so if you're ready to start your recruiting process and get on that track to hopefully playing
collegiate softball then this video is going to help because in today's video we're going to talk
about how to get your recruiting process started and what those first steps are going to look like
so if you're new here i'm coach Dan Blewett in the links of the description below
you should subscribe to my channel number one but number two you'll find links to my online courses
for throwing for mental training my online strength training program my email list where
i send out new articles and videos like this one every week so thanks for being here and be sure to
check out the links in the description below so in today's video we're going to talk about recruiting
and how to get started on the process so let's jump into it number one
the first thing you need to do is identify schools that you might want to go to and i would say start
with a smaller circle so i wouldn't start if you live in if you live in ohio i wouldn't start with
california schools i'd start with you know a 200 mile radius of schools that you might like to go
to at all different levels and that would be d1 d2 d3 naia and junior college so that's the njcaa
so identifying a bunch of schools from all levels even if your dream is to play big time d1 and
that's a wonderful dream number one remember that it's not going to be realistic for everyone and
just because you dream it it may not come true so you need to cast a wide net and one of the
important things early in your recruiting process is that you need to figure out how good you are i
have a video i'll put the links in the description below about how to figure out how good you are
but one of the main things is emailing all these different schools and seeing who emails you back
so if you only email d1 schools and none of them reply you don't really have that much information
to go off of like could you play d2 could you play d3 we don't know because you didn't email any any
of them so make sure you email it i mean easy way to do it is pick four four d ones four d2s four
d3s four naias and four junior colleges that seems like a lot of work but if you don't put that work
in then you might get to play college softball so cast a wide net identify schools at all levels
and email them number two fill out the recruiting questionnaires for all those schools
i will link in the description in the description below i filmed a video about this last year about
how to find the recruiting questionnaire on a school's website this is really simple but if
you've never done it before i just walk you through it it's like a three minute video
basically you need to fill up that questionnaire because it says hey
i'm sally smith i'm interested in the university of kentucky here's everything that you want to
know about me because the schools make those themselves and they say hey i want
all these references i want your info i want your height your weight include video links it's
essentially the same thing as emailing a coach so fill out the recruiting questionnaires in addition
to emailing the coach so i've had lots of contact with college coaches over the years i owned a
academy full of baseball and softball teams and this would be one of the first things they would
do i'd say hey here's a video of you know sally smith coach what do you think and like hey she
looks pretty good um can you get her to one of our camps and i'd be like yeah i'll suggest it's
like okay tell her to fill out the recruiting questionnaire because now they have all your info
so number two is fill out the recruiting questionnaire on all these colleges websites
number three is create an email template that you will send to all the coaches but but here's the
caveat this is just you're going to templatize the biographical info not all the other info
here's the thing you don't want to have to rewrite obviously like who would do this you don't have to
rewrite your height your weight your school your coach's name all that your graduation class all
that info that's common sense that you want to put in there and i'll put this in the description
below everything you should write but you want to put that in a word document so you can copy
and paste that boring stuff into every email then it's not very hard to send out 20 emails
but in those emails even though you've templatized the boring biographical stuff
you need to personalize every email this is important don't just send a boilerplate hello
coach my name is sally i would like to have more information on your college no send out a school
that says hey coach dan i'm really interested in interested in minnesota technical college
you know i read about you and i i love your coaching background i i'm really interested
in the school like i know you have journalism as a major and i'm really interested in journalism
i think your campus is really beautiful i'd i really like to come up and get to know you and and
talk to some of your players and watch a practice that shows someone's like actually interested in
my school you know this minute maybe is there a minnesota technical college i don't know
but show actual interest if you're not interested enough to actually spend 10 minutes looking at the
school reading the bios of the coaches looking into the players roster if you're not interested
in doing that stuff then you shouldn't be going to that college anyway so don't just email 500
schools with boilerplate email because they're not they're going to be aware of that coaches
get tons of emails and i'll tell you because i've talked to a lot of them they will read every email
but if it's just like boilerplate they're gonna be like this girl doesn't care
so make sure you personalize it put some of yourself in there talk about the school why
do you actually want to go there it's just a good time to figure that out yourself before you email
a school figure out if you actually want to go there if you don't then don't email them that's
