The She Plays Flag Podcast

5 College Coaches Explain Flag Football Recruiting

• Matt Mashburn • Season 1 • Episode 14

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High school flag coaches, players, and families - This is the episode you've been waiting on!

In this special Southern States Athletic Conference (SSAC) recruiting roundtable, I joined five college flag football coaches to discuss what flag football recruiting really looks like, what coaches are actually evaluating, and how athletes can improve their chances of finding the right college fit.

Featuring:

• Seth Berkebile – Wesleyan College
• Emerson Joseph – Reinhardt University
• Zack Desmarais – Life University
• Sheldon Miller – Brewton-Parker Christian College
• Shaka Long – Point University

Topics include:

• How the college recruiting process works
• When athletes should begin communicating with coaches
• ID camps, showcases, and recruiting events
• Highlight film mistakes and best practices
• What coaches look for beyond athletic ability
• The importance of character, culture, and coachability
• Scholarship realities and choosing the right school
• Advice for athletes and parents navigating recruitment

This episode provides a behind-the-scenes look at one of the fastest-growing opportunities in women's sports.

She Plays Flag exists to educate, advocate, and grow girls flag football by connecting athletes, coaches, and leaders across the game.

Introduction

SPEAKER_05

Alright, hey everybody, welcome to the She Plays Flag Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Matt Nashburn, and today we have a very special episode. We are at the Southern States Athletic Conference. This is an annual meeting, and we've got some flag coaches here with us to talk about recruiting at the college level for women's flag football. So let's just introduce ourselves. Seth, you want to start us off?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I'm Seth Birkabal from Wesleyan College. This will be our first year with flag football competing this upcoming 26-27 year.

SPEAKER_00

My name's Emerson Joseph. I'm over here at Reinhardt University. This will be the fifth year of the program, and this will be my first year as the head coach here.

SPEAKER_03

I'm Zach Demaris. I'm the head flag football coach at Life University. Just finished our third season, so next year will be our fourth year having a program and my fourth season as the head coach. I'm the second head coach they've had, but I've been around for all the seasons.

SPEAKER_02

I'm Shelby Miller. I'm from Bruton Parker Christian University. This is year two of our program. Last year was our inaugural season. Happy about moving over to the SSAC. Looking forward to year two.

SPEAKER_05

Where is that? Where's your parker?

SPEAKER_02

Uh it's in Mount Vernon, Georgia. Yeah, so it's in between Macon and Savannah.

SPEAKER_05

If you wouldn't mind, just kind of give the listeners an overview of your recruiting calendar. So let's start with the calendar and talk about timing throughout the year.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so at this point, and I think there's you're at different spots depending on your your program and where you're at. At this point, and again the first of June, I pretty much wrapped up my recruiting class of 2026. There may be somebody that comes out of nowhere

:xx Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_03

from a transfer standpoint, but they really have to stand out at this point. So at this point, I start transitioning, kind of kind of take a little bit of downtime and get to understand

Meet the Coaches

SPEAKER_03

the 2027 class and who we're looking for at this point. But I probably won't even jump into that fully until maybe August when a lot of the kids come back to school. So at this point, if I if if we have any kind of recruit camps I can go to, I may go to something like that. But because the season just finished and it was a long season and we've been going since for us since October nonstop. I for me, I'd much rather uh be at home with my family, just get some downtime there, and then you know, kind of figure out who's who's a big deal in the 2027, who's gonna be able to help us out in the future.

SPEAKER_00

I think it kind of determines um like what's your needs and stuff like that. Because me, uh I've still I'm still recruiting. I know Zach said something about ending on June 1st, but I'm I'm still recruiting because I have I've taken over a new program. Not a new program, I'm taking over a program and I gotta kind of like clean up some stuff there. So I gotta probably recruit more than him.

SPEAKER_05

So the reason I ask is because the the NCAA Division I FBS tackle football recruiting calendar is a big thing. College Coach is always talking about the recruiting calendar, what you can do, what you can't do, that sort of thing. So I'm wondering, is that similar?

SPEAKER_04

Is it similar at NAI and yeah, we we've just

Understanding the Recruiting Calendar

SPEAKER_04

transitioned from NCAA Division III specifically, but um the the recruiting calendar for NAI is not anything like NCAA. Um you know, we don't have to wait till June 15th after their sophomore year to reach out to them. Um we don't have like dead weeks and things like that that NCAA has. Um so that's kind of the advantage in recruiting, I think that we have from NCAA is that you know for us it really can be year-round, it can start early, it can, you know, there's there's a lot, there's a lot less restrictions on us for recruiting.

SPEAKER_02

I'll kind of add to what you were saying. This the recruiting calendar is totally different for division one, division two, division three, NAI. One thing that I like about NAI is is there's not a contact. There's not a contact period. We can contact you whether you're in the eighth grade or whether you're in the 12th grade, it doesn't matter. Um there's there's no contact restriction. So one thing that that I will say for families with with with athletes in general, not just female athletes, but um NAIA is probably right now it's probably the purest level as far as is once you get up into bigger level stuff, you know, a lot of money, a lot of things start factoring into that. Uh at NAIA level, it's pure to it's still pretty pure. Um so uh it it it is a it's a my recommendation for for families is don't overlook NAIA programs. The the the NAIA depending on the institution structure can can be very competitive as far as scholarship money, uh as far as what they can do for your for your student athlete, you know, and and I think that that is it's it's been so coming from the tackle football world, having having kids go play at different levels and having sons that play at played sports at the collegiate level at different levels, um it's overwhelming for for families sometimes. Um and I've always said this in while I was, you know, for the past year or last year before last, I got hired on, so I had one whole year to recruit, to bring in for my season last year. And and one thing I told the families that came in and talked to me is hey, look, don't go somewhere based on money. You go somewhere based on what's a fit for your family, um, what what lines up with you spiritually, um, and make sure that that that fits the most important. The money is gonna sort itself out. Um and I just I for me I encourage student athletes, their parents to make sure. I won't talk money with athlete unless they come on campus. You know, they're gonna we're gonna make sure that we're gonna make sure one, that our school is the right fit for them. Um we're gonna make I'm gonna make sure that their family is the right fit for our program. It's not just the student athlete that I'm recruiting, it's the family that I'm recruiting as well. Um so I've got to make sure all of those pieces fit before we talk money. Um so don't get caught up in the money game is one of the biggest things that that um that I throw out to you know to to everybody listening. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03

Nice, nice. Yeah, definitely agree with that. Definitely agree with that. Love getting kids on campus. Yeah, shows it shows a little bit extra like commitment to wanting to be there compared to just you know DMing us on Instagram, hey, we'd love to talk about your your program. It's like well, we get a lot of those, okay? Um agreed, agreed. Um so but when you actually are hey, let's set up a date, you show up to our pro you show up to our school. Um, for us, we like to get girls in the practice. Uh, girls will come in, they'll practice with us with our with our team, so they get to understand the team that we have there already, so they get to you know get a feel for the ladies that are already there competing. They get to get a feel for the coaching style in which which we go about ourselves and how um how practices kind of flow. And then afterwards, we usually with the the student athlete to tour and usually tour with some of our players. Uh and to me that kind of sells it right there, you know. It's like and and I I talk to our girls that are on our team. I'm like, ladies, I I need you to help me with recruiting because these are gonna be your future teammates. Uh so I want to know from you does that person align with what we're about? Or is that student athlete coming on campus, is she just talking about herself the whole time and what great things she's done? Um I want to know, does she seem like a team player, somebody you would want to play with? Um so again, all big things for me talking, it's it's a big full surf. I talk to coaches, talk to our players, uh, and obviously you have to have uh you know good stewardship of yourself over the team and who you're bringing on.

SPEAKER_05

So yeah, yeah, it makes sense. For you guys specifically, this is you know this would be your first recruiting class, right, with this with the program. And Seth, I know you came from the soccer side. How does that how does that do you have to relearn approving a high school kid just because it's a different sport, or how does that work?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I think the toughest part for that was is like rebuilding the network. Like with soccer, you know, I had club coaches and high school coaches that I've built a relationship with, and so now in a different sport, rebuilding, um, you know, meeting the flag, you know, travel team coaches and the high school coaches, and you know, so for me it's been a lot about just getting out and showing face and building relationships with those people to kind of set up these pipelines. But at the end of the day, you know, there's slight differences, but recruiting is recruiting, um, and there's a lot of the same, there's a lot of the same things. Um, you know, you talk about getting kids on campus before you talk about money. You know, I tell recruits like if you go get a job and if you go you know for a job interview, and your first question when you walk in the door is what's the salary gonna be, you're probably not getting that job. Money's always important, but you know, there's fit and you know everything else, there's a lot more important, you know, aspects to it than that. So, um, but yeah, that's I mean, that's what I would say is just learning the landscape, you know, and and the high school five football coaches, at least in Georgia, you know, have been fantastic. Like, there's kids I go see play that I think are good, but you know, I'll reach out to some of these other high school coaches or travel team coaches. I'm like, hey, what do you think of this kid? You know, did you play against him? Um, or they'll reach out to me and say, hey, you know, I saw this girl just committed to your school. She's you know, that's gonna be a good one. And so that's kind of reassuring me as you know we go through this class that I'm like, okay, I've I've I've got some good, you know, I've got some good talent coming in just because I don't know the landscape as well yet.

SPEAKER_00

And the recruiting counter is yours. Um so I mean this will be my first time as a head coach in college. Um so it's it's not nothing too crazy because I kind of learned a lot from my previous, which was as assistant at life, because I kind of played in part of those roles where I was helping with recruiting and stuff like that. So now it's kind of just like getting my face out there and letting them know that I'm the new new guy there. Um, because some people are still reaching out thinking it's somebody else, but I'm like, okay, well, I'm the new coach, I just took over. Um so they kind of had that person to be like, okay, I know who's there now, kind of build that comfort um with them. Um I was able to kind of just go off of what we had, right? We had, I think we had a good group of athletes now, which is kind of bringing in what I want to ship uh as far as just like the culture and stuff. So I reached out to people, talked to their families, FaceTime with them to see and make sure that's somebody that we're good bringing on to help kind of shift the culture in the right direction. Um and then kind of what he said, getting those recruits and kind of seeing like people say, oh, that's a good pickup. Uh that's that's a good like uh fit for the team, which is something that kind of reassured because I was like, well, she might not be the best person, but I think she can find a role on this team, and it depends if she's a leader or things like that. So it wasn't too bad of a transition. So I was super excited. I was like, I was like, okay, who's somebody that I probably came across in the past, maybe that came to our camp that was not committed somewhere? Maybe I gotta reach out to this person because we kind of have that connection already. Um, who's who's 2026s that are that are uncommitted, right? Um, who's maybe some transfers that maybe I've played against that might want to transfer in or something like that? Who can I keep an eye on, right? Um so just things like that where I was kind of having like a like a making my own little recruiting board of okay, this is this is what I want to look for, this is who I want to bring in, this might be people that can help the team. So I was kind of on that like instantly um because the AD, he was like, man, we need we need to recruit. We don't know for sure who's returning, right? Um, but I met with everybody and then kind of had that idea, and I was okay, well, now I gotta get out and recruit, and we have a number goal that we have to meet.

