Video by Alex Swenson giving practical advice for high-school baseball athletes to improve their chances of receiving college recruiting offers. He draws on 11 years of experience as a college scout, coach, and recruiter and lists concrete traits and actions—good grades, up-to-date video, proactive outreach, coachability, skill-level fit and target-school strategy, and focus on ‘where’ not ‘when’—that commonly appear among athletes who get offers.
Chapters
Hey, how you doing, Alex here. I'm super excited that you're here and I'm excited to go over these traits so they can help you go through this recruiting process and get an offer. I'm a big believer at studying people that have come before us and that have succeeded at what we want to succeed at and to learn from their successes, learn from their failures and then apply it to our situation and adjust accordingly as we go. Okay. As you guys might know, I was a college scout, coach and recruiter at the Division 1 level in the SEC and a mid major in a high academic institution. So I've been all around there and I've taken that from my experience 11 years there and to now where I help student athletes and their families get to the next level. And of course I was at high school baseball athlete, going through the recruiting process and I've taken all the traits that I've seen from all these athletes that have either recruited or have helped and I put them on paper and condensed them. On average, what I've seen, of course there's exceptions, but most of these athletes have these traits. So really dive into this, see where you're at on each of these traits and see where you can improve so you can get an offer and play at the next level. I'm going to bring the whiteboard in here so you can see. Let me try to get that light out of there. All right, so let's go over the first one. Good grades. This is huge. Okay. Most of these athletes have good grades. These opened up so many more doors for the student athlete. But on the coach and scout perspective, this is huge. This is so much more attractive for a scout because it helps them get you one into school. And honestly, kids with good grades, they don't worry as much with them. Okay? Usually they're very on top of things. Right? Their management of time is really on top of it. They know what's important. There's just a lot of correlations as far as good grades, good athletes and kids that really just show up and perform. There's a lot of correlation there. So the next one is good, updated video. This is massive. Especially now in the time that we're in with the pandemic and how the debt period is going to be over a year. Okay, April 15th, you guys might have seen my email. April 15th, 2021 is when they can go out. So video is so important. You need to get on video. If you do not have video right now and if you're a pitcher, make sure you get all of your pitches on video. From the side, from behind, from behind. The catcher, get Velo as well. And if you're a positional player, make sure you get your defense or whatever position you are. Make sure we can see your arm and throwing again, whatever position that you're at. Running and of course, hitting as well. Get in the side, get behind if you can, so coaches can see the flight of the ball. That is huge. And then kind of going into the next one, we got to send that video to these coaches, okay? Don't just have it up on your perfect game or prep baseball site, okay? You need to send it to these coaches. Now, links work, but I would create a video and condense all that. So it's very easy for these coaches to see because these coaches get a lot of emails every single day. When I was at Ole miss, I'd get 150 emails day. It's a lot. Okay? So we just. We like videos that are right there for us so we can take a look at. So sending and responding to emails. Make sure your email, the. The information that's in there is condensed, okay? It's not long. Again, there's a lot of emails coming into these coaches boxes. Subject line is very important. Make sure you have a good subject line and the. Again, the content that's in the email. Make sure your measurables are there. Make sure your GPA and test scores. If you have that, everything that is really good about your situation, whether it's athletically or academically, all right? Your accolades, that's always helpful, okay? But short and concise, why you're interested in the school, the major, et cetera from there, why you'd be a good fit, coachable. This is huge, okay? Most of these athletes that get recruited, I'd say 90% of them are very, very coachable. And that has helped them get to that point of playing at that next level and getting an offer. Make sure that you are coachable. Make sure that you can take constructive criticism because that is so important. You don't want. You don't always want somebody patting you on the button, telling you how good you are. You need somebody to tell you where you need to improve at. And then you need to take that information, be coachable, okay? And apply it and work on those things, okay? Hey, the next one is have the skills for that next level, okay? They have the skill. Wherever they got to offer, they have those skills for that division. Whether Division 1, Division 2, Division 3A, JUCO or NAIA. They have the skills. There and then through the recruiting process, they targeted schools where they fit. Okay? But I'm a big believer in a. We need a big list, okay? And have some reach schools, ones that might be a little bit of a reach, but most of them need to be target schools where you're a good fit, okay? And then three is safe schools. Make sure that you have some schools in the back pocket that you almost know. You almost know that you can definitely play at. And maybe schools that have expressed interest in you already, okay? But they have targeted schools that they are a good fit, okay? And then this is a big one. Worry about where and not when. Where are they going? Okay. Some players want to be recruited their freshman year or really just right at the beginning of their sophomore year. When does the recruiting process start? It starts their sophomore year because that's when coaches start looking at you. Okay? That is very important there. But good ones and guys that have offers, they focus on where they want to go to school and not necessarily worry about when. Of course, hey, we're fighting time going through this recruiting process. But if you're so worried about this, it's going to distract you of where you actually want to go and where you could fit at. Okay? Focus on where. Get an eval. Get an honest opinion of a professional, where they see you potentially playing, where they see you now, and where they potentially see you playing. Because you're going to get better, right? You're going to get better. Projectability is huge. That's what these coaches look for. Hey, so look at all these here and. And look at where you can improve that and where you need to get better at and then apply that. I hope this helps you. Let me know if you have any questions. Email me and we'll go from there. I'll see you in the next video.
