10 Crucial Rules For College Recruiting

Have a plan and then take action on that plan. A lot of people can talk and don't do anything. They get motivated, maybe they start, but motivation is fleeting and they don't stay disciplined or consistent with the plan. And of course, hey, be fluid. Make adjustments when you need to, but stay consistent with the foundation of the plan. Understand your goal and where you're trying to go and take the right steps and again, adjust accordingly. As you go through this process. We're going to talk about the 10 crucial rules of recruiting that can help you with your plan. My name is Alex Swenson. I'm a former Division 1 college baseball coach, scout and recruiter. And now what I do is help high school athletes go through this college recruiting process and help them find the best college fit for them. I also make these videos as well. Hopefully you get something from this video. If you do, please smash that thumbs up down here and subscribe to my channel. That helps me me out a lot. All right, let's get into this. The first one. Start early and be organized. So when I say early, sophomore year is usually the best time to start. If you're a freshman year starting, honestly, you should just get acclimated with your high school, coach high school team and develop, develop, develop. All right. If you're getting recruited freshman year, you don't really need to start the recruiting process. All right, that's kind of taking care of you. But. But that is about 1 to 2% of the guys that actually commit is freshman year. So really small percentage and stay organized. Have everything in one place. Number two, create a target school list. You could have reach schools, target schools and safe schools, reach schools or schools that might be a little bit out of reach athletically, maybe even academically or geographically. Maybe it's too far, maybe it's too close, but at least have them down you and start a wide, wide range of schools and then narrow it down as you go. All right? Hey, and be realistic reach schools. Hey, you can have some dream schools, but understand that it could be really, really hard to get in to. That school can be super competitive. And are they looking for your skill level? Do you match the skill level at for the schools that you are targeting for your reach schools or your target schools or your safe schools? The beautiful thing is there's all different skill levels at all the divisions. Division one, division two, division three in aia, in Juco as well. Number three, find out who is recruiting your position. Not all schools are in need of every position every year. There's a lot of factors involved with this right? Roster, management, guys that are leaving the program, guys that are coming into the program now, the transfer portal, the 2024 class, the 2025 class. All of these factors have a highlight video or a skills video, whatever you want to call it, a recruiting video to show your skill set at your position and highlight your best qualities as a player and make sure that you have your best highlights at the beginning of the video. Don't put your home run or your double off the wall like back in the back of the video where coach doesn't make it all the way through. Have your stuff go because they're going to know within like 30 seconds of watching your video if they want to continue to watch. And make sure that your video is short and sweet. Number five, make sure that you are engaging with the college coaches, all right? Be proactive in this process. Don't just sit back and wait. Number six, be strong and physical. College coaches love strong physical players. And I get it if you're kind of skinny or you're smaller like me or like I was at the high school level. You have to really work for. You need to be focused in the weight room. You need to be focused with your nutrition. But this helps a lot. Being strong in physical solves a lot of problems, honestly, okay? It solves a lot of your metrics and your game performance and your skills and your athleticism, alright? So make sure that you are staying physical in the weight room. Get help if you need to. As far as in the weight room or follow a good program. There's a lot of good programs out there and it honestly can take just few a quick google search. Number seven, hey, gotta have skills at your position. You should be focused on the skills at your position in improving those skills, alright? If you're a catcher, you need to be working on your receiving, your blocking, your throwing of course, and what's involved with your throwing, your transfer, your footwork. If you're a shortstop, you need to be working on your skill sets with your hands and your feet, working through the ball, your arm strength if you're a pitcher, repeatable mechanics, making sure that you're using your lower half and you have good arm action, Outfielder, your speed, all this if you're a corner guy, you got to have some power to play at the next level. Work on the skills that are needed at your position to play at the next level. Number eight, got to have good grades. Guys got to be focused. This is such a separator at the recruiting process. So think of this, this happens all the time. This happens every year with every position you have. Player A, player B, they're pretty much identical from an athletic standpoint, but player a has a 3.2 GPA and player B has a 3.8 GPA. Who are they going with? 3.8 every time? Number nine, maximize your exposure. You have to get in front of these college coaches. It starts with your video and your proactives reaching out to these college coaches. But eventually you need to get in front of the college coaches. And honestly, I'm not a big fan of travel ball, alright? In tournaments and things because it's just so hard to get in front of them. I'm a fan of good showcases with a lot of coaches there. The coaches that matter, that actually recruit and champs. Okay? Not to say that all travel ball is bad, but unless you're on the top team, you're really not getting a lot of looks, if you will, a lot of exposure to college coaches. And number 10, last but not least, have somebody help you. Don't go at this blind through this college recruiting process. That can be your high school coach, that can be your travel ball coach. That could be your aunt or your uncle that knows this process really well, or a person like me. All right? Have somebody help you go through this process. All right? Hey, I hope you got something from this video. If you have any questions, please leave it down below. Comment down below. And again, if you got anything from this video, please like and subscribe. I put out a weekly video every single week on the recruiting process. I will see you in the next one.