SPEAKER_04

So yeah, I mean, I I think from an athletic director's perspective, just from across any sport, like when you have a coaching change kind of late, I mean, because it was late. It was like you know, right at the end of season. So you're getting that job right at the end of the season, you really don't know what kids are gonna leave because of the coaching change, and so you're kind of like, you know, you gotta come in and recruit your own players, but then also recruit just in case, you know, there's some last-minute departure. So that's you know, I feel for you on that one. At least I had a full year.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I mean, I think the first thing he said was, you're gonna have to call some people because they're they're not sure if they're coming back. And I was like, Well, I'm ready to make those calls because I mean they're there's some good players. So uh I was making those calls, I made sure I scheduled the exit meetings, met with every single person, um, kind of checked to see how they're doing everything like that, and then it kind of helped me because I think they kind of lost the coach before the year started, so they kind of were just like, okay, what's happening next, right? So me coming in is kind of the same thing. Now they have to kind of trust me. So I was like, okay, well, let me get in there and just let them know what I'm about, and hopefully that that's gonna that trust is gonna build over time.

SPEAKER_05

So let's talk about sort of how recruiting works in general. And let's say a sophomore in high school right now, uh, maybe they just finish their softball season and they're getting ready to go into their junior year, second season playing flag football, they're sitting at home, school just got out. What does recruiting look like to that athlete? So is somebody calling you? Are you reaching out? How does that work?

SPEAKER_04

I think the first thing that I would say, um, and I tell this to athletes of every sport, like if you want to play in college, there's somewhere for you to play. Absolutely. Like the amount of you know, people that I reach out to and they're like, oh, well, I wasn't even thinking about playing in college because I don't think I'm good enough. I'm like, there's somewhere for you to play. It's you know, the the biggest factor is like, is it a school that you want to go to? Is it the right fit? Do they have your major? Like all that stuff is important, but like don't count yourself out because you feel like you're not good enough. Um But I think you know, going into like your junior year, I mean, I think this is when kind of the I would say like this is the marketing phase where you start to market yourself. You you're posting highlights on social media, you're creating those highlight clips, you're getting film from your coaches, um, you're going to as many ID camps as you can. Um, you know, one of the things I always tell athletes, like even in flag football is here now, like these recruiting headhunters and recruiting companies, I mean, they're, you know, they start early. They're not gonna miss a moment to make a dollar. So, you know, save that money that you're gonna spend on a recruiting headhunter that's gonna just spam your information out to coaches. That's not what I mean. I'll speak, I can only speak for all of us, but I can assume that's not what any of us want.

SPEAKER_02

No, are looking at.

SPEAKER_04

Right. And so

How Athletes Should Start the Recruiting Process

SPEAKER_04

save that money and use it to go to ID camps. Yes. Um, because that's the best way that we get a feel for you. Um, you know, even you know, with highlight tapes, and we'll get more into that, but you're putting your best in a two-minute highlight tape. I still want to see how you react when you drop a pass or when you throw an interception, or we see that at ID camps. So um just getting your name out there, marking yourself, going to as many of the established camps as you can. Um, you know, there's also a lot of showcases in ID camps popping up that are just money grabs that are organized really poorly. Um, you know, and we won't name any names, but like, you know, you're paying 250 bucks to go to a camp that you know, maybe there's one college coach at is, you know, that kind of stuff is a trap. I think going, we I mean, we all host ID camps on our campus. I think that's the best way to do it is make a short list as a junior. These are the 10 schools that have what I'm interested studying or are a good fit for me as a person, and then when one of their ID camps, go to their ID camps and just start there. Um, I think that's the most that's what I would say.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, piggybacking off of what what you said that that is true. The the the starting point for a student athlete is you sit down with your family. All right, these are the schools. Okay, these are the schools that that offer what I'm looking for, they offer the sport that I'm playing, and then fill out their questionnaire. Every college has got a recruiting questionnaire. Fill it out. It's coming straight to the coaches. It's not a spam email, it's coming straight to the coaches. Look at it, have your huddle link on there, have whatever highlight link. If if you can play, we're gonna find you. You know, and by doing that, um I seen kids waste so much money going to paying God knows what kind of money to go to camps. If a camp costs more than 40, 50 bucks, they're taking your money. That's just it. I mean, ID camps, I know I my my ID camps, 40 bucks. Zach's is probably about the same, maybe a little more.

SPEAKER_03

About 30.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, or that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. Like I put on, I put on, and that's you know, it runs like the cost of things. Yeah, I put on free ones, and it's almost I get to a point where a lot of people sign up and I only have about half of the people show up because it's a free camp. So that's why it's almost uh for me at least, hey, I'm gonna charge $30 because I'm gonna get a commitment there. Yeah, absolutely. And again, it helps for planning purposes, trying to you know figure out what's going on with you know how you're gonna go about the camp. So yeah, right there with you. Uh, ID camps at this at the school that you're at is a big deal for us. I get I think I get a majority, if not all, of my girls that have been a part of an ID camp that I've been at, uh, or the ones that I've thrown at Life View.

SPEAKER_05

So for just as an aside for those listening who don't know, what is an ID camp?

SPEAKER_02

So for like for us, we've got one coming up as a as a matter of fact. Um you just so my my camp, we're gonna run you through drills. We're gonna get a 40 time, we're gonna get shuttle time, uh, we're gonna do some uh we're gonna do some position specific drills. If you're a receiver, you're gonna catch passes. If you're a DB, you're gonna cover passes, quarterback, you're gonna throw, center, you're gonna, you know, all the things. Um and then it it's just it's just a waste. Plus, you're gonna get a tour of school. Uh, and then, you know, it's a half a day, you're gonna get a t-shirt, and then you know, you're out of there. Um, and that gives us the opportunity to get your height, wingspan, you know, those types of things, and then and then meet you, potentially meet your family.

SPEAKER_05

Um and that's and that's important. You said the the height and measures and all that sort of thing. Yeah, because it's verified by the coach, right? It's not, I mean anybody can take their measurement and six two on a good day.

SPEAKER_02

That's the first question I ask when somebody's you know, if if a player reaches out and says I'm 5'11, I'm calling the coach. I'm like, is she 5'11? Or is she 5'9 and just got 5'11? Yeah. We all do that. Yeah, everybody does. Everybody grows two inches on social media. 5'11 and 5'9 are great and flag, I think. But what I'm saying is, I don't want you to say you're 5'11 and you're 5'5, right?

SPEAKER_05

The ID camps or running them at at your university.

SPEAKER_04

At your university.

SPEAKER_05

Um, and those those are your if that's your camp.

SPEAKER_04

I think a I think a showcase is typically like hosted by an organization that coaches come to. ID camps are typically at your institution. I mean, for us,

What Are ID Camps and Showcases?

SPEAKER_04

it's similar to that. Like we charge 50 bucks, and that pretty much covers your shirt and your lunch. So, like, we're not we don't make money off that ID camp. Now, we had one in January, I had like 55 girls sign up for it, and there was a little rain, and but then at the end of the day, like 12 people showed up. Which, so I think that's you know, on the flip side, like we're trying to make it affordable because we're not we're truly not trying to make money off of it, but I bet if I charge $150, they would all show up. Yeah, so it's like sign up, register for an ID camp, but then show up, especially if we're trying to help, we're trying to help the sport grow and make it affordable. I don't want cost to be a barrier for anybody. But then if if it's we're always getting you know big registration, like Zach said, he's hosting something for free, and then it's impossible to plan. I mean, for we had 50 girls registered. I started calling buddies of mine who coach high school flags. I'm like, I need more help running these position drills for 50 girls. I bought, you know, put in a second order of t shirts, and then they don't show up, and I got like 10 coaches here, and like We got 20 girls and I'm like one-on-one coaching though. That's pretty good. Yeah, that's it's good, but you know, so on the flip side of that show up. But yeah, I think the ID camps, you know, for us, drills, scrimmages, if we have the numbers for it, and then campus tour, lunch, meet with for us, we use other athletes because we don't have a team yet. So they get the student perspective. And then our president is extremely involved in athletics. Um, she's a huge supporter of ours, so she comes to our ID camps and she'll talk to you know the athletes that are there and mingle with the families and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, our goal is to roll out the red carpet and also identify kids. I mean, I think for us, like two events that all of my 2026 class came from is the the Falcon showcase that was in August and RID camp. That one it was at Mercedes-Benz. I think it was run really well. They had we got all the contact information for all the people that were there. We got to stay around afterwards to talk to them. Um so I think that it was just it was run well. They made it easy for us to recruit at that, and it was huge. I mean, it was like 200 people. 200 people there. Yeah. And a lot of them were sophomores, juniors, and seniors. So um, you know, sometimes we go to these showcases and they're like 80% of the kids there are like seventh and eighth graders.

SPEAKER_00

Which is I think you just went to one. Um yeah, I was uh uh I went to the Up Next and it was in Columbus, and I mean it was a good show. I think it was like over probably like 80 close to there. Um but then there was like 2020 2030s uh introducing themselves, which is a good thing, right? Introducing themselves, but then it was like kind of like okay, well, now we're kind of getting prepared for 2027s and stuff like that, so it's just as a 2030, you want to just make sure you introduce yourself and kind of get yourself in the system of okay, well, coach knows who I am. Um but I think when it comes back to the ID camp, I think the big thing is answering their questions because I know a lot of recruits kind of ask questions like, okay, what's your coaching style like? Um, what's the school like? What's this? What's that? Um so kind of when you get in those camps, they're seeing how you're coaching. They're seeing, okay, these are the drills I want you to go through because this is what I'm looking for. I'm looking how you change direction. I'm looking for how fast you can, how fast you can run. So those are answering those questions of a coach. This is what the coach is looking for. So we make sure that we kind of put those into our drills. Um, and then the school itself, right? Let the school sell itself, right? Okay, well, this is what the school has to offer, and then you're asking, okay, what's the school has to offer? So kind of just going to those ID camps to kind of get those questions answered. And then it helps you kind of go through that process, right? If you have a list of 10 different schools, then you can kind of eliminate and be like, okay, well, this school has this, which I really liked, and maybe I can keep this one on the list and then go from there. So I think just answering those questions, um, getting yourself out there, getting yourself in front of the coach, because if it's something you want to be a part of, the best way to do it is to let the coach see you in front. So I think that that's the importance of those ID camps, and I think that people more people should really take those serious.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, yeah. Okay, um, so we have a brand new uh guest here. So if you don't mind, coach, if you just introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_01

Hello, I'm coach Shockalong, uh, coach at Point University, uh, West Point, Georgia. And this is Point University's going on their fourth year in existence.

SPEAKER_05

So why don't you just give us a quick look at what your recruiting year looks like, sort of timing-wise, and when you're doing what, when you're starting to look, when you when you're down, all that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01

Honestly, um I do it 24-7, honestly. Like if I'm not um, if I'm at the house, I'm doing, I'm just I'm on Instagram, I'm watching games um online, so uh I constantly look, you know, just to see. Um but um nine times out of ten is like right now, I'm going after 27 hard now. So uh so I start in the summer mostly like for the next year. So but whatever comes to my face and I'll see, and I like what I see, then uh I might contact you.

