps are also great for high school athletes, because they give you an unrivaled opportunity to show for a coach. They also give you, the opportunity to evaluate the coach and see if you like his style.

Sounds great, right? It is until you see the price tag on these things. They often cost $500 for a 4- or 5-day week. And that's before you factor in transportation.

The bottom line is, you should go to college recruiting camps if you can. But you should pick carefully. If you have 10 colleges on your list, you can't go to them all. There are two key questions to consider:

1. Which coaches need to see you play most? These may be the coaches who are at schools far away, who haven't been able to see you play in a tournament. Or, they may be the coaches at the schools at the top of your list.

2. Where can you get the most bang for your buck? Some college recruiting camps may have coaches from multiple schools on your list. If you can get more than one coach you want to play for to see you at a single camp, that makes your camp tuition go much further.

IMPORTANT: Inevitably, there will be some college recruiting camps that you get invited to but can't attend. Don't ignore those requests. Instead, email the coach and tell him you're flattered by his interest and that you'd love to come to camp, but you can't because it's not in your family's budget, you already have plans during that week, etc.

Be clear that you're still very interested in making his team and want to know what you should do despite not being able to make it to camp.

The Pepsi Showdown is a great opportunity to get seen by college coaches and convince them that you deserve a spot on their team. But here's the rub: there are a lot of players who are going to be there. This is how to get recruited at any tournament you play in this spring, you have to stand out.

There are two ways to do this. The first, obviously, is to play well. The second is less obvious, but probably more important: you have to get them to see you play in the first place. You can't just hope that they'll randomly show up on the sidelines of your game. Here are three simple steps you should take to convince coaches to come watch you play at a tournament:

1. Find out which college coaches will be present. Email them and ask if they'll be there. Ask your coaches if they know which college coaches will be in attendance. Look at various websites for lists.


2. Make sure you have an up-to-date profile that college coaches can easily access. Include photos, grades, test scores, and your soccer history. Make sure that your information makes it into the event's player profile book.


3. Email the coaches with dates, times, and locations of your games. Tell them that you would really like it if they can see you play and name specific reasons why you think that school is such a good fit.

This should take you no more than an hour. It's amazing how a small, but concerted effort on the right recruiting activities can make a major difference.

You know you need to do it. But still, you sit there at your computer watching the cursor blink. Does the coach want to hear from me? Am I imposing on his time? What should I say? Will he respond? What happens if I don't get a response?

Here's what you have to know: college coaches love getting emails from recruits.

Getting emails from players makes college coaches' jobs easier. It also tells a coach a lot about the player. It means that the player is willing to take a risk.

College coaches realize that you have to "put yourself out there" to contact them. Let's face it, coaches can be intimidating, it's hard to know what to say, and it takes some guts to ask them to recruit you. The cool thing is, that's exactly what coaches are looking for: go-getters. Coaches want players who get out on the field and do what it takes to get a result.

How you recruit is therefore a great example of how you'll perform in college. Athletes who do what it takes to get a result in recruiting are often the athletes who will succeed on a college team. So learn more about contacting college coaches.

Be conscientious about when you call coaches. Don't call on Friday at 5:00 PM or two hours before the team has a game. Mornings are often the best time to call coaches, because they're not in a rush to get to practice.

Since you're probably in school at this time, you need to develop a calling strategy. Find some time in between classes or during a free period to call coaches. If you need permission, get your college counselors to talk to your teachers. Learn more about contacting college coaches.

Regular communication with college coaches will strengthen your cause and help you develop your relationships with coaches.

Through letters, phone calls, and e-mails, you can demonstrate to a coach that you are committed to becoming a member of his volleyball, soccer, or basketball team.

This will give the coach a reason to seek you out specifically at a camp, tournament, or regular season game. Regular communication will put you in a position where college coaches are eager to evaluate your ability.

Learn more about contacting college coaches.

