Hi Parents!
So you have decided to help your child get recruited by a college or university swimming
program…it will be fun, a little stressful at times (if I am to be completely honest with you!) and
very rewarding if you succeed together. Before you even think of beginning, please make sure
that your child really wants to swim at university. If they are not fully committed, you will be
wasting a lot of valuable time. Also make sure your child is at the performance level to make a
university swim team, as a good parent you will be somewhat bias about your child’s ability, but
a quick call or email to yours truly can answer that question for you!
Well let’s be brutally honest, you have spent probably over $50,000 supporting your children’s
swimming adventures, a great investment don’t get me wrong, but wouldn’t it be nice to have
their education paid for? Of course it would…so I am primarily talking about NCAA Div 1 and
2, NAIA and the Canadian University Sport system for great scholarship opportunities. NCAA
Division 3 does not provide athletic scholarships.
Ok then, let’s get you started. What you need to do first is build a profile. Even for parents or
athletes that lack computer skills, this is something that really can be easily done. The advantage
of doing it on the computer in a Word document or PDF document is the ability to send it via
email. You can use the Internet to your advantage and that is why putting this together is very
helpful in the recruiting process. It allows you to quickly showcase your son or daughter’s
accomplishments and saves you money by sending it through email. Here is what I want you to
include in a sport specific swimming profile:
Contact Information - Include an address, phone numbers (Home and cell), and email
addresses (Parent and Swimmer). Also talk to your coach about including his contact
information. College coaches would much rather hear that you can swim from a coach and not
your parent. If the college coach feels that you may have the ability to swim at their level,
including all relevant contact information will allow him or her to contact you when things get
serious in the recruiting process.
Grades & Academic Information - Coaches know what it will take grade wise to get into their
school so make sure that they are aware of your academics (don’t plan on going to Harvard with
a 60% avg!). If you have worked hard enough in high school, this should be something you are
proud of and want them to see. If you have taken your ACT and SAT already, make sure to
include those scores. Most coaches seek out kids with good grades because that can get you in at
a lot of places. If you have talked to the guidance counselor and know your class rank, throw that
in there too. As with contact information, the more you can provide, the better. What also makes
grades important is that many feel the better grades you get, the better kid you are overall. While
I am not saying all kids with low grades are bad kids, but it does show you can focus and
succeed at something other then swimming.
Athletic Accomplishments – OK, no fibbing here! Keep things realistic because the coaches
will eventually find out if things are exaggerated. Other things to talk about in this portion of the
athletic recruiting profile include individual awards, Regional or National teams that you have
made or training opportunities that you have been invited to, club, regional or national records
that you may have set. Another good thing to add is accomplishments in other sports. It shows
that you are well rounded and have not been focusing on a certain sport your whole life. That is
just an added dimension of athleticism that is good for you in the recruiting process.
A Picture - You might as well allow them to see a picture of you with a big smile on your face.
If you visit the school in the future, they should have a clue who you are if they consider you a
serious prospect.
Swimming Specific Information – You can include some great information here to show off
your strengths and potential. If you have a great 50 kick or 400 kick time include it, include your
best times short course and long course, figure out which one converts to a faster yards time and
include that converted time as well. You can also include height and wingspan measures, if you
take a size 13 shoe…I would include that too!! Try to demonstrate your versatility as a
swimmer, are you a great relay swimmer? Do you have a 100% attendance, if yes, include it!
Things to Avoid - University coaches will not want to waste their time reading irrelevant
information. It is important to provide a lot of things about yourself but I don’t think winning a
Gold Medal at Youth Cup when you were 12 will help you earn a scholarship! Try to look at
things from the eyes of the coaches and what would help them recruit you.
Format - I mentioned earlier that you can put it together in a Word or PDF document. Another
option is using Microsoft Excel. When sending these out, make sure to not use an obscure
program that causes the coaches any trouble in opening. In the last few years, I have had parents
send me information in Open Office Documents and a .docx file. The Open Office Document
needed a completely new program downloaded and a .docx is the new version of Office. Not all
college coaches will have the programs needed to open them. So double check the extension of
the file and keep it as simple as possible. A .doc, .pdf, or a .xls make things very easy. Coaches
who have issues with the file may just move on and not respond.
This recruiting profile is an important introduction of you to the coaching staff. While it may not
seem like much, it is a good way to introduce a lot of coaches to your skills. It is easy to grab
email addresses off of college websites and that can make things much easier than writing letters.
Think of this as your athletic recruiting resume. It will help open doors for you at the next level.
The next article will focus on sending out your athletic recruiting profile to help you in finding a
college match for you.
Now that you have completed your profile and it looks all shiny and new you should think hard
about where you want to go to school and decide on what is the best match for you. Most
athletes don’t want to go to school in the same city that they grew up in but they also don’t want
to be 1,000 miles away. Do you want that comfort zone where you are not too close or too far
away? Think about what factor location would play in your decision.