SPEAKER_05

So on the camps, I just want to touch on that again. So you got the ID camps, the various schools, you've got your these showcase camps, then the stuff that the NFL teams do that might fall under that showcase umbrella. How are families to kind of evaluate that? Every single day you go on Instagram and there's 20 different posts about a new camp, a new showcase, whatever. If I'm a parent, how do I look at it? I can't go to all of them.

SPEAKER_04

I I think one thing, if the information is available, is like how many people are they gonna let register for this camp? If it's unlimited, I've been to I've been to camps where it's there's 300 kids there and there's six stations, and you do a rep and then you go to the back of the line, and then you gotta wait like 10 minutes to do the next rep. So I think you know, and knowing what college coaches are gonna be there. A lot of camps will advertise that. Like when we register for a camp, they'll put our logo on it. One, it's gonna help them, it's gonna help them get more people to register. Um, but that's you know, the the more camps you can go to, if you're going to a showcase where there's gonna be a lot of college coaches there, the better your chances are of getting recruited if there's a lot of people there to see you.

SPEAKER_03

I would say like again, each coach and program are at different places, right? You have first-year programs that I think are really recruiting hard to get girls in their program, so they're looking for more they're looking for more players compared to a year three, year four program. We're just kind of looking for a few to add to our roster because we're not looking for 20, 30 girls, right? I'm looking for eight to ten, right, in that class, and that's including with transfers. So um it's a it's a shorter amount of uh the list is shorter

Choosing the Right Camps and Events

SPEAKER_03

for us uh when you get to that point. So, and for me, uh you know, I'm also a full-time teacher, so doing full-time teaching on top of full-time coaching, uh, I can't go to every single camp, so I have to pick and choose which ones make the most sense. Uh, so that's why the the NFL flag one was is a no-brainer. It's like, hey, you're gonna have 250 kids there. I know it's gonna be run really well, they'll have numbers on the front and back, you'll have a contact list for me. Awesome thing to go to. Uh, and again, want to support the Falcons because they've supported um you know, high school flag and college flag uh up to this point. Um, and then again, ID camps are huge for us, and we host an all-star tournament uh at Life Hue in January from the GFFCA All-Star or GFFCA organization. And um that guy, the coach Bergdorf at McKeetron, does a great job putting together like county teams in Georgia and all 12 teams show up, they play all day long. It's a great time for you know us coaches to watch the girls play, see how they react to things, um, get feedback from other coaches. Um that's a great time to network and get it to get exposure, whether you're a freshman, sophomore, or you're again junior, senior trying to go to college the next year. Um so again, I pick and choose which ones I kind of want to attend because I'm looking for reputation of what they've done, and uh proximity to me is a big deal uh just because of my time uh away from my family and stuff. So yeah, I think that's a is it just work? That's a fair question to ask the person that's throwing the the combine or showcase together who has confirmed that they are coming to this. Um and some girls just want to go to things just to get work in and have and just to play. And I I totally respect that. Hey, look, I just want to I want to stay active, and this is something going on. College coaches may be there, they may not, but I want to go just because I want to be active. Maybe I can get some some clips from that and share on social media. Uh again, more than welcome to to do that. That may be smart, just again get that networking and get your your um I don't say your brand, but uh just kind of kind of who you are, and um so that could be a good thing as well.

SPEAKER_04

High school coaches can help with that too, especially if they're coaches like uh like Jacob or McKeacher, you know, or coaches who have been around the game or it you know, pretty invested in it, um, they can help families a lot kind of figure out what tournaments are money grabs or what not tournaments, what events are money grabs and what events are um are actually helpful. But yeah, I think pretty much anything put on by the NFL teams. Um but just yeah, just doing your just doing research. And if you're already talking to coaches, you know, asking them like, hey, I'm going to this event, you gonna be there, you know, that kind of thing, because that can be an easier way for us if I don't have an ID camp until January, but you're going to an event in October, that can be a way for me to come see you and interact with you earlier than I would have been able to. So that's a good point. Um, you know, reaching out to coaches, even if it's your first contact, like, hey, Coach Seth, I'm gonna be at this event. I'm interested in Wesley and I may not have planned on going to that event, but now I will.

SPEAKER_00

I would definitely agree because um, and it's not only just what camps, it's what games do sometimes. Uh, I've had, just like I said, I've just took over the job. So I've had coaches DMing me just talking about, okay, I want you to check out this recruit. Um, and then some of those recruits I actually bumped into at some of those camps that I've been to. Um, so just kind of having that idea of, okay, well, coach let me know that this recruit is somebody to watch for. So now I kind of have that idea of like, okay, maybe I should check, check her out and see it just to make sure that, okay, maybe she's somebody we can use. So I've actually done that, some of the spring games that they've had. I've came out, introduced myself to the team, because I still need to kind of connect and let everybody know that I'm the new guy at Ryan Hart. So that means now they need to know, okay, well, we're interested. Who do we reach out to? Um, what are they about, and things like that. So that's why I kind of kind of get out there and just network with everybody and show face so they know who I am.

SPEAKER_01

Anything like me being a first year uh coach, it was my goal to go to everything, honestly. So if a recruit told me, hey, I'm at this camp, I'm gonna try to get there. They said I got a game, I'm gonna try to be there, because my whole thing now is trying to build connections. Because like uh this year I finished with like nine players. So my whole goal is you know get a roster, you know, a full roster for Titia. So yeah, so that's that's important for me.

SPEAKER_04

Never a bad time to start a relationship. Like always reach out. Like there, I mean, I'll speak for myself. Like if I have a sophomore in high school reach out, hey, here's my film, like I'll watch it, may interact with you, but like, you know, my pool for that class, for this 2026 class is probably 250 kids that I'm trying to keep up with. So I may not be as responsive to like a 10th or 11th grader as I am to that senior class, but being persistent from the recruits part of hey, here's my film. Even if you don't hear back, like just keep going.

SPEAKER_05

If a player reaches out for whatever reason, if it gets buried down in your inbox, you won't see it and don't respond. Uh to that player assume you're not interested.

SPEAKER_01

No, I think they should just keep sending it.

SPEAKER_04

I might miss a lot of it, honestly. I think it depends on what time of the like if you're if you're a senior, and this is true for all sports, if you're a senior and it's December and your goal is to play D1 and you haven't heard back from a D1 coach, you might not be D1 level. Um but like if you're a sophomore or a junior and you've reached out a couple times and you hadn't heard back, it's may not be that we're not interested. It may just be we're getting a lot of that right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I like the the being persistent. Like, continue to send highlights. I mean, uh to me that's I know I I get highlights from girls, and I'm like, I I should respond here, but I I forgot because I'm talking to this girl as well, or my kid needs me and I need to just a quick check-in. Um so be persistent and um again, I I wouldn't send like highlights to all 50 coaches. Yeah, like to me, again, find find those schools that you're really interested in and like do your own research. Like, hey, I want to study uh sports science or sport exercise science. I know you all have it, so this is why I'm interested in your program compared to well, yeah, you know, I want to study um, you know, I want to be a lawyer one day. I'm like, I mean that's cool. We we don't have we don't have that. So this this in the end this wouldn't work unless this is like a one or two year deal, but even then it's temporary. Like you want to find a place where you can you can set some roots and be there, and um so again, that'd be my advice with with some of these girls. Again, if you're DMing somebody, make sure it's a school that you know of, that you've done your research, um, you know, and and kind of go from there.

SPEAKER_04

So yeah, I think you know, I always give the analogy of like you've got to do your research on a school before you reach out, and it

Communicating with College Coaches

SPEAKER_04

needs to be you, the athlete, reaching out. Like, yeah, we're gonna talk to your high school coaches, they might put us on your radar, but we want to hear from you. We don't want to hear from mom, dad, you know, all that kind of stuff. We want to communicate with the recruit. And if if I were to spam out, like let's say I went to a showcase and I just send a spam email to all 200 seniors that were there, and I and it's like, hey athlete, I would love to talk to you. You know, if if you so if you send me an email as a recruit and you're like, hey coach, interested in Wesleyan, uh, you know, I would love to study um forensic science. And it's like, we don't have that. You didn't really do your research or things like that. Like, do the research, it's it's a lot of work. But when we get an email that says, like, hey, Coach Seth, you know, I see that you guys are a women's college and you're all about like building young women into leaders, and that's something I'm really passionate about. Like, that kid will 100% get a response from me, versus the hey, I want to play at the next level. Right, is there an opportunity? Right, like, or God forbid you put the wrong coach's name or the wrong mascot, or that happens a lot. Yeah, that's I mean it happens happens to all of us a lot.

SPEAKER_05

Like, what does good outreach look like? I know you guys have talked about research. What is research uh for a high school athlete looking to get recruited?

SPEAKER_00

Um I would definitely say something that kind of like kind of like relates to your school. Like we have certain um majors that people are looking for, and once they kind of match that major, it's like, okay, well, we do offer at that school, so I can kind of start that conversation up. Okay, well, we do offer it. What are you looking to do with it? Things like that. Um, and then kind of just like taking initiative where it's like, okay, well, I would love to come into your campus. That's something that kind of gives us credibility where they they want to come and actually see what we're about. Um, I know I have people reach out to me about are we hosting any camps? So they want to come to the camps, things like that. So I think things like that right there kind of help us where it's like, okay, well, that that's a good reach out right there. That's a good form of communication to where we know that's kind of not, I mean, it could be general to everybody, but something that I can kind of respond back and back, okay, well, we are hosting a camp in the fall, maybe something you'd be interested in, we would like to invite you. You know what I mean? So it kind of helps carry that conversation on. So it's sad.