5 tips for communicating with college coaches:

• Write a cover letter and resume introducing yourself to college coaches


• Follow up on your cover letter and resume; don't be deterred if you don't hear back from coaches


• Send a schedule of your games and tournaments to college coaches


• Provide regular updates and progress reports -- maintain monthly contact with each coach
• Make a highlights video

There is much more to know about contacting college coaches.

The best thing to do after a big showcase tournament is to go home and wait for college coaches to contact you. Wrong.

Actually, really wrong. Too many players think that once they've been to a showcase, their work is done. They think that they'll be contacted if coaches saw them play and liked what they saw. This is a recipe for failure.

When it comes to learning how to get recruited for a tournament like the Pepsi Showdown, for example, there are three key components:

1. Telling the coach you're going to be there


2. Playing in the tournament


3. Finding out if the coach saw you play

Not following through with the third step is like buying ice cream, bringing it home, and then letting it melt on the counter. What a waste!

So here's what you should do when you get home from the Pepsi Showdown. Email each of the coaches on your list and ask them if they were able to see you play. Include a quick synopsis of how you played and how your team did in case they didn't see you. It should take no more than an hour. There are three possible outcomes:

1. The coach saw you play and loves you


2. The coach didn't see you play, but appreciates the update


3. The coach saw you play and feels like it's not a great fit

Oh, the last one. It can sting a little bit. But actually, it's a good thing, because it allows you to focus your recruiting on the colleges responded positively.

A lot of college coaches aren't big fans of professionally produced college recruiting videos. They prefer it when athletes show the initiative, creativity, and wherewithal to do these things themselves. Learning how to produce an effective recruiting video can therefore be an important part of learning how to get recruited

Anyhow, the $300 you drop on a production company could just as well be put towards a digital video camera. Kudos if you choose to do your own video. Find a friend to work with. Get your parents to film a game and then sit down with your friend at an iMac and use iMovie to create your video.

Personalize your recruiting video as you see fit. Soundtracks, for example, are a nice personal touch -- just don't play the Rocky theme.

Recruiting is a soul-searching process of sorts: you have to be honest with college coaches, and to an even greater extent, with yourself.

First of all, know that it's important to be honest with college coaches. While you don't have to tell them exactly what you're thinking, it's a good idea to be more or less forthcoming. Coaches can often sense whether or not you're being honest with them. It is their job not only to evaluate your abilities, but also to get an understanding of your character. Coaches don't want dishonest kids on their team, to be frank.

As for yourself, you must be practical when you choose colleges to target. Don't just go for the most glamorous colleges. If you're really stretching —- i.e. you're clearly unqualified for a team -— even if you make the team, you may find yourself on the bench for four dismal years.

As it happens, in learning how to get recruited, you often have to first learn a thing or two about yourself.

Challenge yourself athletically, but be realistic and find a place where you know you'll play. If you're not qualified to play at Indiana, North Carolina, Notre Dame, or UCLA, don't waste your time—or theirs. If, however, you are truly a player of that caliber, by all means go for it.

Take advantage of the resources at your disposal. Speak frankly with your high school and club coaches about what they think is an appropriate college sports environment for you. Talk to other people who are connected to college sports and have seen you play. Guidance counselors can offer insight as can recent graduates from your school who play in college.

There will always be those players who start writing coaches while still in their freshman and sophomore years. If this is your style, go for it.

To learn how to get recruited, though, you have to maintain regular contact with coaches for the duration of your time in high school. If as a sophomore you write a coach and then proceed to fall off the face of the earth until your senior year, you haven't done yourself any good.

If you do start self-recruiting as a sophomore, in addition to maintaining regular contact with your candidate coaches, you should send an updated resume after your junior fall season.

The bottom line for would-be early starters: Begin self-recruiting only when you're prepared to invest yourself consistently. You must correspond with your candidate coaches regularly—not just sporadically, when the spirit moves you.

The University of St. Thomas just registered for CaptainU. For a small college, they've done a great job with their athletics website. One aspect in particular caught my attention on the men's soccer page. They've put together a recruiting checklist to assist recruits with athletic recruitment. This is a great way to draw prospects into secondary pages to really acquaint themselves with the program. Bravo to coaches Macke and Wildman.

