For high school athletes, there are many ways to showcase your skills during the college athletic recruiting process. Sports corporations like NXT (lacrosse) and Prep Baseball Report (PBR) provide players another 
platform during their schools’ offseason to showcase their talents and abilities. Colleges host prospect camps, showcases, and tournaments so coaches can see potential players and high schoolers get the chance to show off their talent and get more playing time. Attending camps can be a very useful way of showcasing an athlete, although the rise and ubiquity of media and social media has begun to be the norm for athletes during their recruiting process. Platforms like Twitter, YouTube, and other websites on the internet are used for athletes to feature their highlights, announce what camps they have attended, and also announce their college offers.
Malvern Prep Lacrosse player and United States Military Academy West Point commit, John Majka, described his recruiting experience for lacrosse. He claimed a company, Sports Recruits, was a very helpful way of professionally showcasing himself to coaches.
“I used Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Sports Recruits. Instagram and Twitter were used to make posts saying that I had a highlight and I posted it with a link. The highlight tape was p
osted to YouTube. I used Sports Recruits to give coaches my height, weight, GPA, SAT scores, and provided a link to my highlight tape as well,” Majka said.
Social media also helps high school coaches promote their players’ talents to colleges and college coaches. Not only is it the player’s responsibility to be outgoing and champion themselves, but coaches also assist their players tremendously through their process.
Malvern Prep’s head football Coach, Dave Gueriera, included how his help through social media impacts his players. Simply contacting other coaches and using tools on Twitter and other social media platforms creates a major impact on his athlete’s recruiting process.
“I also use Twitter heavily. And what I’ll do is I’ll use you know, of course, we’ll always retweet or repost all of our guys’ highlights…I direct messages to coaches to make sure that they’ve seen you know, this player,” Gueriera said.
Another major help for his athletes is his networking in the football world. This allows Coach Gueriera to easily connect with coaches and recruiters through social media, email, and text which will help his players process tremendously.
“I do have a lot of good contacts that I can text. So I will do that.” Gueriera said.
For some sports’ recruiting process, posting highlights is becoming a critical part. Although there are many ways for this to happen for an athlete. Companies like Youtube, Hudl, Twitter, and Sports Recruits all serve as useful platforms
Opposite from John Majka, Malvern Prep Baseball player, and Notre Dame commit Jonathon Holt had a different pathway for his recruiting process. But similar to the website Sports Recruits, a different website, Perfect Game, is a major website used for baseball players in their recruiting process.
“I began emailing college coaches over the summer going into my sophomore year…I did not use any social media, I did create a private YouTube account, so that nobody could view it but myself, where I would post the film of my at-bats from the tournaments so that I could easily send the videos to the coaches I was emailing,” Holt said.
Throughout Holt’s recruiting process, he posted his highlights, although his highlights weren’t the key factor in how his recruiting process went. Holt also had to impress coaches during live baseball tournaments to help get his name recognized.
“I played in a tournament in Florida that was run by a company called Perfect Game. PerfectGame runs the highest sought-after recruiting service in baseball. It has state and national rankings, metrics, showcases, and social media accounts where it posts players. I was posted on one of their Twitter accounts for one of my hits. I had a handful of coaches reach out to Coach Hilliard, Malvern’s head baseball coach, expressing interest in me,” Holt said.
Both Perfect Game and Sports Recruits are great ways for athletes to get recruited for specific sports like baseball, lacrosse, and soccer. However, some sports still use and prefer social media as a primary source for their recruiting. Malvern Prep Football Head Coach Dave Gueriera speaks about his opinion on Twitter.
“First and foremost, you need to be an advocate for yourself. So that means creating new relationships, mainly over Twitter, and being responsive to coaches who do follow you and message you. But advocating for yourself is huge,” said Gueriera.
Coach Gueriera includes important advice on networking for athletes during the recruiting process. This strategy can be followed in a variety of ways for all sports. Networking through emailing coaches and attending and talking to coaches at camps are two ways an athlete, no matter what sport, can assert themselves within their college recruiting process.
Harvard Football commit and Malvern Prep Offensive Lineman, Logan Demchyk also described his recruiting process throughout his high school career.
“Coaches started reaching out to me after my sophomore season… Twitter was a large platform that I used to promote myself. With football, college coaches use Twitter as a way to watch film and see any other accomplishments you choose to post. They also use it as a means of communication…I would post my highlights…I would also post clips from workouts to show progression with strength or speed and footwork.” Demchyk said.
In football recruiting, the trend has been mostly using Twitter. Both Coach Dave Gueriera and Logan Demchyk offered insight into Twitter’s dominance of the recruiting process for football.
One of social media’s benefits, it allows people’s content to go viral. Insports, this can help athletes tremendously.
“Some guys have gone viral just based off of you know, one or two plays…Twitter had a lot to do with that…10 years ago or 15 years ago, they probably wouldn’t have caught fire like that. So I think Twitter does have that type of viral appeal.” Gueriera said.
Within social media, there are many opportunities to gain exposureand ultimately garner athletes recruitment opportunities. Social media allows athletes to advocate for themselves by sending highlights, contacting coaches, and posting their interest in schools. There is no doubt that social media and sports recruiting are important elements for Malvern Prep high school athletes and their peers elsewhere. It seems that this trend is unlikely to be a fad and has become the new normal in many sports and standard operating procedure.
