The Recruiting Contact Period Is Here

Hey, team Alex here. Thanks for joining me. And in today's video, we're going to be talking about the three specific recruiting periods that you or your son will be going through during this recruiting process. And we're going to go into detail about one of them, which is the contact period. And why is that relevant is because we're about to get into the contact period, which is March 1, and it is March 1 every year, unless the NCAA decides to change that. But March 1 is the start of the contact period, which gets the things going through this recruiting process and really gets to the thick of the action with recruiting. As we go through this contact period, again, we'll go into more detail about that. But speaking of contact, and probably most importantly, we're going to be talking about how to best contact these college coaches, how to communicate with them and create engagement with them as we go. So if you get anything from this video, please smash that, like, button that thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. I put out a weekly video on recruiting and how to just get better on and off the field. All right, let's hop into it. All right, team, let's go over the three recruiting periods, which is the quiet period, the dead period, and the contact period. I'm going to pull up an NCAA sheet here that defines these periods and don't be confused or distracted by all the dates and the color codes, etc. From there. I'm actually going to pull up a calendar here in a minute that's going to be more visually appealing to you. I want you guys to pay attention to where it says recruiting periods defined and the quiet period, which we're going to start with. Let's go over this. I'm going to simplify this to you, but I'm going to read it off to you. A quiet period is that period of time when it is permissible to make in person recruiting contacts only on the members institutions campus. No in person off campus recruiting contacts or evaluations may be made during the quiet period. So what does that mean? That basically means college coaches cannot go watch you play a game or a showcase off their campus. So they can't go to the wwba. They can't go to Georgia or Texas or California, a PBR event or whatever event it may be and watch you play or just talk to you off their campus. That would be an NCAA violation. But they can do all of that on their campus. And why camps are so important during the quiet period is because that is only really where college coaches can watch you Play. That's where you see a lot of camps pop up during the fall and winter because they can't go out and watch you play. So let's dive into the dead period. A dead period is that period of time when it is not permissible to make in person recruiting contacts or evaluations on or off the members institution's campus or to permit officials or unofficial visits by prospective student athletes to the institution's campus. By prospective student athletes to the institution's campus. Sorry, I messed that last line up. But basically that means that they can't go off campus, they can't see you on their campus, they can't do anything as far as evaluating you, watching you play, anything like that on their campus or, or off their campus. It is the dead period. Dead period really only lasts a few days or a week and then it cuts it off. Okay, so not a major. And I'm going to pull up a calendar here, just showing you what these time periods as far as the green is the contact period, the tan or the yellow is the quiet period. And then you'll see the dead periods is those short little time frames that don't have to necessarily worry about too much of the those. I'm going to pull up the other sheet back here real quick and read off the contact periods definition. And that is a contact period is that period of time when it is permissible for authorized athletic department staff members to make in person off campus recruiting contacts and evaluations. So what does that mean? Basically the assistant coaches or any of the recruiting coaches, which there will only be three of them out of the four coaches and usually that's the head, head coach, the two assistants and the volunteers more does things on campus and does camps and etc. From there. As far as setting up the camps, all the other coaches are involved with the recruiting process. Okay. And they can go out and watch you play in Georgia, in Texas and in California, New York, Northeast, all those camps and showcases. Okay. They can go and watch you play and talk to you in person depending on what, what year you are. If you're September 1st after your junior year, they can do that. Okay, that's another, that's another conversation. We'll get into that here another time. So that is the contact period. Why is the contact period so important? Because this is where the action happens. This is when college coaches can go out and start recruiting in person and watch you or your son play during this time. Now, one thing when in the past when I've talked to parents and student athletes about this is like, oh man, March 1st, they're all going to flood out and watch us play. It's actually more of a drip, if you will. And it gets, it becomes more and more as we go through the spring. And the reason for that is college baseball just started their season. So these college coaches are in the middle or just starting their season, and they're focused on their opponents, they're focused on winning, they're focused on the conference play that's coming up. Now, don't get me wrong, recruiting is year round, there's no doubt year round. And the contact period is the thick of recruiting. But they are also focused on their season because they get paid to play and win for their college or university. So they have to be focused on their guys, of course. But so when I say contact period in March 1, not a flood, there will be some of the coaches that come out and recruit and maybe watch high school games. But it's going to be more in the late spring or summer, if you will, in May when the college season is over, and then definitely in June. Now the College World Series goes into June, but out of the 300 Division 1 schools, there's only going to be a small few of those in that period and they'll but everybody else is going to be flooded to showcases and camps and tournaments as we go through this period. So don't be hey, if you don't see any college coaches out March 1st or even in March, it's not the end of the world. These college coaches will come