Other things to look at when evaluating that potential college is finding a fit athletically. If your
coaches feel that you are a Division II athlete, then chances are probably good that you are. So if
you are looking for a fit athletically, you want to find a school that matches your abilities. Not a
Division I program that you may never make the Conference or the National Championship
team. Finding a fit athletically where you can succeed will help you enjoy your college
experience a great deal.
Academically, you may not know your major early on but think about what you are interested. If
you are interested in engineering and looking at programs that do not offer it or have poor
programs, it would seem to me you are wasting your time.
The next fit you must find is a school that meets what you want socially. If you want to find a
laid back place or a strict school, these are available all throughout the country. Would you be
more interested in a military academy or a party school? Think about what you want to
accomplish at the college level. This could help you find that match…and yes, this information is
all readily available!
After you have narrowed it down to a location, start looking strongly at the athletics offered.
Think about what schools may be of interest for you and fit the criteria you are looking for.
Really take some time and write out what you are looking for in a potential school. Then once
you get to that website and research your options, you will not just be surfing websites. You are
finding potential fits for you at the college level. Chances are good that you will spend four or
five years of your life there so focus on what you want in your future college.
One note that I want to make that could throw a wrench in all of this matching is if a school that
doesn’t match what you want offers you a scholarship. What should you do then? That is a tough
question to answer because having no student loans is pretty awesome!!! But let’s be real, I
would not go to a school for free that does not offer what I am looking for academically. Having
student loans are better than going into a field you are not interested in.
You will play athletics for the next four or five years. Your academics will help you find a job
for the next 40 plus years of your life. So think about it carefully when accepting a scholarship
just because it is a scholarship. It may be tough to turn down money to play a sport you love but
you need to find a school that is a good fit for you overall.
The third step to earning an athletic scholarship is to market your child to the college coaches.
What you will need to do is delve further into these university websites and onto their athletic
pages. If you have done a good job researching them, you will have already seen the athletic
pages and what the school has to offer in sports. Now you will be going to the page on a mission
to find an email address of the swim coaches. Email all of the coaches and send them your
snazzy profile!
The main area you will be looking for on the athletic site is the staff directory. This has email
addresses from everyone in athletics, including the AD, coaches, compliance officers, and sports
information directors. One thing to look out for is many coaches do not have their email address.
Instead, they have a secretary’s email address listed that is the default email for all coaches. If
this is the case, then you want take a different attack than if you have the coach’s email address.
If you have the email address of the coach, you will want to write an email introducing yourself,
your son or daughter, and including the athletic recruiting profile that you have already put
together. This is an introductory email that should be short and to the point. Say a little bit about
your child and that you have researched schools and this program is one you are interested in.
Keep it very friendly and offer to do anything to help them in the recruiting process, but please
keep it short and to the point.
If it is the email address of a secretary, email this person with an intro email about your child,
and let them know you would like to email the coach. Try to send the profile directly to the
coach instead of through the secretary. Obviously not all coaches are going to respond but they
should at least email back saying something like they will get back to you. That is the polite
thing to do but does not happen in all cases. When emailing coaches, I would try to keep some
sort of log to know which ones you have and have not emailed. If one coach doesn’t get back to
you in two weeks, it may be best to try another coach at the school. You could also try calling
and speaking with the coach as well.
This is just the first step to marketing your child to coaches. From here, every time your child
does a best time I would follow up with each coach and insure they are updated. You want to
build a rapport or a relationship with the coach. If the coach is evaluating 3 backstroke recruits
and they all have the same level of performance, they may migrate towards the one they know
best…that’s going to be you! If your club coach thinks that are highly skilled you will want to
send a video clip of one of your races to the coach so they can see you swim.
So there you go, three easy steps to manage the recruiting process all by yourself without hiring
people like me (even though you would not be disappointed!) to do all of the work for you. We
are talking about recruiting for university and college swimming, we are not talking about
football, basketball or any of the other sports. Our sport is more simple, you do not have to put
together highlight videos, make your own websites etc. You follow the above 3 steps diligently
and you will have some success.
World Swimming Prospects Ltd. has the resources to do all of the work for you so you can focus
on other important areas in your life and your child can focus on school and their training. We
offer a very specific recruiting service for swimmers that is affordable and effective. If you want
to have a no-nonsense chat about recruiting, give me a call, would love to talk to you! My blog
page, which you can access from the website will have some useful information to help you with
the recruiting process and also help your child with training and technique tips to improve their
performance (check out the awesome video on the analysis of the track start using force plates!).
All the best for the 2010-2011 season!
Kevin Anderson
President
World Swimming Prospects Ltd.
Ph: 1-403-389-7936
Email: GetMeRecruited@worldswimmingprospects.com
Web: www.worldswimmingprospects.com