Technology is everywhere. Today, we use it to order food, do our banking, connect with friends and even to skip the line at Starbucks. And, it didn’t take long for it to begin altering the college recruiting process, either.

For athletes, it’s pretty obvious to see how technology has altered the recruiting landscape, from the importance of an online athletic resume to capturing crisp highlight and skills videos on a smartphone.

But technology has now become crucial for club coaches and club recruiting coordinators as well. Many have turned to technology to streamline their recruiting process for their athletes and make it easier to connect their players with college coaches across the country.

One such coach who has embraced recruiting technology is Nelson Gord, club founder and coach, as well as a former collegiate and professional baseball player. Running a large club, in addition to his full-time job, family and other responsibilities, leaves little time left over to help his athletes through their recruiting process. He has opted to use the online recruiting platform NCSA Team Edition.

Easily organize your recruiting efforts for each of your athletes

Coach Gord explains that recruiting technology helps him keep track of the recruiting efforts for hundreds of athletes as well as stay organized. “Many club programs will have 200 athletes or more, and if each athlete expects that process to be managed by the club, it’s impossible. So, the clubs who have the most success rely on technology to streamline their efforts, knowing they can’t do it all by themselves.”

Programs, such as Team Edition, aggregate players recruiting information in a single dashboard, giving coaches and administrators real-time recruiting intelligence to help them

  • See at a glance which players are making progress and which ones need help
  • Connect with college coaches at programs where their athletes would be a good fit
  • Get insight into schools genuinely interested in recruiting their athletes

Coach Gord adds that, for coaches who have multiple college-bound student-athletes, the meetings, emails and calls can be incredibly time-consuming. With the help of technology, it’s easier than ever to get a quick snapshot of each recruits’ goals and current progress. Instead of shuffling through disparate emails, texts, calls, notes and more, all the information you need about each of your athletes is easily organized in one place.

Compile all your critical recruiting information in one place

The more information college coaches have on players, the more they can make informed decisions about their recruiting process. Technology platforms pull together key information about each athlete, like who has uploaded a transcript, which athletes are communicating with college coaches, what programs are they communicating with and much more. Armed with this knowledge, coaches can help each athlete based on exactly where they are at in their personal recruiting journey.

Coach Gord explains, “I think about it this way: A program director or club coach is the CEO of their organization. And any effective executive is going to need tools and data to understand the needs of their program. Coaches need to know how many players have video available or have their transcripts out there for college coaches to see. If you don’t have an understanding of that, you won’t be able to provide the level of opportunity that you could have otherwise.”

Create recruiting opportunities for your athletes by connecting them with more college coaches than ever before

In recruiting, the key to success is collaboration between the student-athlete, parents and their coaches. It’s up to the athlete and their family to take charge of the recruiting process. Coaches play a critical role in facilitating the recruiting opportunities and interest in their student-athletes.

Coach Gord explains what this typically looks like, “A lot of coaches have relationships or pipelines to certain college programs. So, they will start by reaching out to those college coaches they have the closest relationships with; typically, guys they’ve sent athletes to in the past. And then from there, they will start to do more outreach to other schools and bring athletes’ programs of interest into the mix when possible.”

However, the programs that coaches have a relationship with might not be the right fit for all the athletes on their roster. Coach Gord explains, “Prior to joining Team Edition, most of the players we had stayed pretty regional and ended up going to just a few different programs. And then in the last three or four years, we had guys go to schools that I’d never heard of before, a lot of high academic DIII schools. But the players never would have connected with them if not for their use of technology. I just don’t have the bandwidth to talk to all those coaches.”

For related reading on the volleyball recruiting process for junior volleyball athletes click here. For more recruiting education click here.

NCSA is the Official Recruiting Services provider of the JVA, NCSA assists JVA Club Directors and Coaches with guiding their athletes through the recruiting process. For more information about NCSA click here.