Given that most sport seasons are severely impacted, I am curious if any coaches have thoughts on how the recruiting landscape is going to look post pandemic. Additionally how can aspiring student-athletes position themselves for success?
@Reuben Jones any insight?
This will be a very interesting year for college athletics. In my opinion, it will all boil down to revenue. The larger athletic departments are heavily dependent on TV revenue and the smaller departments rely on game guarantee money. With the aforementioned in question, budgets could take a blow that would likely leave athletic programs unsustainable.
The TV/game guarantee revenue from Men’s basketball and Football subsidizes most of the other sports within the athletic department. We could potentially start to see many programs cut sports that traditionally have not contributed to the overall bottom line. Program cuts will leave many high school athletes with a lot less offers in their respective sport.
To Bernadette's point, because of the management of financial resources at certain institutions, you're seeing the elimination of men's track and field collegiate programs at a staggering rate. Non-revenue sports depending on football and basketball to fund them, are in danger of being cut. Amount of athletic scholarships will be affected. Testing facilities for standardized testing have become scarce across the U.S., making it difficult for students to test and retest. I hope long-term that admissions offices will put less emphasis on applicant's standardized test scores (SAT/ACT). Maybe eliminate the tests altogether; putting a larger emphasis on the quality of the essays and other parts of the application. You may even see a speeding up of the recruiting process. Prospective student-athletes are ready to make their decisions by the early signing period (November 1).
Student-athletes and families should be proactive in the college search. Email coaches with:
Name, address, and cell phone #
Parent name and cell phone #
Coach name and cell phone #
Links to milesplit or athletic.net profiles
Unofficial transcripts and test scores
Quality video, if you have it.
Search for/ask for virtual tours
Have family discussion about what is important TO YOU
Ask MANY questions!
Make Pros and Cons list
Actively show your interest to coaches by communicating all of the above with them.
For football, highlight tapes and outreach to coaches will be at the forefront. Kids will definitely have to work for their chances and will have to rely on old footage to impress. Tough for those guys looking to make their senior year their breakout year.