Imagine this scenario: you're sitting in a restaurant and the waiter hands you the thickest menu you have ever seen. This thing is fifty pages long. You open it, start flipping through, and realize that it’s in a language you have never seen before. You have no idea what you're looking at. To boot, you're a picky eater. The waiter asks what you want, you point to a random item, and hope.

Amazingly, this pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey method is how a lot of athletes choose a college. They make a decision with little information other than hearsay or some indication that they might be able to play there. Unfortunately, the result is that a lot of people end up transferring. Relying on athletic recruitment isn't enough.

If you want to have a successful college career, you have to work for it – and not just in the sense of practicing a lot. Finding the right college requires research. The good news is that there are a number of excellent resources at your disposal.

Relatives and family friends – It's always good to start with the people you know. Ask them what schools they know that might be a good fit for you. These are often great recommendations because your relatives and family friends know you and the college.

College guidance tools – Websites like Campus Explorer suggest a list of colleges based on the criteria you suggest. Books like those offered by the Princeton Review can be very useful as well. Go to the bookstore, sit in a big cushy chair with a hot chocolate and flip through some guidance books.

College counselors – If your school has a college counselor, schedule an appointment. Otherwise, talk to your teachers. They are often familiar with a lot of colleges. Talk to your club and high school coaches as well.

Don't be overwhelmed! Spend a couple hours over a couple of weeks doing some research and before long you'll have a great list of colleges. You'll notice that the resources above focus not on sports, but on academics and social life. That is by design. Once you have found a group of twenty or so schools that are right for you academically and socially, then it's time to focus on sports.

College team websites – You can learn a lot about teams by checking out their websites. Read about the coach, the most recent results, and check out the schedule to see who they compete against. Have a look at the roster to learn where the athletes on the team are from, and what kinds of teams they were on before they came to college. Use Facebook to send messages to some of the players and ask them about their experience.

Visits – Once you’ve narrowed your list down to 5-10 colleges, visits are essential. Don’t wait around for coaches to offer you official visits. Instead, take the initiative to visit on your own and try to stay overnight with someone on the team. This will show the coach that you’re seriously interested and give you an opportunity to really assess the place. If you love it, great. If you don’t, cross it off your list.

Finding the right school is one of the most challenging aspects of college recruiting. But a little homework goes a long way. First, find a group of colleges that are right for you as a student and socially. There are so many colleges out there that, if you are fairly thorough, your pool will end up including a handful that are right for you as an athlete.

If you can find the college that’s right for you on these three dimensions, you’ll be setting yourself up for a great college experience and a great college career. So as you start sifting through all the colleges out there, heed the following: fit is infinitely more important than prestige. Find the right place, not just the fanciest.

I'm a senior soccer player and I haven't really had any contact with college coaches. I play for a good club team in southern California, but I still haven't gotten much recognition from coaches. What should I do?

First off. Don't fret. There's still time. You just have to buckle down. You didn't mention whether you've started looking at any colleges in general. If you already have a list of colleges that you like, you've actually made more progress in the process of college sports recruitment than you think. The next thing to do is to introduce yourself to the coaches at those colleges.

This weekend you should email them a cover letter and link to your CaptainU profile. Follow up in a week by email to make sure they got your stuff and ask them what tournaments they're going to over Thanksgiving and winter break. There's still plenty of time. You just need to be focused. What exactly does that mean? Spend a couple hours working on it this weekend and then an hour or so every week or two on an ongoing basis. Let us know if you have any more questions!

There are a lot of college recruiting services out there. It seems like everywhere you turn, there's someone saying they can get you onto a college team.

Here are the four questions you should ask of the college recruiting services you are considering. You can find the answers to all these questions on college recruiting services' websites:

1. Is the service's focus on "fit?" Is the college recruiting service interested in finding you any old place to play? Or is focused on helping you make the team a college that is the right fit for you academically, athletically, and socially?

2. Do they claim to do the work for you? To make a college team you have to take an active role in the recruiting process. You can't just hire someone to do it for you. You have to actively market yourself to college coaches.

