College Volleyball Summer Recruiting

College volleyball recruiting is a year round endeavor for coaches but there are slow times in the recruiting calendar and we are entering one of these 'slow' times.

Currently, college volleyball coaches are coming back from vacations (I know this because I used vacation time in late May and early June, and I see all the Facebook posts from my coaching friends in such exotic locations as Pensacola, Florida), going to USA Volleyball Nationals or the AAU Championships if the budget allows, along with preparing for the 863 camps they will run in July and finally making those last minute preparations for the fall season (which is time consuming because of all the details which must be checked, double checked, signed, copied, approved and submitted).  

The National Championships (USA Volleyball and AAU's) are more see and be seen, rather than the active recruiting of the winter spring club season with the National Qualifiers and Super Regionals.  The Championships are where college coaches check in with their committed/signed athletes, take a 2nd or 3rd look at players in their databases, and generally walk around like human sign boards so their school can be recognized by that needle in a haystack great kid from Twin Falls, Idaho.

This quadrangle of vacation, championships, camps and season preparation, conspire to drive VolleyFamilies to distraction because the recruiting tempo and communication have changed.  Parents and players, especially rising Juniors and Seniors, get panicked because they are coming off a very active recruiting period (the winter/spring club volleyball season) and now........recruiting has gone into slow motion.

Online and in person (yes, I have old school face to face conversations with families while I am at events for NCSA Next College Student Athlete), I encourage families to stay focused and patient, rather than PANIC (at the Disco).  During the spring, many VolleyFamilies were engaged in active communication (either email/text/voice) with college coaches and then, these conversations slowly died.  All too often, the parents/players feel that they will not get recruited next season and must take whatever offer they can at this moment.

As I have written in the past and spoke of with VolleyFamilies, college coaches are playing possum right now - We have purposely slowed down the recruiting because we need to focus on other areas, and we don't want to get busy with recruiting until later in the fall.  

Once we have got through the camp season, through the arrival of our team, and into our collegiate season, then we will once again engage in active recruiting.  We go 'quiet' in recruiting because we want time to determine exactly what we need in recruits for the next two seasons - We won't know what we need until the end of the current collegiate season.

College coaches, in all divisions/classifications, have learned that today's collegiate volleyball life is fluid.  Gone are the days where a coach can bank on having a job for 8 years and needing 3 athletes per year. Because of this, we employ a two part recruiting mentality - 1) the for sure needs; 2) the post season needs.  #1 is fairly easy; we are graduating 3 Middle Blocker's in 2020, so we will for sure need a MB or two in 2020.

#2 is a learned response - Stuff happens after the collegiate season which affects our immediate recruiting needs:

- We get fired.

- We get a new job; new coaches bring in new recruits because the days of the Athletic Director saying graduate all the current players and slowly build up your team are gone; everyone wants to win now and the victims are often the current players.

- We get threatened with termination; Athletic Director says we need to win next year or we are gone which results in coaches doing everything they can to bring in day one impact players (international, transfers, etc).

- Player quits; this is more and more common because players are committing in kindergarten and when they actually arrive to campus, they don't like the coaches, players, dorms, food, team mates, academics or campus.

- Coach cuts player(s); developing talent has given way to recruiting talent.  It is easier to cut and recruit, than train and develop.

- Player suffers career injury; this happens less than in the past because of the big strides in sports medicine. But it does happen, so college coaches suddenly need a passing Outside Hitter that they didn't need a week ago.

VolleyFamilies cannot control the recruiting process but they can manage the process.  Effective management is understanding the protocols and timing of today's recruiting process.

My suggestions:

1)  Accept that this is a slow time, and focus more on volleyball and vacation and camps and recovery and rehabilitation, instead of recruiting.

2)  After Nationals, or if you are not at Nationals, allow your body and mind to recover and recharge.  Small injuries should be rehabilitated and you should enjoy a solid block of non volleyball time.