the symbol the short and long of it but templatize the boring stuff and personalize the other stuff
all right send that in your recruiting email so my next tip is film a recruiting video
and put it in the email this is really easy to do now i'm not sure exactly when this video is
releasing but if this isn't right at the date of release then they'll probably in the description
links below be a video that i just filmed like 10 minutes ago about how to create a good
a good college recruiting video so check out the description links below for that if it's not there
yet then just check back make sure you subscribe to my channel because that video will be coming
out shortly um but filming a two-minute skills video showing you hitting pitching or throwing
which are the easiest skills to showcase with like a little pocket radar or something
in a baseball or softball academy you want to film a two-minute video that's got your info on it
not again not like sensitive personal info like your home address or your phone number
but just like your family's email where you go to school your height your weight stuff like that
um and if you feel like you need to keep uh your school and stuff like that um a secret then you
can do that too but again film a recruiting video that's specifically just to send to them you don't
have to make it public you can make it unlisted on youtube and put in the email it's the best
two minutes you can spend and it's free because everyone's got a smartphone right so make a good
recruiting video that shows your skills send it in the email that's one of the best things you can do
to start the recruiting process so no matter how good you are today if you're gonna start putting
yourself out there they need to see you and the easiest way for them to see you and say okay yeah
i have some interest in this girl or no i don't is to see you swing see you pitch or see you throw
you don't really need to send videos of you you know base running or fielding it's tough you can
do that but it's tougher to showcase your skills in a short amount of time and if you're in an
indoor facility it's not as good they're going to see you field and run the bases and they're going
to see your softball instincts and your character they're going to see all those things when they
come and watch you play but if they see that you've got a great swing and some and some pop and
they see you've got good pitching mechanics you've got some velocity you can spin the ball and they
see you've got a cannon of an arm those are going to be enough to say okay we we might want to go
watch this girl that's all you need to do you need to catch their attention show that you've got some
skills and some size and and let them take it from there so after that once you've identified schools
you've filled out the questionnaire you've sent them a nice personalized info or email with all
of your your info so they can follow up on you and then you filmed a video and include that in there
you're pretty much off and running and you should do that let those fishing lines those 20 schools
you emailed let those fishing lines soak in the water and then see who sends an email to you back
here's the the two things you need to know number one most of them will reply
with uh you know like an invitation to their university camp obviously you can't go to
20 camps right so you're gonna need to pick and choose if you want to follow up on them
number two that may or may not indicate actual interest sometimes it does sometimes it doesn't
because they use those camps as money makers to pay their volunteer assistant coaches which those
are extremely hard working people and they don't get a salary so when i say they're money makers
it doesn't mean that they're not good camps it doesn't mean that they're just bs a way to like
steal your money because they're not it just means that they use those camps they want kids to come
because it helps fund their program and they give a lot of benefits i mean they're going to work
with you they're going to watch you and players legitimately do get signed of those camps so
they're going to send an invite to almost everyone that contacts them because why not right so just
because they send you an email back doesn't mean that they're going to sign you or recruit you but
it does mean hey come watch us and if you feel like you're good enough and you go show them that
you might end up playing at that school so just understand that that's kind of how that works
and lastly they may not be able to actually talk back to you depending on your age so if
you're a freshman in high school and you email them they probably can't send you
a reply except like a standardized reply if you call them they can pick up the phone and
talk to you but if you call them and you get a voicemail they can't call you back there's a lot
of crazy rules and you definitely need to dig and do some research into those rules yourself
so don't be heartbroken if you don't hear a specific personalized reply like hey sally smith
great talking with you you look like a great second baseman they might not be able to do that
if you're not already a junior in high school so just be aware all right so hopefully this video on
how to get started on your software recruiting process was helpful because i get this question
i was just talking to one of my softball players from the midwest today about this
identify schools send out emails fill out the recruiting questionnaire film a great video
and cast a wide net that's how you get started all right thanks for watching again i'm coach
dan blewitt be sure to subscribe to my channel below check out the links below sign up for my
email list that's the best way hey you get a free ebook but that's the best way to stay up
on all my new content because i email out every video that i create and i send out new articles
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some of the training options that i have all right thanks so much and i'll see in the next video you