3. What is their track record? What are their success stories like? Have they gotten positive reviews from credible outlets like newspapers, etc?

4. Do they make good use of technology? More and more college coaches are using the web to recruit. Do the college recruiting services you're considering take advantage of cutting-edge web technology?

Red Flags

As you evaluate different college recruiting services, you should keep an eye out for the following:

- Claims that "we do it for you." Some services justify high prices by saying they do the work for you. Here's the thing: college coaches want to hear from athletes, not recruiting services. The best college recruiting services give you good guidance on what steps you should take yourself.

- The "trusted source" for college coaches. Some services claim to be the "trusted recruiting source for thousands of colleges." Most college coaches don't use recruiting services to find athletes. Instead, coaches focus on athletes who contact the coaches directly, which is why college recruiting services that focus on teaching you how to promote yourself have more success.

Finding colleges, let alone ones where you can play a sport, is a daunting challenge for high school students. The sheer number of colleges is enough to make most 17 year-olds a little jittery. To be successful in recruiting, the athlete has to drive the recruiting process forward. But there are lots of moments in the college recruitment process when a parent's guidance and assistance are invaluable.

As parents, concentrate on what is right for your child. If he's not Harvard material, don't push him in that direction. If she wants to explore a lot of other activities, maybe Division I isn't right after all. Most importantly, don't be overbearing. Instead, think of yourself as teammates trying to win the recruiting game together. The cool thing is that this can be an exciting, collaborative experience.

Here's how parents can have a hugely positive impact on recruiting:

• Help your kid identify 10-ish colleges that seem to have the right combination of sports and academics.


• Sit down together and write a cover letter. Help edit, but don't censor.


• Practice recruiting phone conversations at the kitchen table. Play both roles, so your kid gets to see what it's like to be on the other end of the line.


• Help keep all of the recruiting materials organized and your CaptainU recruiting Logs up to speed.


• Make sure that your kid maintains regular contact with each college coach.


• Address the financial issues — which are a complicated aspect of the college selection process that will stump most kids.


• When your kid reaches an impasse, help him work through it.


• Speak to college coaches only when you absolutely must. Otherwise, let your kid do the talking.

Your most important job is to keep the vibe positive. There are always setbacks in recruiting. How you deal with them will help set the tone for your kid. Emphasize the point that this is an exciting opportunity in which your family can take control of the college recruitment process.

A couple weeks back, we released our big study "What College Coaches Think About Recruiting." One of the most encouraging things we found is that college coaches are very concerned about players finding the right "fit" -- colleges that offer the right balance of athletics and academics.

It's great that coaches want this for athletes, but it's also in the college coach's best interest. In this episode of our radio show, we discuss why, for their own sake, college coaches want you to find the right school -- even if, in the end, it's not theirs.

5 tips for making your recruiting decisions:

• Decide which schools you're going to apply to


• Inform college coaches that you've applied to their schools


• Notify coaches when you've been accepted


• Weigh your options; compare and contrast the qualities of each school.


• Consider the different soccer scholarships you've been offered


• Make a commitment - in some cases a verbal commitment and/or a letter of intent

by Avi - It's a familiar refrain -- something that's said over and over in college coaches' offices: "How did we miss that kid?!" College coaches spend 50% of their time on recruiting and yet many qualified athletes are still being missed.

This is one of seven findings from an exhaustive study of college recruiting that we just finished. We spent months interviewing 40 coaches from colleges that span the academic and athletic spectrum and assembling what, as far as we can tell, is the first in-depth study of the recruiting process.

One of the most remarkable things we heard was coach after coach telling us that they spend as much time recruiting as they do actually coaching their teams. Despite the Herculean effort they put into recruiting, college coaches are frustrated by the number of athletes who are good enough to play in college who are being missed altogether.