SPEAKER_05

I know you talked a little bit about this. What good outreach looks like.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I think um, you know, and when I say research, I really just mean get the coach's name right, and maybe one thing about the school that makes it a good fit for you. It's not, you know, it's not, it doesn't have to be like, oh, I see that Wesleyan was founded in 1836, and that, you know, so I like that's you know not what really the research I'm talking about. It's just making sure you get the coach's name right, and you know, maybe some of their academic programs that you're interested in. Um I'm big on like make the communication as professional as it can be. Like, I I recruit, I understand that like they're in school and then they have practice, so I'm fine with like a text at five or six o'clock at night. But like when I wake up in the morning and you send me a text at like 1.30 in the morning, I'm like, uh maybe not that. Or yeah, or just the way that the way that you're talking to a coach. Like, you know, you start getting into the first text is always like super professional. And then you start talking to them more and more and more. And you know, it's like like, you know, I've had kids that are just like, you know, hey coach, send my will you send my mom this, like the financial aid package. Um, you know, will you set up a meeting with her? You know, it's and just the like the way that you're the way you're speaking. And you know, it really is treat it like a job interview. Like, as much as you're interviewing me to see if you want to come to this school, I'm interviewing you to see if you're gonna be a good fit for this program. Like, it's a lot easier for us to build a good team and to teach you skill than it is for us to build a culture or fix a culture. And so, like, first and foremost, we want good culture kids, and so that starts from the first communication. And when you're using, I hate to I hate to say the word like slang terms, because it's like I'm not that old, makes me sound old. But it's like when you're when you're speaking like this different kind of language, like it's it's you know, for me that's somewhat of a turn off because I want like mature who are gonna be good representatives of the flag football team when they're in class and when they're out in the community doing service projects. I want to make sure that like I'm not worried about what that kid's gonna say or how they're gonna act or things like that. And and I think we do like the recruits got to do research, but we probably do more research on them than they'll ever do on us. And so like we go to their social media profiles and like we're looking into that kind of stuff. I'm like scrolling through this, you know, Instagram, and I'm like, nah, this kid's probably gonna cause me issues. From it from the athletic director's perspective, when one of my coaches, when their player does something on campus and gets in trouble, like I don't call that player into my office. That I call that coach into my office. So at the end of the day, like we have to answer for their actions and their behaviors. And so for us, like we're putting a lot of work in to make sure that this kid is the right kind of person, yeah, like first and foremost. Like, we can teach you to be a good wide receiver, a good quarterback. I can't teach you to be a good person.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so that's somebody else's job. That's a matter of spot on you can be like what I've learned is that the culture of my program is gonna is is a bigger deal than winning and losing the games. If we're we talk about um again, having having a standard which we go about ourselves, and that's not just you know the X's and O's of the game, that is how you go about yourself as a person. Are you showing up early? Are you getting work in? Are you helping your teammate? Are you being a good teammate? You got tell the ladies um you're either on the field or you're supporting somebody on the field. Those are your two roles, right? Um, so and only seven, only seven ladies can be on the field at once. And right now, we've got a roster of like 28, almost 29 ladies coming in for next year. So it's a lot more ladies on the sideline than on the field. And um, you know, I one of the big questions I ask recruits is how are you, how do you deal with adversity, right? So you've you've been the best player on your team at this school, um, which is great, but let's say, let's say game one comes around and you're not the best player anymore, right? Let's say uh Rebecca beats you out and you've got to res you've got to um support Rebecca while she's on the field. Okay, how does that look? Are you gonna are you gonna be the one that kind of sits back and like is talking about Rebecca and being like, say if Coach put me in, I would have pulled that flag. You know, the fifth. So yeah, yeah, I wouldn't drop that ball. You know, um and that's just to me we don't want that. We don't want that in our team. That's has no place that to me the culture of our program goes down at that point, and I'd rather I'd rather just remove you from the team completely. So we for me when I when I think about again that first communication, whether it be an email, Instagram, I think about those ID camps or those camps. Like first communication is you came up to me, hey, I'm so-and-so, it's nice to meet you. I know you're coached to Maris right at life university. It's like, well, I need to remember your name. That's a that's that's impressive. Um I don't care if you're a freshman, I don't care if you're a senior at that point. Uh, the way you just came about yourself and the professionalism you brought is a huge deal for me. I'm like, I don't know who you are, but I need to know who you are. I need to know more about you, right? Um because again, uh you're either going to have the skills to be able to play, and that's something we we assess as coaches. Like, hey, she can do some good things here, I can put you at a linebacker, or I can I can make you a good rusher because you're this. You can't catch well, but I can you know I can put you in this position. Um But I can't again we can't teach the character part, and that is that is a huge, huge deal for our program that I saw again, year one going from year one to year three, uh, just cleaning up the culture of our program and heading in a good direction. And I think that is that correlates with the success of our program. Um so again, I think that's a that's a big deal, something that uh probably goes that not a lot of people talk about again. What kind of teammate are you? Uh and I I I look at that at at at show camps and At ID camps and tournaments. I want to see when you come off the field how you talk to the coach. I want to see even like during like lines, like you know, I'll run a flag pulling line. You know, I want to see how you respond to one of your teammates. You give it high fives to people. Hey, great job. Great job. Good work. Are you picking up the flag, giving it to somebody somebody? To me, that goes a long way with just the kind of person you are. And with that, I can teach you the X's and O's. But that right there, just being a great teammate, that's tough to teach at times. And you learn quick again what kind of what kind of kid you're dealing with. And the coaches are great with that. Sometimes they they kind of you know they fluff some kids up, like, oh look, she's she's worth a great teammate, and then you see some things, you're like, what is she? So that's why it's big for the coaches to like give us give us honesty about your kids.

SPEAKER_04

I also think like you go see that kid playing their high school game or practice with our high school team, they're probably the top dog on their team. Where they come to an ID camp, they don't know us, they don't know them. Like, it's like in a job interview, you're gonna give the best version of whoever's interviewing you for that hour, the best version of you. And at an ID camp, I think we get a lot of times the best version of that kid, but then we go see them in their environment they're comfortable in, and they're the top dog, and now you know, somebody drops a pass, they might react differently than some kid they don't know at the ID camp. So I think both environments are important, but you know, in going kind of back to the communication piece, I think we we can read because we know what to look for, we can read what kind of person you're gonna be based on how you're communicating with us. Like in those phone calls, in those text messages, at the ID camps when they come up, the kids that come tune, you're like, hey coach, you know, shake their, you know, shake your hand, love to come for a visit, you know, versus the kids who you know are kind of can't make eye contact, they're kind of roaming around, they're not, you know, they're distracted, they're on their phone, you know, that kind of thing. I think you know, we can we've learned through recruiting to be able to read past kind of what's right in front of our face, too.

SPEAKER_01

How about you, Coder? What uh in terms of outreach? What's important to you when you just get just get your get the coach's name right, honestly. Like I promise I had a couple emails, it's like uh, and then they had uh I'm interested in, I think it was um, I think it was Ron Hart, Ashley, but they they copied and pasted with other messages. They had switched up the team, the name of the school. So basically just getting your uh getting your stuff right when you uh when you communicate with me. Um honestly um that's why I like to go to um games too instead of like camps. So like I like to pop up. I wanna see how you are, like not your like your skill set, but how you are like on the sideline when things don't go your way. Are you gonna be one of those ones that power, you know, just be aloof on the sideline, or you're gonna still be interacting with your team.

SPEAKER_04

And they don't know you're gonna be there, so they can't pre- Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

That's why I like to pop up. So um so if I know as a recruiter I won't, and I was like, okay, let me see. All right, this game is Thursday, I'm gonna try to pop up and I'm gonna just see, I'm gonna sneak in and see how it is. So uh that's that's my most approach, uh, my favorite approach instead of camps, but I like camps as well. But I think I get a full picture of you at a game, it's game settings. So that's because that's everything. That's everything.

SPEAKER_05

I mean you're off the field.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. I think one of the best parts about high school fight football, and like a lot of sports coaches in college level are really just recruiting from the travel team, club teams. But the high school level, because most of the time there's three schools playing at one site, it still is a good recruiting tool for us. But like I may go to a a game to watch this kid play, but I'm gonna go for all three games. And so like I tell high school athletes, like every game you play in, think that there's a college coach up there watching you. Because I've gone to watch this athlete play, and then I see a kid on the other team, I'm like, I need to go talk to her after the game. But if you know, if she was wasn't prepared to be recruited that night, you know, you I don't you never know what you're gonna get. So I like I always say like every single game, like know that there's a possibility there's somebody in the stands, you know, coming to watch you at the show.

SPEAKER_03

I wouldn't watch uh three-game series. One was it was Pope and Spray Berry, and then another team. That's it's not good that I don't know the other team, but that's for regardless. Uh I was there to see again one girl from Pope and one girl from Spray Berry. And I was like, you both playing each other, that's awesome. Um I ended up, I didn't get either either of those two girls, but I got two other girls from Sprayberry because they stood out and they went about their business the right way, and they uh they ended up showing interest in Life U. They came to ID camp, came to a practice, like the whole process went from not knowing who you were to you did pretty well on the field, to you showed up to our school, um, gave you a tour, found out you were a great person to be around, and a good teammate based on uh you know a tour and things like that. Because they happened to be playing poke that day. They happen to be playing poke. And again, I you know I hate that again. I'm gonna go see better teams because I you know I want girls to be a little bit more polished when they come in. Um and again, I think when you play better teams, you get to see a little bit more of like how they deal with adversity because you're probably gonna deal with more adversity when you play higher competition. Um so again, that's a big deal for me when you see again some of the better teams in high school play. It's like I kind of want to see them because they've got again, should be good players, but if they're playing a school that I'm not really familiar with this school, but I'm gonna watch them and see how see how they go, uh how they do. Uh again, you kind of get a diamond in her rough there. It's like, ooh, she stands out. Number nine, I need to talk to her, or I need to put her on my radar because I like the way she she did, she went about herself. Uh, again, high character person, just I just by watching her play. Um until I landed uh one of our players from last year. I had no idea this girl existed, went to the playoffs, and she won in the first round, and I was like, man, number I think it was number one, might have been number nine. And uh she had to play in the second round. I was like, you better watch out for number nine. She is she's all over the place, and ended up ended up signing her and had not knowing who she was before that day. Yep, yep. So those kind of things happen.

SPEAKER_04

Um so I think like don't count on it happening organically or by chance, but it can happen by chance. Like if you're just sitting around like playing your games and you're like somebody's gonna come in here one night and I'm gonna impress them, like you're you're leaving a lot on the table. So like don't plan on it happening that way, but it certainly does happen that way a lot. And like I'll when I talk to recruits and you know, I'm gonna come watch them play a high school game. I want to come watch them play the hardest team that they're possibly gonna play. So, like for high school coaches, like schedule your non-region games against good teams because especially, and it's not I'll just use quarterback as an example, but like I don't want to come see a quarterback play in a game where she's gonna throw for 300 yards and five touchdowns and two rushing. Like, I want to come see how she responds when she throws her second interception. I want to see if she can throw to her receivers against the best cornerbacks in the safeties in the state, like winds blowing at 30 miles an hour. Right, because you, you know, we're like you're there's you know, you might be the best player on your team when you get to college. Everybody on your team was also the best player on their team. So I gotta see you play against the best. I don't want to come see you blow out some team that you know doesn't know what they're doing.

SPEAKER_05

Now, can you can you see are you can you see best on best at the high school level, or do you need to go to uh club for that?

SPEAKER_03

I mean I think you can see best on best in high school. There's I think a lot of great established high school teams now, and uh they're playing each other in the regular season, and um, you know, for me, again, the local schools I'm able to go check out and go watch a you know a three-game series, and it's not a big deal because they're they're playing good competition. Um it gets a lot like I like the idea that uh Georgia, I think they're going to for GHSA, they're going more towards all like the state championship games are gonna be that same day, which is like, man, that's gonna be a day that everyone needs to show up, it's gonna be awesome. But um again, you start to get into the deeper rounds of the playoffs, and it's just you got really good teams playing each other, and you get to see how girls react, and and again, you get to watch good flag football, and um again, you you see a lot from girls and what they're able to do and how they handle themselves.

