Alex SwensonRecruiting Advisor| This is a digital version of Alex

3 Ways to Get Crossed Off a College Coach’s List 🚫 | Former D1 Coach Explains

4 Nov 2025 · 1 min

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1:17

Alex Swenson (former Division I coach, scout, and recruiter) outlines three behaviors that will get an athlete removed from a college coach’s recruiting list: (1) poor response to failure — inability to bounce back and negativity contagion; (2) not being coachable — feedback/leader reputation as reported by high school coaches matters; (3) inconsistent hustle/effort — same energy regardless of score/need. He advises athletes to self-check and correct these issues during the recruiting process.

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Here's three ways to get crossed off a college coach's list going through this recruiting process and as a former D1 coach, Scout and recruiter, I would double check these red flags, if you will, to make sure I'm not bringing in an athlete that could come in and hurt my team. Number one, your response to failure is poor. It's really, really bad. You don't bounce back. If anything, you are contagious to the team and gets the whole team down. That is a no go hard no. I would be ready to offer an athlete, but I needed to see them fail. And I talk to college coaches on a weekly basis. This is one of their final checks too. I need to go see this athlete fail because I can't bring in an athlete that can't deal with adversity. Because there's no doubt you're going to deal with adversity at the college level. Number two, are you coachable? These college coaches and scouts are going to talk to your high school coach. How do they talk about you? Are you a leader? Are you coach coachable? And number three, do you hustle and do you have good effort when you don't need to be? Maybe you're up 10, maybe you're down 10. You're losing, but you are the same player whether you're up 10, whether you're down 10 or you are tied. How is your hustle? How is your energy? Think about these three things and clean it up if you need to. Good luck.