Short YouTube video (Alex Swenson) giving practical recruiting advice for high-school athletes, focused on two priorities: timing and exposure. Key recommendations: begin recruiting activity the summer after freshman year, act with urgency in later high-school years (juniors should start immediately; seniors are often too late), and prioritize high-quality video plus personalized direct email (not mass recruiting-service messages).
Questions this video answers
The summer after freshman year.
By the fall of senior year—about 80–90% are done; December is the cutoff.
From a personal email (do not send via mass recruiting-service software).
Chapters
Hey, how you doing? Wanted to hop on here real quick and go over two quick things that are very important in the recruiting process. Timing and exposure. Okay? Timing is very, very important almost with anything, okay? But especially the recruiting process because we need to have a sense of urgency. We only have so much time. There is a clock to this, okay? So if you're a freshman right now in high school, do not worry about it. You get acclimated with your high school, get acclimated with your high school coach and your high school team. But the summer after your freshman year, it is time to get things going on. The recruiting process, having a plan, having somebody walk you through this process is very important. Now if you're a junior, get on it right now. And if you're a senior, I gotta be honest with you, you are really behind the eight ball. Most schools. See, this is the thing. Some schools finish earlier than others, right? And if you don't know this, I get into this more. But some schools finish recruiting earlier than others. But, but by the time you're a senior, you're in the fall of your senior year, 80 to 90% of schools are done. Probably closer to 90, honestly. Okay? Really? December is that cutoff. And you got to decide where you're going to college, okay? Timing is crucial. Start that summer after your freshman year. Very, very important now, exposure, okay? We got to get exposed to these college coaches. We got to get our name out there, okay? Video is very important. Having video and having a plan and your communication is very, very key in how you communicate, okay? So video, whether you're a pitcher, you're a catcher, outfielder, infielder, you need to get all of this on film and quality video, okay? If these guys can't see you or you're 100 yards back and you look like a little ant on the video, it really doesn't do you any good. It's very important that you have good videos that these guys can watch you, okay? And communication, do not communicate as far as with email through a recruiting service, okay? When you send something through a recruiting service like software or something like that, it comes out on the other end for the coaches and shows that recruiting service. It is a big turn off for coaches. Okay? Why? When I was at Ole Miss coaching and recruiting, I would get 150 emails a day from certain recruiting services that you just know that they blast out emails or you guys send out emails. And it's not very personalized because we know that you're blasting them out through the software. Okay? Hey, there's nothing wrong with a template email, but send it from your personal email. Do not send it in a recruiter service because these coaches don't look at it honestly. They delete them. Personal email and how you communicate and how you communicate that subject line is very important. And you will get opened from there and then you get exposed in video and you can start communication. So I wanted to go over those two key points. I hope that helps you and I'll see you in the next video.