out as we go. And that's why summer, summer baseball and summer camps and showcases are so big, because these college coaches are out and free and in the fall, really, and even in the winter when the quiet period is on their camps and etc. From there. So that is why the contact period. And again, this is where, this is where offers happen a lot because they are able to see players multiple times. This is where home visits can really happen. And again, just the action of recruiting happens during this time through the contact period. So as you saw on the calendar, that's what as far as where we're going to be at there, I'm going to pull that back up here just so so you guys can see that and make sure we're going to go this goes through all the way through July and even a week or two into August as far as the contact period. And then we go into the quiet period, et cetera from there. And they haven't sent out an updated NCAA hasn't sent out an updated calendar from that standpoint. But I will share that when we get there. Alright, hey, let's get into how to best contact these coaches. Now the best way to contact these coaches is email and we're going to talk about how to get the most out of your email for you and the college coach. So you guys again create engagement as we go through this process. But one of the first things is make sure that you are sending it to the right coach, which is the recruiting coordinator. And if you don't know who the recruiting coordinator is, go on and send it to all the coaches. But if you do send it to the recruiting coordinator because they coordinate all of the recruiting, that is the person that has all the names on the boards that we've talked about before of all the positions, etc. From there, that's who you want to send it to. Now, very important, another very important point is make sure that you're sending your email from your personal email account, not from a recruiting service software. Okay? These recruiting service softwares, they have tens of thousands of kids that a lot of them are auto generated that send emails etc. From there. And that comes up as the recruiting service software. And when you send it, it's a recruiting service software. So these college coaches are just getting all these bombarded from these recruiting services and they just get deleted. These emails just get deleted and they want to, they want to open up the emails that are personalized to them, meaning it's not from a recruiting service. Because again there's a lot of auto generations and so many kids from them are showing up in there and again it just gets deleted. And it's very simple because when they send it from a recruiting service software, it shows up, it's from, from that service, etc. In their email box. So send it from your personal email. And let's get into what is the best way, what does this email look like? The first thing is the subject line. The subject line needs to be on point. Okay, this. And why do I mean by that? Because it has to appeal when a college coach reads it in their email box. All right, what's the subject? It shouldn't be your name. And this is one of the first things that people just get wrong and that's okay. You don't really know. It shouldn't be your name and it shouldn't be just a generic thing like hey, your name and that's it or your name and your position have the highlights of your metrics. So in metrics for you athletically but also academically. And what do I mean by that? So for an example, if I'm a right handed pitcher, maybe I throw 87 miles an hour. I put 80, 87 miles per hour. That's what I top out. But 87 miles per hour, I have a 3.8 GPA and I have a 1300 SAT. All of those are, whoa, those are great. They're highlights of me, some of my best highlights of me as a player. That's what you want to do. So if you're a catcher, maybe you put, hey, maybe you have a pop time. Your best pop time is 198. Pop time. 198. Okay, Dash, what's your GPA? Do you have a GPA? That's high. If it's not, let's get it high, let's go 3.75. And maybe you don't have an SAT, but maybe you run well as a catcher. Maybe you put a, you run a 6, 9, 7 again. Show your best stuff. You don't put your worst stuff in the subject line. Okay, Leave that out because that's not going to be appealing to the college coaches. So they say, oh, this is great. Hey, we need a catcher. Let's boom. 197. Oh, one quick caveat too. At the end of the subject line, put, put in a parenthesis video. Because you need video in your email when you send these college coaches, especially your initial email, your introductory email. So when we click it open. It should not be a massive email showing you everything, everything about you. Okay? That's very intimidating for a coach. What I mean by that intimidating is like overwhelming. Like hey, I don't got time to read all of this. I want it short and concise and, and show me. The purpose of the email is to gain and garner attention and get a reaction from the coaches. Meaning just engagement. Okay? And as we get through an engagement, it should be short, sweet, a short four sentence paragraph about you, bullet lines of your athletic metrics, your academic metrics and maybe some other highlights of you as far as what you've done. Maybe you're a team captain. Captain, maybe you were voted again a team captain or you're honor roll, etc. From there. So you can highlight that. Then you can have some references with the college coaches, references from your high school, your summer coach, that'd be good for that. And then at the bottom you should have your video and your schedule. Okay, Your video and your schedule. Because these coaches are going to want to see you them just going off your metrics is not good enough. Okay? They, it's, it's a trust factor. There is, there's definitely trust. They need to verify. They need to verify that you do that you, you actually are the player that you say you are. And a lot of that can help with the video. But then they come out and see you play. So that is the email structure, short and sweet. Make sure your subject line is appealing again, just highlighting your best. And if your metrics maybe are not there, hey, let's hold off, okay? And that's totally fine. Let's wait until we get our metrics to where we wanted to be. Hopefully you got something from this video. Make sure that you're reaching out to these college coaches and I will see you in the next one. If you have any questions, please reach out to me. You can email me or you can comment down below. All right, have a good one.