The Initial Interaction – USA Post 2

“There are only two options regarding commitment. You’re either IN or you’re OUT. There is no such thing in life as between.”

~ Pat Riley

I’m sure that any of you readers who follow US Men’s Collegiate volleyball have seen the tremendous rallies, power serving, and out of system plays that define the US Men’s Collegiate game (if you haven’t I strongly recommend watching the UCSLB vs Hawaii Big West Regular Season game 5th set), but there is so much work to put in from the athlete’s side before they can even make it onto a roster. It’s currently a very exciting period in Collegiate volleyball; for any NCAA women’s volleyball fans its the start of the Final 4, the teams competing for the National Championship, as well as the build up to the men’s season with pre-season polls coming through (hopefully Mount Olive will be challenging for the top Conference spot again!) and the pre-season interviews with coaches after a long fall practise schedule (Check out Off the Block for some men’s volleyball interviews).

I still remember the excitement going into my first season at Mount Olive, and I also remember the hard work that I had to put in to make it to the US. Another exciting development in the US Collegiate Volleyball World is a Documentary being created to follow Long Beach State’s attempt this season to defend their National Championship, so be on the look out for this on the Big West homepage. To see just how good the team were, watch the following video of their Regular season matchup against Hawaii!

It’s very easy for me to look back and see how influential the US style of volleyball has been on my game, but it’s also easy to see that had I not put in the work in the work, it might not have happened. The initial decision to want to go to the US had to be followed up with many conversations with other athletes pursuing the same dreams, the formation of an action plan and then hard work to make it a reality!

The initial emails were the first hurdle to getting my foot in the door as a potential student athlete. But anyone can send a pre-scripted email to all of the Men’s volleyball teams and hope that the coach randomly picks out your email to read. No, what is important is that before you even write your first email, you have a highlight video ready to back up your talent (I will focus on the highlight video in another blog later on, but if you do have questions get in contact!), and you have researched the school. How many students does the University have? How many players on their Volleyball Roster? Which players will be graduating and what positions will the University be looking to recruit in your year? What sets the school apart from the others you have researched and why is it an attractive school for you? Is the school situated in an area that you want to live in? Is your chosen subject on offer at the University? All of these questions and many more need to be answered so that you don’t waste yours, or the coaches time!

What I tried to do was to research the colleges that had Chemistry and then from this list try to see where I would fit into the team, by looking at their results, the roster and playing video. For example, Mount Olive was losing Steven Cruse and Angel Dache, two very strong players, and they were always pushing for the Conference Championship which came with an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament. Even after the initial conversations it was easy for me to see that my drive to play at the highest level could match up with the determination of the team to reach that goal. If you aren’t already watching video of US Collegiate games then now is the time to start! Many Colleges stream for free through their athletic sites and the games can also be caught up afterwards!

Teams will reject you: over the year and a half of sending emails I had a strong proportion of emails come back saying that the roster had already been filled, or that I wasn’t a fit for the program as things stood. But recruiting targets for teams are always changing, especially around the signing periods because top recruits get snatched up and then spots can open up, so it can be important to follow up with coaches every now and again. Sometimes you will be told that you are on a list of their top recruits, only to hear back the next week that they have signed someone else and you are no longer required… its difficult, but that is why you have to keep being proactive and trying to engage in conversations with the coaches and one of the best ways to do this is new highlight videos. The videos don’t have to be great long masterpieces, just to highlight a progression in your game, or maybe you had a great serving performance that hasn’t been highlighted in your other videos. You might not want to send videos every week, but if you can do it monthly then the coaches can get a look into how your game might develop over a pre-season… and whether you are worth taking the risk!

I also think that it is worth contacting schools at a range of divisions. You might want to play NCAA division I or II (Division I-II combined in Men’s Volleyball) but sometimes it’s worth looking into the Division III schools to see whether they can offer a better playing experience for you, or maybe even just to get some practise talking to coaches and finding out what they see as your best assets. I had some great conversations with a coach at a Division III school where myself and the coach were honest about the situation from the start, but I knew that should my plan to play in the top division not happen, I had a back-up plan and the coach also helped me to analyse my videos to show off my best skills.

Another one of the MUST DO’s before you even think about being at an institution and playing collegiate volleyball is reading through the NCAA’s Guide to becoming a student athlete. This sum’s up the whole process, from the initial emails, to the phone calls, the regulations and even the tests that you need to look into. There are many rules involved with the NCAA and breaking these rules could mean losing a year of eligibility or even losing out on pursuing your dream, so it is important to know what you can and can’t do, and the guide takes you through the rules you need to be aware of! Why try to start the process when you don’t even know how it works? Read the guide, talk to people that have been through the process and then start! Don’t be like some of the other athletes that ask for a scholarship in the first email and don’t even send a highlight video!

Coaches receive many, many emails. This means that they have a wide range of athletes to choose from, so you have to convince them that you are worth the coaches time and effort. They will look for reasons to remove you from their recruiting list, it could be that the video is not a good standard, you might not have taken care in your email and had grammatical errors, or that you haven’t put any effort into researching the school. You have to show how much the opportunity means to you, and this will be reflected in the effort you put in! You also need to sell yourself in those emails… why does this coach really want to recruit you? In England we would be more reserved and call it bragging, but for coaches they want to know that you have achieved in the past and that should they put you on in the crunch time of a game you have confidence in your skills!

I figured the best way to tie this all up would be to write down a little list of things to do, and a list of things you should not do.

DO:

• Have a highlight video ready to go before you reach out to the coaches
• Make the email personal
• Know why you want to attend that college and have some questions ready about the information you gathered
• Write to coaches at least once a month, maybe more if you have something important that has happened.
• Sell yourself, your ethos, your drive, what sets you apart
• Reach out and call coaches early on. They can’t call you until later on in the recruiting process.

DON’T:

• Talk about scholarship in the 1^st email
• Have your parents do all the work for you
• Expect a reply from every coach, just keep on persevering
• Ask questions that you can get the answers to from the school website

 

One of the best quotes to consider when going through the process is this:

“I never recruited a parent, only athletes.”

The athlete has to drive the process, not the parent.

For more information check out the NCAA website where you can find out more information about the process and where you need to start your journey and take a look at the NCAA College Bound Student Athlete!

Volleyball update: We are going into the last game of 2018 in 11th Position in the League, needing a win to try to get out of the relegation zone. We had a great 3-0 victory at home last weekend against the team 4th in the League, so it is all to play for as we head to Karlsruhe this weekend trying to finish on a high before the Christmas break!

I wish you all a great holiday season with your family and friends and I look forward to writing the last post of 2018 before we kick on into 2019!! As always continue to share with your friends, family and the volleyball community if you find the content helpful and interesting!!

Rob

German word of the week: Weihnachtsmarkt

Meaning: Christmas Market

This weekend we were lucky enough to explore the Erfurt Christmas market, voted one of the best in Europe, with food, trinkets and many other traditional holiday items on show.

 

 

“I was recruited by every school in the country for football and basketball. And an incident happened in high school, and all that was taken away. No other teams, no other schools were recruiting me anymore.”

~Allen Iverson