Okay, you spent all this time, energy, and money getting to a big showcase tournament. The goal was to get seen by college coaches. Now the tournament is over. Did you accomplish what you set out to do? There were definitely coaches on the sidelines, but were the right ones watching? And if so, what did they think? We tackle the post-tournament blues (and confusion) on this week's episode of Radio CaptainU.

by Avi - It's so easy to go to a tournament thinking, "College coaches are going to be there. They'll see me." Too bad. It just ain't so.

Even at a tournament where college coaches are swarming all over the place, the odds of getting seen by the right coach, at a moment when you do something outstanding are really slim. On this episode of our podcast, we talk about how to beat the odds. Click below to listen:

Applications are flying left and right, the common app is getting more attention than the xbox, and people are wondering how they can get a leg up on the zillion other people who are applying to the same five colleges.

We've heard this question a lot lately: Can college coaches help me get in?

Everyone has heard about the DI basketball players with 1.0 GPAs and 5s on the ACT who have somehow miraculously been accepted at colleges they had no business getting into. While this may sometimes happen in big-time basketball and football, it is far from the way things work for the vast majority of athletes.

The reality is that your grades, test scores, essays, and interviews have to carry you most of the way. But, there is a way that college coaches can help. Coaches typically have close relationships with members of the admissions office. While they typically can't just call an admissions officer and say, "let this person in," they can "support" your application.

When a college coach supports an application it can help get you over the final hurdle. If your grades weren't up to par, there's not much hope. But, if you're on the bubble, a coach supporting your application can provide the extra oomph to get you in.

So, how do you get a coach to support your application? You convince him that you're serious about playing for him and then you ask if there's anything he can do to help push your application through. Of course, you can't ask 25 coaches for this. Instead, you need to hone in on the schools you like most and those that will be the most challenging to get into. Then pick up the phone, convey your enthusiasm for the place, and ask if he's going to support your application.

In having your play evaluated, highlight videos are useful, but their importance is overrated. Whether or not you make a video usually won't make or break your campaign. It's just another tool that you provide a coach to help him make an informed decision.

Many of the videos coaches receive are garbage anyway. Some videos look like they've been filmed during a cataclysmic earthquake. If it's not that, often the quality of the video is so grainy that players are little more than blurs on the screen. Some are sleep inducing. Others are downright painful.

A video of poor quality will not further your cause. Unless you feel like you can produce a video with quality footage, don't waste your time or certainly your money on a production company. If a coach requests a video and you can't provide something decent, let him know.

If he's adamant, send him what you've got, maybe with a little disclaimer. Let him know if you feel that what you're sending is inadequate and doesn't do your play justice. At least he knows what he's getting into.

Once you've gotten through to your college coaches you have to maintain regular contact with them. Until you've joined a team you cannot stop corresponding with the coach.

If you have the right academic and athletic credentials there is nothing more important to recruiting than regular communication. It sends a clear signal that you're serious about this. It also gives a coach the opportunity to really get to know you.

The best ways to develop your relationships with college coaches are phone calls, e-mails, and letters.

The quality of your early contact with a coach sets the standard for your recruiting experience with that college.

To be effective, the tone of your cover letter and follow-up information must demonstrate enthusiasm and determination. Without being in his ear 24/7, show the coach that you are committed to making this happen. If you slack off, it will be perceived as disinterest. So stay with it.

Say you just sent a college coach an email. A day passes, then two days, then a week and you still haven't heard back. What should you do? Here's a suggestion: don't frrrreak out and convince yourself that he's not interested.

Instead, gather your wits and write the coach a brief e-mail explaining who you are and what you sent him most recently.

If you send a second, or third, or even fourth e-mail and you get no response, it's time to give the coach a call. Pick up the phone and dial. Without accusing him of anything, ask why you haven?t gotten any response. The answer may be very helpful.

He may say that he?s been very busy and has had little time to work on recruiting—in which case you've probably done yourself a great service by calling him. You?ve advanced your cause and done his work for him. On the other hand, the coach may say that frankly he really doesn't think that you are right for his team. If this is the case, you have two options:

• It's quite possible that he?s made up his mind. Still, if you are really interested in this school you can be persistent and urge him to see you play before he writes you off. Be careful about expending too much energy on it. This could be a dead end.