SPEAKER_04

So I think the the showcase or the tournament that Zach was talking about that Jake hosts at life, you know, with kind of the county teams, because I you know, we can go see best, it's really easy to go see best on best, go up to the Atlanta area and watch, you know, Pope and you know, all those schools up there that are really good. But there's girls, you know, that we've got coming in this year that are from teams that aren't very good, but she's just like you know, a diamond in the rough, and is you know, she just unfortunately lives in the middle of nowhere with a small school, you know, whatever. So I think for those kids, um unfortunately they just have to market themselves even more. But I would honestly argue that you probably have a better chance of seeing best on best at a high school game than you would in a club game because the club scene is like it's getting so watered down because whoever's dad can just pop up and start a team and go to a tournament, and you know, it's there's not it's not super organized on that side yet. So I think you do see the best of the best at the high school level.

SPEAKER_05

So I'm gonna circle it back on the communication. Um tell me about highlights. What are some best practices of players for their highlights? What's good and what's not good.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah. Um go ahead. So uh the the biggest thing, um, and I actually learned this when I was actually um, because I actually coached in college for a little bit at FIU. Um, it's you want you want to put a lot of your big stuff first, right? Because we're not watching, we're not watching highlights for for three, five minutes. You know what I mean? We want something that's gonna catch our attention like just like that. Um so like definitely putting some of your biggest plays and kind of putting in a sequence where it kind of like graps our attention. Where it's like, okay, she had a big catch. Okay, she had an interception, okay, she she had a big flypull. So it kind of like seeing how she's versatile when it comes to like she can do a lot of different things. Um so definitely that clarity, um, making it making sure it's clear, because sometimes we're like, okay, well, I can't even watch this highlight because I can't see anything. So it kind of forces us to kind of like not give up on it, but it's like, okay, well, I can't even see anything. I don't know what's going on. So I think just making sure it's clear, making sure it kind of catches our attention, um, and then making sure just that it's that we're not just putting anything on there, right? I think sometimes they put something on there. I'm like, well, I mean, I don't know if that's a highlight, because I've seen a lot of different things. So it's like, okay, what am I putting on my highlight tape? What does it look like? Does it is it clear for coach to see it? Um, am I showing like what I can do? You know what I mean? So there's all those different factors when it comes to just kind of putting together your highlight tape, which I would say sometimes they might need to reach out and kind of get an idea of how, like, what are you looking for exactly? Okay, well, this is how I'm gonna kind of put my highlight tape together because I know you want to see this, you want to see that.

SPEAKER_04

So I think they need to understand that like we can we understand the nuances of the game enough that we can tell when

Building Better Highlight Films

SPEAKER_04

the players they're playing against are good, and we can tell if like what they had to do was difficult. Like, if a quarterback throws a 20-yard touchdown pass to somebody who's standing in the end zone by themselves, okay, but like we can also look at a 10-yard slant through a window through a tight window and see like that's more impressive than like that touchdown pass. So, like, you know, kind of being strategic and you know, this was a good play against a good team, we can we can see that stuff. Um I'm big on like the music. I don't like I could care less if there's music on it. Uh, you know, if it's explicit music, like or like like and honestly, and this is just personal, but you know, there's a lot of these like guys popping up that will do, you know, you can pay this probably high school kid 150 bucks to come to your game and make you a personal highlight tape, and you like you know catch a touchdown pass, and then you run over the sideline, you're like haw on the camera, or you know, you're doing like these day, and I'm like, I don't know, man, you seem like the main character kind of person. I don't know. You know, so it's just just show us, just show us what show us what we need to see. Like, we don't need all that stuff. Like, just we just need the clip, we need to know who you are and what you did.

SPEAKER_00

Kind of, I would say more of kind of like how the game runs itself, like you being able to run, you being able to catch, you being able to pull a flag, you being able to cover. I think those are things that coaches are looking for because now we can find a spot for you. Once we know, okay, she can pull flags, um, but she can't catch a football. So we know kind of like, okay, she's gonna be a defender because we can see she can run and pull flags. Um, or it's like, okay, well, she can't pull flags, but she can catch a football pretty well. So now we can kind of put her on offense. So I think just different factors like that of just how the game runs itself, where I can kind of put all those together and be like, well, this is a great play of me pass break breaking up a pass. Right? This is a great play of me pulling a flag. I'm a good defender, so that's how I'm gonna sell myself. It's like so the fundamentals, yeah, the fundamentals of what we look for as coaches. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, I get fired up when I see, again, you got you got about 30 seconds to wow me. If anything past that, it's probably I'm probably not watching any further. Um, but I get I get pretty fired up when I see a defensive player, like I see somebody like laying out and pulling the flag. I'm like, I'm gonna keep watching the next play because that right there got like I'm I can't wait to see what happens next. Uh if it's you know, if it's you just catching a deep ball, I'm like, okay, you can catch. That's I mean that's that's good. Um but I want to see some like energy. I want to see again just uh you take it to the next level for me to continue to watch. And then once I get the if I'm watching clip three, clip four, uh I mean that means I'm like, okay, this is this is somebody that I need to look into. Um and you know, I need to touch base and keep eyes on. It's like I'm 2028, and it's like, okay, well, you know, I'm not looking at 2028 right now, but I've got your name down. And I'm gonna circle back to you. You go to what high school? Per, I know that coach, so uh I'm gonna reach out to him and talk to him. So uh again, I like I said, I think you have 30 seconds to wow me. I like the energy, and man, if they if the the video cannot have an ad to start out with, that'd be fantastic. Yeah, like some of the Hubble accounts, like you they have you gotta watch a 30-second ad to watch their video, and it's like a clip, it's like a single clip. One clip. And it's like, alright, man, I've got I'm gonna move on because of just the inconvenience of this. Like, my time is precious, and I'm I I gotta spend all I gotta watch an ad, then watch another ad, then watch another ad. And then and then I get there and it's fuzzy, and I'm like, you know, I just it sounds silly. It's like, you know, coach, it's 45 seconds. It's like, yeah, but if you do that enough, I I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm just not gonna watch stuff with ads. So yeah, put something together that I, you know, you wow me for 30 seconds to a minute, and then um, you know, let it let it let it play out from there. I may I may want to message you back or I may want to pursue this more. Um but again, if I want to watch ads, I'm I'm I'm probably not gonna watch it.

SPEAKER_05

Put it all together, just give it a watch first. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

You know, I I kind of I feel for some of these, you know, when we had that coach's clinic at Wesleyan, um, a couple of the high school coaches were like, you know, we don't we can't film our games. We don't have huddle cameras, we don't have all this stuff. Um, you know, I feel for those kids a little bit because it does set them back a little bit, but there's a lot, there's also other solutions. Like mom or dad can, you know, maybe stand on the sideline or get like a tripod or something. Like, but kind of what Zach was saying, the amount of highlights that I've seen where it's like, you know, somebody is holding a phone, videoing them, and then they catch as soon as the ball like touches their hand, they're like, ah, the phone starts shaking, and you just hear like a scream, and I'm like, what happened? What happened? I don't know what happened. Get a tripod just like that. Set your phone on it at an angle that can see most of the field and get the clips you get. I mean, there's there's ways to do it, but you know, I've seen a lot of like from um even from the Falcon showcase, I got a lot of highlights where like mom or dad's at the 200 level and they're it's zoomed in like 10 and a half times. And I'm like, which one is you? I don't even know. Yeah, you gotta put the effort into it.

SPEAKER_05

How about you? What are what are you what what stands out for you on highlights?

SPEAKER_01

Um like most of everything they said, honestly. Um, but uh like with some players, they don't put like the look, I can like circle you where you are on like I don't know where you're at. And sometimes they don't like put their number, like what number are you? So, and I try to be patient sometimes, but at some point I'd be like, okay, next one. So that's one thing. And uh, and I do agree with uh put your best highlights first, you know, wow me, you know what I'm saying? But it's but there's a few players, like I had one player, she came to me, but she said she don't have like the greatest of highlights, but she shows effort. So her first play was uh her first play was chasing Hawkeye girl down and snatching her flag before she ran like an 80-yard touchdown. You know what I'm saying? That impresses me too. That means like you show effort, you care. Uh you down, y'all down by like 40 points, but you still going hard. So I like people fly, uh like coach said, diving for flag. That's those ever plays are good kind of plays to put out there too. So um I look for that. That means you're gonna work hard regardless of the situation.

SPEAKER_05

So what represents you as a player, is that fair? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Uh so we just kind of talked about communication outreach to you as coaches, what that looks like, what good highlights look like. Um so let's get kind of a little bit more specific. What kind of things do you look for in high school athletes? So what types of traits do you look for uh physically, mentally, that's kind of that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_04

Um I don't want to give the cliche answer, but you know, we want good kids and all that kind of thing, we do, but uh there's certainly a piece of it that like you know, we want you to hit some marks and you know be a certain speed or things like that. Um but I just I think the biggest thing is like being versatile because you know I tell recruits all the time you may your skill set for your high school team may make you a great safety on your high school team. That skill set probably could transfer differently at the college level. Like you may not be a good safety at the college level, so you may need to be somewhere else. So I think the biggest thing for me is just being versatile. Um it's also gonna help you get on the field more quickly, depending on what our position breakdown on our roster looks like. So if you're willing and you know you have the courage to go try a different position, then you're gonna you're gonna get on the field uh a lot more quickly because we all need, you know, somebody goes down or we need to make a change, and we turn around, I'm like, hey, I need you to go in a corner, and you're like, oh my god, I've never I've never done that. I can't cut, you know, you freeze, then I gotta go to somebody else. Whereas if you're just like, hey, I don't have experience with that, but I'm an athlete, I know the game, coach me up and I'll do it. So I think for me that's the biggest thing is you know being being versatile. Um

What Coaches Look For in Recruits

SPEAKER_04

and you know, I think when we talk about scholarships, we'll talk about you know grades and stuff like that too, but that's something that's important for us.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah because I think again, like a lot of positions like translate over, right? If you can if you can play receiver, probably a good chance you can push it like a DB in because you're gonna be able to catch the ball. Um it's harder to go from like you're a defensive player to an offensive player because again, we we need we need you to catch the ball compared to defense. We don't look if you drop an interception pass, that's one thing. If you drop a touchdown pass, you know that's that's a that's another. Um so for me, I I just look to see the athleticism, like how athletic are you? If you're an athlete and you move really well, I can I can teach you any of the positions I need to put you at. I can put you at linebacker, rusher, DB. Um we can throw you the ball. Uh so me, again, I look for more just how athletic are you. Are you an athlete or are you athletic? And I think there's a there's a difference there. If you're if you're um if you're athletic, that means again, you just move really fast and you're able to get from point A to point B really quickly. Um to me, a skilled athlete is able to catch the ball really well, is able to maneuver their body into a situation where they can set up for a pitch. Um they know how to they know how to use their uh spatial awareness really well. So, uh and some of those things you kind of pick up as you go. But I again I'm looking for if you're a good athlete, then I can kind of mold you into what I need you to do for our team. Um and then with that, you know, for for us, like we we try to be a a two platoon team com versus a you you're playing both ways. Um And I think different programs are at different spots when it comes to that. For us, you know, I want a starting offense and I want a starting defense, and I want all those players to be different. I don't want somebody playing both ways. In the end, if if you're the best player on our team, you may potentially play both ways. And that's a huge possibility, but I try to avoid it as much as I can just because I want my number one offense to go against my number one defense at practice every single day. I think that makes us better. Iron sharp and tired. If I'm having to put my best players on offense and a second-tier defense, my number two defense out there, I feel like, yeah, we're just not getting the best reps we could. And I'd say vice versa with our defense against our offense. So we really try to girls to understand, like, hey, look, if if if I see you as a starting like a good linebacker for us, I need you to buy into that. You know, if if, man, I coach, I played center my entire high school. I went both ways, played, you know, this, this. That's great. Here, it's gonna be different, okay? We're trying to, yeah, you may play receiver, but you're probably not gonna play defense at all. I need you to focus solely on that receiver and be the best receiver you can for us. Uh so again, I think a part of that recruiting, you start to ask the coaches like, hey coach, um, so can I play both ways? Is that something you allow? And some programs they they they support it. They're all about it. I've seen it, they've been successful. Uh other programs are leaning not towards that. So it just kind of depends, again, on talking to the coaches um during that recruiting process. Hey, what's your philosophy on two-way players compared to being like a two platoon team?

