College Recruiting Is Hard. Managing It Shouldn’t Be.

For the better part of the last 20 years, college soccer recruiting has been part of my life. I spent 10 years as a college coach and recruiting coordinator, evaluating players, watching showcases, communicating with families and building recruiting classes. Since moving to the other side of the process, I’ve helped more than 500 players and families navigate their own recruiting journeys.

Having experienced recruiting from both sides, I’ve learned that every player’s journey is different, but many of the challenges families face are remarkably similar. Most aren’t struggling because they aren’t putting enough effort into recruiting. In many cases, they’re spending far too much time trying to manage everything that comes with it.

Families are being asked to manage too much

The players I work with are already busy. They’re students and athletes who train several days a week, travel for games and showcases, keep up with school and still need time to be teenagers. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, they’re also expected to figure out college recruiting.

That means:

• Researching schools and building an appropriate school list
• Finding accurate coach contact information
• Sending emails and managing follow-ups
• Updating highlight videos and player information
• Finding and evaluating ID camps
• Understanding NCAA rules and important recruiting dates
• Tracking conversations and knowing what to do next

Parents want to help, but most are going through this for the first time too. Before long, there are spreadsheets, notes, saved links, calendars, email threads and information coming from different places.

I’ve had hundreds of conversations with families who are doing all of those things and still aren’t confident they’re doing the right things at the right time. They aren’t necessarily looking for someone to take recruiting over for them. Most just want to understand the process, know what matters and feel like they have some control over it.

That’s what immediately interested me when Justin and Jill first told me what they wanted to build with HustlPlay. They had experienced the same frustration as parents, and I had watched it happen over and over again with the families I worked with.

There should be one place to manage recruiting

There are plenty of recruiting resources available. Families can find college databases, player profiles, email tools, calendars, recruiting services and websites explaining NCAA rules. The issue isn’t that none of those things exist. The issue is that families are still responsible for piecing everything together and then figuring out how to use it.

That’s the void I believe HustlPlay can fill.

I want a player to be able to open one workspace and understand where she is in her recruiting process. Her target schools should be there, along with her coach communication, videos, upcoming ID camps and showcases, important recruiting dates and the things she needs to do next. Her family shouldn’t need three spreadsheets and six different websites just to understand what’s happening.

Communication is a good example. I absolutely believe players should personally communicate with college coaches. What I don’t believe is that a player needs to spend three hours before every showcase copying and pasting essentially the same email 40 different times. HustlPlay can help her write her message, personalize it appropriately for the coaches and schools she wants to contact, and organize the communication that follows. The player still owns the message and the relationship. We’ve simply removed a lot of the repetitive work around it.

The same idea applies throughout the platform. Important recruiting dates can already be part of a shared calendar alongside camps, showcases and visits. Videos and player information can stay organized in one place. Families can build and manage their school list instead of continually recreating it. Recruiting guidance can be available when questions come up instead of requiring another search through Google or social media.

None of those things make recruiting easy, and they’re not supposed to. A player still has to perform, communicate, make good decisions and find programs where there is mutual interest.

What we can make easier is managing everything around those things.

That’s an important distinction for me because I don’t want HustlPlay to recruit for the player. I want it to give her more time and a better structure to recruit for herself. If we can give a player back an evening she would have spent sending emails, help a family understand what’s coming next or keep an important follow-up from getting lost, the technology is doing what it should be doing.

What I hope to share here

One of the reasons I’m excited about HustlPlay is that the platform gives us another opportunity to help families better understand recruiting, not just organize it. Every couple of weeks, I’ll use this space to talk about the things I’m seeing and the questions families are asking me every day.

We’ll get into things like:

• Building a realistic school list
• What college coaches actually want in an email
• When and how to follow up
• Deciding which ID camps are worth attending
• Building an effective highlight video
• Understanding genuine interest from a college program
• Navigating the changing recruiting timeline
• Understanding the role parents should play along the way

Some of that perspective comes from the 10 years I spent recruiting players as a college coach. Just as much comes from the work I’m doing now and the conversations I’m having every week with players, parents and college coaches. Recruiting continues to change, and part of my job is helping families understand those changes without making the process feel even more complicated.

After helping more than 500 families navigate recruiting, I don’t think most families need more recruiting noise or another person telling them there is only one way to do it. They need good information, a process they can understand and the tools to stay organized enough to make good decisions.

That’s what I hope to provide here, and it’s a big part of what we’re building with HustlPlay.

AP