Digital Technology Changing the way of Collegiate Recruiting

5 years ago, a college scout or recruiter would have to drive several hours to watch, meet, and entice a potential recruit for their university. This due to the fact that technology was not as advance and it was difficult to get up to date information on a specific athlete, including real live stats. With the advancement of technology recruiters are having a much easier time canvassing and zeroing in on what athletes they want to recruit and which ones they want to spend their time on. Greg Kannerstein, director of athletics stated “The nature of the recruiting process gets more organized every year”. Parents are becoming savvier and athletes are more knowledgeable about the recruiting process. In a way it seems that it can beneficial for both parties because a lot of the grey areas are out in the in open already.

Before many kids that were recruited by smaller schools had to promote themselves by making DVDs of their highlights and sending it out to athletic recruiters and directors. Now with the advent of technology kids can post their reel or demo of their sports accolades on YouTube. Making it much easier for universities to preview the potential recruit. One university baseball coach liked the idea of kids putting on their own recruiting video due to the fact that it is raw. Meaning that you do not get a lot of added fluff and you truly seem the kids true mechanics and if there is something that can benefit the collegiate team.

One success story of marketing yourself was Lacrosse player Ian Mitchell of Washington Township High School in New Jersey. Ian did exceptionally well in Lacrosse but had a hard time reaching recruits, so he took the liberty of posting a video on YouTube, which highlighted a 10-minute span of an Olympic Conference game. Mitchell had about 40 plus views but all from college coaches. The video can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NTIpScT144.

With technology evolving young kids and college athletes will be able to market themselves and reach different target markets. Whether it is a prominent kid trying to get an athletic scholarship or a recent college grad trying to get signed by a pro team, YouTube is definitely a great way to market one’s skills for an inexpensive cost.

References:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/sports/23recruit.html

06 January, 2012 // // 1 comments //