SPEAKER_00

So I would probably combine both of those because um I like having versatile athletes that can do multiple things because we might have an opening in a certain spot where it's like, okay, well, um maybe I can move you down a linebacker, right? Can you rush? Right? Okay, now I can I can kind of change my scheme up to kind of fit what you can do. So just having that ability to do certain things like that. Um, but then also coming back to like what he said, kind of having a player where they can focus on one part of the ball and kind of hone in, and you're getting great competition because you have your starting corner versus your starting receiver. So definitely, I would say a little bit of both of those. Um, and then also other things would be, of course, character, effort, um, being coachable. I think buying into it and letting coach just coach you kind of helps, I guess you prevail because now it's like, well, I'm locked in, I know this is my job, and and I'm gonna be all about it, rather than, okay, well, coach has me here, so I'm kind of just like, uh, like, you know what I mean? So I think them buying in and being coachable and just taking all the feedback where it's like, okay, well, I'm gonna make sure that I listen to everything coach says so I get in the best situation I'm in. Um, so just things like that, just being coachable, all those different things I think kind of play a factor of now I can understand, okay, this is what I'm working with, being able to adapt, right? Things might change, right? Things might change, somebody might get injured, being able to adapt and being versatile, where it's like, well, I might not get playing time on defense, right? But now maybe I can come in as a sub on offense because I've been doing what I have to do because I've been getting effort and everything. So a lot of those different factors kind of play in as as far as recruiting goes and kind of dealing, like seeing who you're working with and stuff like that. So question.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, same thing. Um, I really look for versatility. Like I think everybody done said that, but I I love versatile players and speed players as well. Honestly, uh, I think the way I want to run my system is a lot of get the fastest person in open field, right? So um that's what I look for, but other than that, man, it gotta be, they gotta have some character. They gotta um they gotta have that want to for real, they want to play for me. So um so with that being said, um, like with this year that just happened, I I had to play players out of their positions a lot just because of the situation I was in. So um they just really have to, once you buy into the system, I mean, you'll do well. So like um one of my girls, she played corner most of her life, honestly, and I had to move the linebacker. It was an adjustment, but you know, she uh she bought into the system, she did pretty well as a freshman, that was my only freshman actually, but uh she did pretty well. So um so if you just buy into the system and you listen to be coachable, and uh good things will happen out of it, honestly. So um so that's what I really look for versatility, coachability, you know, uh being able to adapt to any situation, you know what I'm saying? So that's what I look for.

SPEAKER_03

And I look I'll speak on uh one of our probably the leader of our program, she came into our school, was a transfer year two, and she was running back, receiver. Um, but I saw, I was like, you know what, have you ever thought about snapping? Because you with the ball, it just would be electric. And she was like, no. So she had to learn how to snap, ended up being our starting center all two years ago, did a fantastic job. Uh this year came around and I got had another girl that never played center before, and um she was a freshman. I was like, hey, you need to learn from her because she was just like you, didn't know the position real well. So started teaching her how to snap. She did really well as a freshman, and we started losing some girls defensively, and I knew my starting center was a good corner as well. She was able to play a little bit for us the previous year. Um and so I was like, hey, look, I've got a center that has been working on it. She's a freshman, but she's got good hands, she gets the ball, she's electric with it. Let's put you at corner because I know you can play corner, be a reliable corner for us. And she just bought into being, again, she went from the starting center year one to year two with us. Now she's starting at center, and now she's at corner playing corner the rest of the year while the freshman uh takes the snaps at center. And um, again, she bought into that though, and she knew look, whatever the team needs, I want to play, and I just want to be on the field. So if you need me at corner, I'm gonna play corner, you're not gonna hear a word out of me. Um, and I'm gonna do the best I can. I'm gonna support the girl playing center right now because she's the center of our team, and and I want to support her and coach her. Hey, look, hey, you remember, quarterback's gonna do this, so you're gonna go this way on this, and absolutely, absolutely, and it was it was really cool to see. Um, and I I think both players had a great season at both of their positions, and uh again, but that's what we look for that coachability, just being willing to trust the coach of like, hey, I need you at this position, do the best you can, lock in here and and and go all for the team. So it was really cool to see.

SPEAKER_04

I think if you had to sum up coachability in one sentence, it would be that like whatever the team needs, I'm willing to do that. If the team needs me on the field, if the team needs me on the sideline, if the team needs me as a backup, I'm willing to do that. Like, that's in my opinion, that's coachable. Yep.

SPEAKER_05

Yep. Which is something that all four of you said was important.

SPEAKER_04

There's a lot, there's a lot of things in my opinion that overshadow talent. Okay, for sure. Like coachability, attitude. You know, they're we were just talking about that before you got in here, like, you know, kids that yeah, they're super talented, but it's not gonna be worth a headache. No. Like you can win, you can win every single game of your season and still be miserable. And you can lose every game of your season and still have a great experience. So it's it's not worth talent, it's not worth the you know, bad attitudes and the toxicity and all that kind of stuff. We have at Wesleyan, we have conference championship trophies from 2003 in a closet somewhere. And when those alumni come back on alumni weekend, they're not like, where's the trophy? Let's go get the trophy. Like, you know, I one of them said, like, when we come back, we don't go hug the trophies, we're hugging each other. So at the end of the day, like you graduate college, four or five years down the road, you're not gonna remember what your record was. You're teammates. Right. So that's I mean, the skill does not overshadow that the negatives at all.

SPEAKER_05

For sure. Let's talk uh a little bit about the structure of the scholarship world that you guys are in. What scholarships you're offering, what you can, what you can't offer, how that fits in with numbers. Somebody talk to me about that.

SPEAKER_04

So I said at the uh high school coaches clinic, I was like, full academic, full ride athletic scholarships at this level. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, we're not giving those, right? Like, we're not we don't have kids coming in that we're like, you know, you're not you don't have to pay anything. Some of them don't end up having to pay anything, but it's a combination. Some every school, lots of schools do it differently. For us, like our you know, FAFSA and academic aid and athletic aid stack. So we operate on like an average. So, you know, we can you get this year academic scholarship, then we can stack athletic aid on top of that. Um and so we work off an average like that. And so for us, like good grades help a lot. One, I can get a if I have a good player with good grades, like I can save a little bit of athletic money on that kid and maybe give it to somebody else so I can build a team around

Character, Culture, and Coachability

SPEAKER_04

them. Um and when I say good grades for Wesleyan, I'm like 3.0 is a good GPA. But when I say good GPA, I'm talking about like 3.5 or above is gonna get you a significant of the way, you know, of your money of your bill covered. Um, you know, I had an athlete this year who was like, I really just, you know, I'm a really good player, these are all my accolades, I really feel like I deserve more athletic scholarship. And I'm like, you do you you do, but if I give you all this, then I've got nothing left to go build it, and then you're gonna be the best player on the team, and we're not gonna win very many games because we only have one really talented player. So I think that's kind of the piece of it too, is like we're all dealing with like making decisions about how much money to allocate you know towards certain athletes that it's a it's a risk for us, a risk for them. So you take care of a lot of that if you have really good grades.

SPEAKER_05

That's interesting because interplay between athletic and academic scholarship dollars, and I think it's something that probably most people don't even think about.

SPEAKER_04

Rightfully so. They're thinking about me and what am I gonna have to pay and what am I getting for all you know this work that I've put in to develop to become this level of an athlete. So I don't fault people for that, but I think it's you gotta understand that we have a limited amount of resources to build the best team we possibly can. And you're 128th of that team. Right, and you're one of that team. So if you're the best player, you know, if I can't bring in good players around you, you're gonna be frustrated that we're not winning as many games.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. What about you, Coach?

SPEAKER_00

Uh it's kind of very similar. Um, we do give academic and athletic scholarships, um, and it depends on their GPA. So the biggest thing back to like the recruiting thing is what's your GPA, right? But what's your GPA? Because that helps you out too when it comes to putting yourself in a better situation. Like, yes, you can be an athlete, but what if your GPA isn't that high, right? You're still gonna end up paying more money because now you're not getting the academic money that you can qualify for. So you might get, okay, you might get a decent athletic scholarship, but it could be more if your academics were correct, you know what I mean? So now it's kind of like understanding that we need to kind of be on point for both fins because now you're gonna get the most money you want. Um, and then understanding that there's other people that we have to kind of build around. So now it's like, okay, well, you came in with uh 3.5 GPA, and that helps us because now we can kind of use that money towards somebody that is a very good athlete that doesn't have a higher GPA. So um, and then just being from, I think being from Georgia helps too, right? Because now we can give you your hope, your your GTA for having that GPA. So now it's like your cost is just like shaving down because now you're hitting all those academic things, you meet all those academic standards, and then now athletically we can kind of back, well, we can kind of help her out now because now she she meets secretarials, and then maybe getting into that second year, it's like okay, well, maybe I can bump your athletic up a little bit because we have more room to work with when it comes to finances.

SPEAKER_04

So yeah, and I'll I'll I just want to say one more thing because I fill out your FAFSA when it opens. Like I think it's like October 1st, it opens. Fill that out. Because at like at Wesleyan, we don't we're not gonna offer an athletic scholarship. We might tell you we're gonna give you one, but we're not gonna tell you what it is until we have your FAFSA and you've applied and we know what kind of academic money you're gonna get. Because I may think, like, yeah, I'm gonna, you know, I need to give this girl 5,000 athletic, but then she gets Hope, Pell, and she's got good grades, and she may be only having to pay $3,000 out of pocket, so I'm gonna give her $3,000 like athletic scholarship. So having all that stuff done October 1st, and then when you're going on visits during your senior year, you submit that code, they get it, packaged, done. Then we can make an even more better, more informed decision on what your athletic money is gonna be. But the amount of kids that I've had that will just DM me on Instagram, hey, I'm interested in Westing, great, love to have you come for a visit. What's the athletic scholarship gonna look like? I'm like, I'm not offering you, I'm not even gonna offer you a roster spot until I sit across the table from you. Like, there I've had plenty of recruits who you know show up and just there, I can tell they're not gonna be a good fit for our team. I'm not offering athletic money and roster spots to anybody who sends me a text. So fill that stuff out. If you really are interested in wrestling, you'll have no problem filling out an application that takes 10 minutes and punching in a FAFSA code that takes 30 seconds so that we can give you that. Like that's step one.

