In today's changing technological landscape college coaches utilize new avenues to attract high school talent to their programs. Emailing and text messaging has become as important a communication tool as phone calls and campus visits.  It allows coaches to gauge right away the interest level, and desire of the player to join their program, as well as giving them an opportunity to get to know the player beyond what they have seen out on the field.

In the past, the July 1^st contact date, which allows college coaches to call high school seniors for the first time, represented a major component of the recruiting process. But with so many juniors making their college decisions early, coaches have to reach out sooner, while staying within the strict limits of NCAA regulations.

Although these players are only sophomores, some may still be attending the ESP camp this weekend in Denver, Colorado.

A quick recap of what coaches can and can not do: Coaches can send questionnaires, sports camp brochures, or other NCAA educational information while the prospect is in their freshman or sophomore year. But they can not initiate phone calls to a prospect, or send any written recruiting material. It is not until September 1^st of the prospects' junior year can they begin sending emails, and not until July 1^st of the prospects' senior year can they initiate phone calls, and then still they are only allowed one phone call per week.

So how are the coaches communicating with these student athletes sooner without breaking any rules?

After September 1^st of the prospects' junior year, coaches contact the student athlete via email and set up phone interviews. But wait you say, isn't that against the rules? Not if the prospect contacts the coach. The coach can simply send the prospect their phone number, and set up a time when they both can speak, and bam everything is by the book. If somehow a prospect were to come into the coaches' contact information, say on their college website, the prospect wouldn't even need to wait until September 1^st for the coach to email it to them. So by the time the July 1^st contact date rolls around, a coach may have already had extensive interaction with the student athlete. Instead of July 1^st representing the next major step in the recruiting process, with the advent of computers, emails, and readily available contact information via the internet, it stands more as an accumulation of all the work the coaches have done.

This year's adidas ESP camp, which annually is one of the best if not THE best college ID camps in the country, will feature rising juniors and sophomores, because college coaches in attendance last year complained there were too many players on hand who had already made their decision on where to attend college.

So it's not hard to see the relationship between players committing at a younger age and coaches using new ways to communicate with them.

---

Go Back

Delicious

Digg

Facebook

StumbleUpon