• Alternatively, you can let this school fall by the wayside and say to yourself, "Alright, this is probably not going to work out. I'm going to concentrate instead on the five schools whose coaches responded positively to my cover letter and resume."

When you get written up in the local paper, buy a few copies and send them off to your college coaches.

This sort of thing is a bonus for the college coaches to get. Attach a handwritten note and offer a little color commentary.

As much as your college recruiting cover letter is an opportunity to be creative and to express yourself, you should keep it crisp and clean. Don?t be self-indulgent and wander off on fifty different tangents. Say what you want to say in a succinct, articulate fashion.

Avoid these recruiting cover letter pitfalls at all costs:

• Bragging - "I will be the best player on your team. Give me a full scholarship and I?ll score a bazillion goals."


• Putting college coaches to sleep - "I am very interested in being on your team which is a really, really good team at a college which is right for me because I am a pretty good student with a 3.3 GPA." Zzzzzzzzzz. Nap time.


• Begging - "I know you're very, very busy, but if you can find the time, I would love for you to send me some information about your team."


• Asking for too much - "I look forward to being flown out on an official recruiting visit." Or, "Please send one of your scouts to watch my game in Timbuktu."


• Cliches - "I believe in 'no pain, no gain.'" Coaches have heard that line a million times.


• Stating your name - "Dear Coach Firooz, My name is Chadwick Bugg and I am a senior at Tiberius Claudius High School in San Francisco, California." Use your first sentence to state your purpose and attract the coach's attention.


• Too many "I's" - "I am interested in your school. I would like to learn more about your team. I would like to come out and visit." Don?t begin every sentence or paragraph with the word "I."

The best way to initiate contact with a coach is with a personalized cover letter. Include a link to your CaptainU profile.

If you want to get really fancy, you can send your cover letter the old fashioned way: by carrier pigeon. Or, the next best thing, the US Postal Service. Coaches like getting well-formatted, thoughtful letters from recruits -- both via email and in old school letter form.

Either way, you want the coach to receive your letter and create a folder in his filing cabinet with your name on it.

Pick colleges that are within your range as a student and as an athlete. It's all about finding the right fit.

The self-recruiting timeline varies from person to person and depends on a number of factors including:

1. Timeframe - The point in your high school career when you begin self-recruiting. If you?re a sophomore beginning the process, self-recruiting will occur over a longer time frame than that of a senior who's just beginning.


2. Qualifications - The athlete's appearance on paper. If you have national team experience, a coach will probably make a swift effort to see you play.


3. Accessibility - How close you live or play to a given school. The closer you are, the easier it is for a coach to see you play.


4. Marketing How effectively you market yourself will determine your success in the recruiting process.

The winter isn't a great time to play sports outdoors. The winter months, however, are perfect for an indoors project like self-recruiting. You can devote the time you normally spend at practice to getting yourself onto a college team.

During the winter, college coaches spend a lot of time in their offices. For an active breed, this is almost insufferable. Coaches gaze out the window daydreaming, wishing the snow would melt. Give them a call. Brighten up their day.

My teammates have received recruiting solicitations but I have not. If I am not "in the spotlight" does it mean that college coaches have determined that I am not capable of playing college soccer?

No. Don't be deterred by coaches' oversight.

Imagine the vast pool of high school players a college soccer coach has to sift through. If you haven't been identified, don't resign yourself to not playing in college. Instead you must commit yourself to going out and making it happen.

If your teammates are being recruited, it may actually be for schools that aren't right for them academically and/or socially.

Additionally, many coaches send out bulk mailings, which are little more than a shot in the dark. To counter this inefficiency, you must personalize the recruiting process and make it more targeted. You determine which schools are right for you and then you work for the attention of those coaches.

Don't sweat it if you're not yet in the recruiting spotlight. Your clear objective is to gain priority status. Committed self-recruiting will put you into a more prominent position.