SPEAKER_05

Zach, what do your scholarships look like?

SPEAKER_03

Uh so we work on average as well. Um we have like a total cost of uh to go to Life Hugh is like $28,000, uh, and I've got to be at an average cost uh for my athletic money.

SPEAKER_05

Can you just describe that a little bit? What does that mean? Average cost your scholarship money.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so let's say, you know, let's just use an example. Let's say something costs $30,000 for uh for tuition and fees and to live on campus, so room and board, so the whole complete package is $30,000. Um let's say an average or a discount rate, let's say that is my average rate is let's say 30%. Well that means the average of $30,000, 30% would be $9,000. So that means my average athletic scholarship would be $9,000. So that means if I offer a girl $12,000, that means I gotta bring a girl along, that's $6,000. Okay, right? And it's got to average to be $9,000. So that's the average part that I'm that we talk about, um, or discount rate. So mine is mine's a certain uh mine's a certain discount rate, um, and it costs, like I said, like $28,000 to go to LifeQ. So I've got to build a roster based on that right there, and I can't go over, otherwise I get yelled at, and I don't want to be yelled at. Um so uh so that's what that looks like, and again, so I've not you know I guess I am the one in charge of determining, hey, look, I'm we're gonna offer you X amount of dollars, and that means I gotta bring in someone that might be a little less. Um so you know, you look at to me like, hey, we gotta have a quarterback. You know what I mean? Like that's we gotta have somebody that can throw the ball, and we gotta have people that she can throw too. Uh hey, I need a leader of the defense, so probably this girl, so uh might offer her a little bit more, or uh, but I need some pieces around her, so I need to I need to build around there. So um so that's what it means by like the average uh the discount rate that we look at. So, and again, a lot of the some fact factors that go into that, and obviously you've got to be willing to to play those positions. Like you've got to be got to be an athlete. If I'm offering you a scholarship, that means you've made it through the entire process of like, oh, okay, it is time to do this now. Let's talk about money. Um, but things to help out with that, again, that Hope and GTEG having over 3.0, that's why for me I'm heavy recruiting in Georgia, just because of those extra scholarships. And I always think about the finances. I'm you know, I almost feel bad. I'm like, it's hard to talk to a girl from from another state just because I know you're not gonna get Hope and GTEG, and that's that's money that's left out there. So um it's harder for me to talk to girls from those different states because I know financially it's gonna be a burden, right? Um but some schools are able to get away with it. Like I think about if you're able to offer athletic scholarships based on like merit, like we don't have that at Life U. Uh, so there's no merit scholarships. It is you get you get Hope, you get GTEG, you get Pell, and then athletic money compared to other schools where they get Hope, GTEG, athletic money, Pell, and then they also have a merit system, right? So me and Coach E were just talking about this. Like, I could give a girl $5,000, and he could give a girl $10,000, but then she also gets a merit of another $10,000. So overall, she's getting $20,000 from him. Uh she's only getting five from me. But then when you add all the other scholarships and everything in, she's still paying, she's paying $10 there and she's also paying $10 here. Just because we're a little, you know, when it comes to the price, the total cost to go somewhere. Um, you know, it's $48,000 to go here, it's $28,000 to go here. But I'm probably gonna lose that person because it looks a lot better the fact that they got $20,000 worth of scholarship money compared to me. They only got $5,000. So it's you know, they they kind of see that number and they're like, you know what, they're getting I'm getting more here. I'm like, but you're still paying the same. So what's the difference, right? But again, I think it's uh it's all about how it looks sometimes. And and again, I get that. I get that. Um but um but yeah, and I would say I would recommend uh again if you don't have over a 3.0 in Georgia, I would really highly consider the JUCO route. Um just because again, you can go to a JUCO for a year or two, get your GPA up over a 3.0 when you transfer back to a Georgia school, then you get the Hope Scholarship and you get that extra money.

Scholarships, Financial Aid, and Finding the Right Fit

SPEAKER_03

Um so to me that's a big deal. Like think about that JUCO route as a possibility before you go jump into a four-year school. Uh and again, those those freshmen, sophomore juniors, as you're as you're in uh high school right now, just think about when you're in school that essentially you're making money while you're in those classes, right? So if if you are uh going about class and kind of hanging around with the wrong kids and whatnot, and they're bringing it down and you're getting a C in the class, they're taking money away from you, right? So be able to pick and choose who you're hanging around with, uh, take those grades seriously as a freshman sophomore. I've talked to many seniors, like, yeah, I've got a I've got a 2.7, it's like this is your last semester senior year, you're not gonna get to that 3.0. Um and so it kind of affects them possibly coming to life you or or another school because they're not gonna be able to get the high merit that they could have gotten at some of these other schools. Uh they again I'm I'm a full-time teacher on top of doing this, so I'm in inside the education system. Um and I see kids again, they just they wait too long or they hey yeah I messed up my sophomore year, and I get it, I get it, but you gotta you gotta be able to handle your business, make sure you're hanging around the right people. Um and I'm glad, like I'm so glad some of these girls, like, Coach, I had all A's my last semester. I'm like, man, I think you're you're heading in the right direction. I think that's awesome, that's a good thing. I still don't think you're gonna get to that hope point. So I'd again take that same mentality, take it to a JUCO, uh, you know, play for a year, even if it's just, I mean, even just like a you have to play for a whole year, I think, or at least get a whole year JUCO before you establish a hope number. Um, but take that mentality to a two-year, get that GPA right, and then come back and be like, hey coaches, hey, I've got a 4.0 or I've got a 3.7. It's like, okay. And we've been talking since high school, so even establish that relationship with them already as somebody you can circle back to. So again, those are to me all good things.

SPEAKER_04

You guys go off the average. I don't know if this is true for y'all, but it's for us, if you are get started in the recruiting process earlier and you're going on visits earlier, I have a lot more wiggle room in my average at the beginning of the year than I do at the end of the year. Now, because I'm now I'm bringing in 17 this year for to start a team. So it's a little bit, but like right now I'm at 17, that average is tight. Like I can't I can't flex it but you know, a thousand up or down. Whereas in the beginning of the year, I can flex it three or four thousand because I know I've got time to bring in, you know, kids on a little bit less money. So I think you know that, and then also have it like as a recruit and then as a parent, have conversations, even if it feels a little awkward, about what realistically can we as a family afford to pay for college. Like, I ask that question on every recruit visit, and then like mom or dad is like looking at the kid and they're just like, oh no, we haven't really talked about that. And I'm like, well, you're you're gonna assume. So if you have that conversation going in, like that helps us too, because if you say, you know, we can afford $5,000 a year, or we can afford $10,000 a year, or whatever, or we can't afford anything, at least that gets us somewhere to start with and work with when we're trying to kind of finagle people. 15, you know, 10 to 15 kids. I have an idea.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I need a full ride or I can't go. It's like, well, then the conversation's gonna end here. Yeah, I mean it's what it comes down to because you're gonna waste a lot of time and like, hey, I need a full ride or I can't go. And it's like, well, then you can't go. You're gonna have to go somewhere else. And I'm I'm sorry that that's the case, and you know, but that's that's the reality of things.

SPEAKER_04

You drove three hours to get here. Yeah. Tell me for us to ultimately figure out you can't afford to come to school here, and we can't afford everybody.

SPEAKER_03

Right, right. Like you can't. I think a common question and something you need to ask yourself again is what is your budget? And I've asked that to it for your recruits uh before we even get started with all the other conversations. Hey, what's your GPA? What's your budget?

SPEAKER_04

They want to ask, like, how much does it, how much does it cost to go here? And it's like, well, that's kind of a you know, they're gonna get sticker shop if you say 28,000, or if we say 40,000, yeah. At the end of the day, nobody pays $40,000. Like that, nobody pays that. But you know, once we kind of break it down, or you're you know, you're gonna get this, this, this, this, and this, it honestly helps more for them to come in with that knowledge already. Like we've decided we can afford a payment plan, we pay this much a month. The more information that you have, the better that visit is gonna go. Because you're you know, you may not end up making that visit because it's you just can tell from the beginning it's not gonna work out.

SPEAKER_05

When is the best time to have that conversation?

SPEAKER_04

With the with us? Yeah. As soon as possible immediately. I mean, I I would say in that in your first outreach, hey, I'm interested in Wesleyan, I play this position, this is my GPA, this is my budget.

SPEAKER_03

I think that's great. That's a that it helps us out. It would save us a lot of time. It saved me a lot of time.

SPEAKER_04

And you can Google average cost of attendance at all of our institutions. It'll give you a ballpark, but it'll at least give you an idea. If you just look up our tuition and see 40,000, you're like, oh god, there's no way I can afford that. But like you're not gonna pay that.

SPEAKER_00

And maybe maybe they can ask, like, what is the tuition there? Because I don't I get that like towards the end or something after I've had a whole conversation going on and stuff like that. But if they can be like, okay, well, what is your what is your tuition there? How much is the tuition there? Then I can kind of give them that number, and it's it's something they want to, if they want to do it, they do it. If not, then because sometimes the number they'll be like, yeah, it'll come up eventually, so you might as well get it out of the way.

SPEAKER_04

So I mean that's gonna be the deciding factor for a lot of kids.

SPEAKER_05

Like so why they want to know about when you come back.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, like we I mean I have kids that are like, hey coach, or can you send me the form like my signing day's next week? And I'm like, you even got your financial aid package. Like we need to pump the brakes. Right, right. You need to see that before you make I mean, very few, I mean very few kids that we recruit like money, the money doesn't matter. Like they can very few, yeah. Very few people can just pay whatever the bill is. So we you gotta know that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Oh, uh, I did just want to hit uh another one little topic here if everybody to do with that. Um talk about what uh what high school coaches can do, what should they be doing, uh, develop relationships with college coaches to impact their ability to guide their players.

SPEAKER_01

So for me, it's it's real important. Honestly, uh I can speak to one coach in particular in Miami. Um, like he's real big on uh Carat and all his girls, so I got great grades, and so every girl he recommends for me, I'm gonna look at because just because how he operates and how they come and have a conversation when they can talk about what they can do, uh, how they can fit in, or um, what's their best ability, you know what I'm saying? So um, so with him, that's that's also important for the coaches to be a part of it as well, uh, as well as parents, but with a coaches like to vouch for your girls and there for them. So I can see and I see it in action as well. It's uh it's a key for me. So um most coaches, if they can just, you know, like you know, let's give us like PR training, how to talk to a coach, a little bit of something, you know, especially you're a coach, uh high school that used to play ball too. You already know how that process works. So you can just tell them what to say and guide them in a little way. But uh most of the times, man, uh I just want the coaches to, you know, just to help them out a little bit more to how to communicate with us, you know, to um know what they want and how they want to see themselves playing, you know, uh collegiate ball.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. What'd you say?

