Helping your players get to the next level is an important part of high school coaching. While it might be the case that their AAU coach is steering the process, there are a few ways to support exposure before, during, and after their AAU seasons. Best practice is to do a mixture of as many tactics that make sense, and work directly with their AAU coach to support the process. At the end of the day, you both want the same thing, and it is likely that a college coach will call both of you to learn a bit more about the player.Helping your players get to the next level is an important part of high school coaching. While it might be the case that their AAU coach is steering the process, there are a few ways to support exposure before, during, and after their AAU seasons. Best practice is to do a mixture of as many tactics that make sense, and work directly with their AAU coach to support the process. At the end of the day, you both want the same thing, and it is likely that a college coach will call both of you to learn a bit more about the player.

It is important as a coach to hold workouts in the off season. If you're the type of coach who offers workouts in the Fall, make sure to invite college coaches to them. This may seem weird at first, but it's totally normal and coaches are doing it regularly across the country. Choose a few dates where the workouts are specifically for college coaches, and do a short amount of drills before playing pick up as a team for coaches to watch.

If you have a few players who should be recruited, send the coaches a bit about them in advance and make sure to reach out to programs where your players could actually contribute. Not only is this a win for your players and program if a few college coaches attend, but it also will help you build relationships with coaches for the future.

Twitter/X

You might not be interested in making an X account, but X is used widely by college coaches at all levels. It is one of the best ways for you and/or your players to get their information, AAU schedules, highlight films, and stats out there. Best practice would be for your players, you, and your program to have their own Twitter accounts, and begin following coaches and programs. On X, you can share your AAU schedule, share out stats from the season or specific games, and pin your highlight film for college coaches to watch.

Highlights

It is really important that your players create highlight films after every season. If your program uses HUDL, it is pretty easy for players to clip their best plays and string them together into a short video. Once they've created a highlight video for the season, they can pin it to their X/Twitter profile for coaches to see. On your own profile or the team profile, share the highlight film as well in addition to the player's stats for the season.

Recruiting Websites

There are a multitude of recruiting websites you can utilize as a coach. I recommend FieldLevel, especially if players are targeting and best suited for Division 3. Here, you can manage a roster of players for your program, and each player will have their own page. This can include information about them, your evaluation of them, and then any film they want posted to the page. This is useful because you can recommend your player's profile to coaches who have specific recruiting needs, which gets their name out there to programs you think are a good fit.

Email

You might think it's annoying, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with emailing college coaches. Make the subject line the player's name and class, and then write a short bio about the player.

You can write something like this:

Dear Coach ________,

I hope you’re having a wonderful week – And [insert something relevant to their current season]. I am reaching out to advocate for my player, [Player name, c/o ______]. She is a [insert height + position] who will be playing for [insert AAU team] this Spring/Summer. [Player name] averaged [insert stats] for us this season. She also [insert something impressive that the stats might not see or that you think is important - For example, maybe they had a very positive assist/turnover ratio]. She was recognized as [insert any league honors]

[Player name] is a wonderful kid and [talk a bit about the school she attends for High School]. If you’re at all interested, I would love to talk to you about [Player name]. You can call/text me any time – [insert your contact info]

[Insert Highlight film here]

Hopefully, if you did your homework on the program and your player will be a good fit there, you'll hear back and that will start a conversation opening the door to recruitment.

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