For top recruits, self-recruiting is no less important than for athletes in the other categories. Don't squander your status through apathy and inaction. If you are interested in a school that recruits you heavily, work to develop a strong relationship with the coach. Be responsive and enthusiastic. Self-recruiting will secure your standing.

The bottom line is that self-recruiting is applicable for players in each category. Though the details of each player's recruiting experience vary, the theme is universal: whatever your initial status, self-recruiting will propel you onto a college team.

In the end, your play will have to do a lot of the talking.

Self-recruiting will not make you a better player. It will, however, help you become a stronger candidate for the schools and athletic programs that fit your academic and athletic qualifications.

Even as you self-recruit, you should be working to improve yourself as an athlete.

In tandem, self-recruiting and a lot of practice are a potent combination—one that will make you a stronger candidate overall.

College coaches place a premium on the few precious weeks of preseason they have to prepare their teams. Most coaches want to spend these practices working closely with the players that they know will be on the team. Freshman recruits are invited to preseason practices. There are no tryouts for recruits.

Most coaches conduct open tryouts during the first preseason week, in the morning or afternoon when they are not working with their core group of players. Recruits do not participate in tryouts. For walk-ons, however, tryouts represent the proving grounds; tryouts are a make-it-or break-it situation for walk-ons.

What does it mean to walk onto a college sports team?

A walk-on is an athlete who must try out to make a college team. Athletes who haven't been offered a roster spot -- and therefore aren't "recruits" -- typically have to go to open tryouts.

This is a situation that should be avoided at all costs. Walk on tryouts are famously unfair. Players often find themselves having a very limited opportunity to prove their ability. Instead, you want to show up on campus knowing that there's a place for you on the team.

A dynamic, multidimensional marketing pitch will make you a strong candidate. Self-recruiting therefore involves on-field and off-field components:

• On-field self-recruiting refers to real-life appearances in which a coach can evaluate your play.


• Off-field self-recruiting, though perhaps less obvious, is no less critical. It is the all-important exchange of information, the dialogue in which you engage a coach.



Demonstrate to coaches that you are enthusiastic, responsible, and dedicated. On-field and off-field self-recruiting are equally important. They are both critical to self-recruiting success.

To be successful with recruiting, you have to take personal responsibility for the process. Getting recognized by a coach is up to you.

Though the task of self-recruiting ultimately falls to you, the player, college selection can be a lot to chew on. That's where CaptainU comes in.

Do I have to be the best player on my club or high school team to play sports in college?

No. As long as you're a relatively good player, there's probably a college team out there that needs you.

You don't have to be a regional standout, or even an All-State selection for that matter. However, your resume should probably include a few years as a starter for your high school team and a strong club soccer background. College coaches are generally not looking for recreational players.

The reality is that only a tiny fraction of high school athletes are actively recruited by college coaches.

Other athletes have to go out and do the recruiting themselves or else risk not playing in college.

If you are committed to playing soccer, baseball, track and field, volleyball, or whatever in college, you have to make it happen.

Don't just assume that some college coach will see you play and decide that you're his or her next superstar.

3 tips for getting college coaches to see you play:

• Attend college camps during the summer


• Arrange for coaches to see you at tournaments and other showcase events


• Visit colleges and meet with the coaches

4 tips for getting started with recruiting:

• Determine the type of academic, social, and athletic experience that you want to have


• Identify candidate colleges where such an experience exists


• Assess the colleges and sports programs -- if any -- that have contacted you


• Get organized by listing all of your schools of interest on the CaptainU colleges page

The New York Times Q&A blog featured an interesting back and forth with a handful of college admissions officers. Featured on the panel were the following:

• Jeff Brenzel, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., which in 2007 had 5,275 undergraduates and 6,083 graduate and professional students.
• Bruce Poch, Vice President and Dean of Admissions at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., which has an enrollment of 1,520 students.


• Steven Syverson, Vice President for Enrollment and the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., which has 1,429 full-time undergraduates.


• Bruce Walker, Vice Provost and Director of Admissions at the University of Texas at Austin, a public university with 11,000 graduate and 39,000 undergraduate students.