SPEAKER_04

Um I think coaches can help a lot in the advising piece, and we I like I certainly want to hear from a coach and talk to a coach, but I don't want the coach to be doing all the work. Yeah. Like they're sending me, here's the first contact, here's our schedule, come watch us play. Yeah, she's really interested. Like, I I gotta talk to the kid. I think you know they need to be doing 80 to 90 percent of the recruiting work, but I think for coaches like supporting their athletes and advocating for them with their high schools to get film equipment. Um Jake has a great um template that he creates for his seniors that he showed in the coaching clinic where it's got like all his senior breakdowns, name, GPA, here's like four links for their highlight tapes that he just sends out to college coach. I'm like, dude, if every high school coach did that, that would be amazing. But I honestly it's shocking to me how often I'll reach out to a high school coach and hear nothing back. And to me, like if that's my kid playing on this high school team and there's college coaches reaching out to them and they're not responding, as a parent, that I would be pretty upset about, you know, they're gonna miss that opportunity. So I think for high school coaches to be really vigilant in responding to college coaches when we ask questions and then just being honest, because you know, like he was just saying, he's built a relationship with a coach who's gonna be honest with him. Like, hey, I'm taking one, I'm interested in one of your players. If you just tell me, like, oh, she's a great kid, she's a good athlete, and then she comes to my team and she's a problem, like, I'm not gonna try, I'm not gonna trust what that coach says anymore. So just being honest, like, hey, she's a great player, we've had some attitude issues with her that you're you may have to deal with. That's not that doesn't mean I'm checking them off the list, like, no, I'm not

Recruiting Mistakes Athletes Make

SPEAKER_04

recruiting that kid. I know coming into it that I need to be focused on that, but um I think just being on like being honest with the college coaches, um, and then helping them navigate this process. High school coaches can help in determining, like, yeah, that travel team is just a money grab, or that tournament is, you know, or that showcase costs $300 for two hours, like, and it's not gonna be well run. Like, them being more involved in the in the recruiting landscape is gonna help them guide their athletes in the right way. Like, you don't have to pay a lot of money to get recruited, but it's easy for parents to fall into that trap because a lot of times they see a bigger price tag means a better product. That's just it's being honest and just and guiding them through the process and just talking with us. Hey coach, what are you looking for this year? What you know, what do you how do I need to get my kids recruited? Like, I mean, we're all willing to tell them what we need because it makes our it's gonna make our job easier at the end of the day if they're just already doing what we need them to do.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

What do you think, Coach?

SPEAKER_00

I would definitely say building that come to building that report with it, um, with these are the coaches. Like, for instance, I have like what he said earlier, I have a connection with some of the coaches down in Florida, because I'm from Florida. Um, and if they vouch for me, I'm gonna be like, okay, well, I I trust what I trust your word. So um just kind of those high school coaches building a connection with the college coaches. So it's like, okay, well, I have I have a next group up. This is this is the new year, 2028. I have some 2028. I'm gonna bring them to your I'm gonna bring them to your ID camp, I'm gonna bring them out to a game so you can meet them. So it kind of helps with the interaction. You know, I mean maybe it's something where it's not over an email over social media, now it's in person where, okay, well, I have such and such coming to my game to support us, right? And then they kind of get the the look of what what is college like, right? So it kind of answers their questions in person where it's like, okay, well, I get to meet coach, I get to meet the team, I get to see, and I think that that says a lot because now they see that and they're like, I I want to be a part of this. So it kind of helps them rather than kind of just throw them out there. Oh, I have such and such, I have all these recruits, uh, take a look at them. Here's their film. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, well, if I look at the film and I don't, I'm not really interested in the film, that's what's next, right? Um, maybe I can like their character or something like that, which is something that I might be looking for. Um, and then when they come and they meet me in person, it's kind of something we're like, okay, well, I like this girl. Maybe we can work something up because I I like what she can probably bring to this team as far as culture goes. So I think just kind of like understanding um how to support, how to help, um how to how to navigate them and make sure that they are kind of in the right situation, not just throwing them out there and kind of making sure that okay, this this might happen or may not.

SPEAKER_05

So yeah. What about you?

SPEAKER_03

How many can uh high school coaches do to better develop relationships with you? Uh so um I'm free to like give out my number, shoot me a text so that I have that like on file, and I'll I'll definitely get back with a text. Call, you it's kind of hit or miss uh depending on what's going on. Usually during the season, I've got like an hour drive on the way home, so I'll make I'll make uh usually it's an hour worth of phone calls uh for that point. And I'm usually talking like coaches or um sometimes players at times, it just call depends. But uh I get my number out, shoot me a text, and let's let's get on the phone, let's talk. Um you build those relationships with coaches. I'm I'm talking to a coach right now up in North Georgia, and me and Coach E are gonna head up there, I think tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow, and we're gonna help like run a practice for them. Um and that's gonna help like get exposure for those girls. Like, hey, you got 17 to 20 girls that we're gonna be able to coach and see. Um, and then hopefully there's gonna be like a learning piece there as well, because I'm I I feel like heights good the game is growing and we're heading in a good direction, but I think the coaches have to catch up a little bit when it comes to the the nuances of the game and understanding different things and the fundamentals. So hopefully this is gonna help uh their program out as well. Uh, but I I love what Seth said about just advising uh his his you know your ladies uh in your program. I think having proper film, I get it. I mean, we can you can go get a video camera and get a parent, hey look, I just need you to press start-stop after each uh play, and now we'll have all these uh clips ready to go. If a girl did great on a play, we can have that available for her. That shouldn't be too difficult to do. Um, and I think that's gonna help out those players that want to pursue and want to go to the next level. Uh, I think advising them with like social media as well and what they're putting out there for for the coaches to see. Uh I get real like turned off uh when I see girls putting up like all these different offers. I'm like, look, we like you just we just offered you, we like that, you know, we want you here, but then all of a sudden you posted seven more offers. And I'll be honest with you, I'd rather not have to worry and concern myself about all those. I'll I'll just take the offer away. You can have those seven offers you can deal with. That's cool. I want people that are bought into what we're about. So if I've got you on campus, you came, you came to practice with us, you did a tour, you came to an ID camp, and it got to a point where we offered you. Uh we're serious enough to take this to the next level. Let's let's get to the committing process. I know some schools, once they offer you, you have like a month to decide. Um, and if you don't decide inside that month, the offer's off the table, it's gone. Um I I would recommend to these uh these these ladies in high school, if I would look to commit early if I were them. Uh again, you can chase all the offers all you want to all year long, and you can get 30 of them. You can get 40 of them. You know, again, if that's your prior, you know, well your priority, uh it's probably not gonna be life you. I don't know. I'd I'd rather not deal with you at that point. Um but I would commit early, and to me, that takes the strain of the rest of your year, and you can just freely play, you can you can enjoy being with your teammates, enjoy school because you have security and understanding, well, this is where I'm going, and I'm excited about doing it. I'm excited about the coach, I'm excited about the program, I'm excited about my future. Compared to I get girls in May that are like, hey coach, just trying to figure out if this is gonna be the best option. Signing Day is Wednesday, and I'm like, man, like I can only imagine the level of anxiety you are on right now.

SPEAKER_05

What a chaotic senior year.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would say, I mean, if you the earlier you can do that, and coach even said, like, sometimes there's more money available earlier compared to later. Um, so I would highly recommend, again, the coaches to advise the players, hey, try to try to commit early as you can, uh, handle your social media the correct way. Um, you know, make sure you're communicating with the coach, and it's not just me as the coach, me as the high school coach, and your parents asking questions, like um, you know, be communicating throughout the season and how things are going. But

Final Advice for Players and Parents

SPEAKER_03

um, yeah, again, the the coaches that I've dealt with have done have done a great job so far. Um, but I think there's always room for improvement and continuing to just kind of uh broaden your horizon on the coaches that you do know, maybe even find out about the scholarship structure of each school and be like, hey, look, I think you know, this school might be better off when it comes to financially, but this school right here is not gonna have your major, but you're probably gonna get a better deal here compared to here, where they they have your major, it's a good program, but you might have to pay a little bit more. So if the coaches start to understand those things a little bit more, then they can kind of help their players navigate this whole process a little bit easier.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I mean, if if I'm a high school coach right now, I'm gonna make a list of the five closest colleges to me that have flag football. I'm just gonna outreach to all five of those coaches and try and learn as much as I can about those. And once I do that, then I'm gonna expand it and find five more, and five more, and eventually, you know, six months later, I've got a I've got a dossier of colleges that now I can help my my girls with.

SPEAKER_04

Right. Yeah, I think that was an interesting point, you know, because coming from the soccer world, it's not really like this. But you know, in Flag football, there's so many of these kids that are like, I just I say like they're just collecting offers. And a lot of these schools, you know, none of the four sitting here, but a lot of these schools just, in my opinion, just spam offers out. Like, there's you can go to some of these kids' Instagram, and I swear there's a couple of these schools where like every single kid has an offer from that school. Yeah. And you know, then they're posting like, blessed to receive my 18th offer. And I'm like, what are you doing? You're not interested in 18 schools. Like, and so, yeah, like yeah, go go to the ones that you're interested in and yeah, commit early because there's more money available, it's gonna make your senior year like a lot less stressful, you know where you're gonna go, um, but like the collecting offers, like that's a huge for me, that's a huge turn off.

SPEAKER_03

I've had girls ask me, like, hey, can you can you uh give me an offer graphic? And I'm like, tell you what, you commit and we'll get you a graphic and a nice post to offer you. Um, but yeah, so it's such a cringy thing to eat. Yeah, hey man, give me a graphic. I'm like, ah, but okay, I made a mistake. It's a lot of mistake, actually.

SPEAKER_04

It's a lot of work for us or our marketing team to create a graphic just for an offer so that you could just add it to your collection. I mean, we had like I had a girl this year committed, deposited with us, and then posted something like a month later and was like, uh, already committed, still receiving offers. And I'm like, Yeah, I call, I call, I called her and I'm like, are are you committed to us? She's like, Yeah, yeah, I just and I'm like, okay, well, don't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Because that makes me think that you're not, and you're still shopping around, and you know, we don't want that. So it's not about it's not about collecting medals, like, and it's I don't want it to turn into like I feel like that's a big like tackle football recruiting thing, that's a big basketball recruiting thing, where it's just like, you know, just collecting these offers, and it's for what anything that comes to mind that's that's top of your mind on recruiting that that we didn't touch on that you really want people to know.

SPEAKER_03

Uh segment, I think I think you'll learn a lot, you'll you'll gain a lot of information. Um, hopefully parents, players, coaches. Uh I get it was great for me just to kind of hear from different coaches and how they go about things. Um so no, I'm I I've got nothing to say. Thank you so much for having having me on. I've enjoyed this.

SPEAKER_04

Good, thank you. I think this is the most thorough recruiting conversation that has ever happened.

SPEAKER_05

And also we could probably go another three hours. Sure.

SPEAKER_03

Uh probably right.

SPEAKER_05

It's just, and and I want you guys to know, you are you are the builders of the flag football world. In 20 years, when flag football is what we think it's gonna be in 20 years, right? You guys are gonna be the vanguard of that and the foundation of that. And so I'm just incredibly thankful that you were willing to do this. Um, and I'm just I'm what's important to me is that people out there, the these young athletes get the right information. Uh, and I think that they you guys deliver that. So I'm I'm really excited about it. Awesome, awesome, yeah. Thanks for giving us and