3)  Focus on skill development; your ability will determine your opportunity.  Either in camps or clinics or private lessons, if you have listened to your coaches, you should know exactly which skill sets you should be improving.

4) Keep in contact with those programs you are currently engaging with (even if they have gone quiet) but understand that this is a slow time for all.

5)  Review your recruiting efforts to this point - Have you been writing Top 25 schools and none have replied?  Then you are shooting to high.  Have you written the bottom 25 schools and all have offered you a scholarship?  Then you should consider reaching out to a higher ranking of schools.  Have your academic goals changed?  Are you more or less open to various regions of the country? Etc, etc, etc...

6)  Enjoy your high school season.  This is something which I think gets lost in the club volleyball and college recruiting culture.  I understand that some high school teams are great while others can be a near waste of 2 hours.  Beyond golden (like Greenwood) or garbage, you are still representing something which is larger than yourself and will reside in the record books.  

7)  As late October rolls around, reengage actively with your current schools and reach out to as many schools which fit your recruiting comfort zone.  Remember that the collegiate seasons' start to wind down in late October and finish in mid-November - this is when the collegiate recruiting craziness starts up full tilt and you want to be front side of this madness.

In closing; stay recruiting patient now and focus inside to set the table for a successful winter recruiting.

Coach

Club Volleyball National Championship Recruiting

Good afternoon Coach!

Thanks for all the effort you put into the blog, we are religious readers!

My question is a general question about the GJNC's held each year.  Our team is going again, and we're always excited to earn a bid to participate.  Indianapolis, here we come!

I was speaking to a coach not so long ago about the dovetail between this event and the recruiting process.  Her firm opinion is that college coaches only look at players in the Open or National divisions.  While I am sure that is a great place to start for a coach, I told her she was bananas.  We agreed to disagree, but I though you'd be able to shed some light on the matter.

Secondly, it is clear from my experience that there are so many college coaches at GJNC's it is impossible to really sort them all out.  Frankly, at some courts last year there were more coaches than family members watching matches.

What would you recommend to a player just getting started in the recruiting game in terms of reaching out to coaches at GJNC?  Are they looking at kids for the first time?  Checking on their current short list?  Other than the standard email/video/resume attachment, what would be an effective way to get a look?  What age should a potential college player begin sending out these emails for an event like GJNC?

And lastly, if a team is competing in both AAU's and GJNC, any thoughts about what type of coaches attend one vs. the other?  Both? 

Many thanks for your time,

VolleyMom

Thank you for the compliments and reading collegevolleyballcoach.com.

The club season whizzed by as usual; guess the next big tourneys are the national championship events (AAU and USAV).

The college coach you chatted with, about the Open/National divisions being the only divisions college coaches attended for players, would have better to define her opinion a bit more; she may have been meaning to say that NCAA Division I college coaches dominantly look at the Open/National divisions for recruiting.  

As I have written before in Inside College Volleyball and spoke about often, college coaches recruit talented players.  By the classifications of club volleyball and the way that club programs structure their age group teams, the majority of talented players would be playing within the Open/National level; especially for Division I and elite Division II.  When you step outside of the DI/DII elite category, you will see college coaches searching for talent within in all classifications because they know they just can't walk up to that court with 20 DI college coaches standing around and effectively recruit.

The championship time frame (those weeks capturing the AAU and USAV) are a mixed bag of recruiting for all divisions of college volleyball.  In general, the NAIA/JC/DIII and mid level DII programs are only going to a championship if that event is drivable; it is just too expensive to attend AAU's if you are a DII coach in Oregon.  

For those programs which attend the championships, these DI/DII programs will be multi tasking - Babysitting their signed players, babysitting their verbally committed players, court sitting for players who they have offered, making final evaluations on recruits, doing initial in person evaluations on recruits who have sent video, keeping an eye out for players they may have missed, etc.  Each program will have their specific tasks at the championships and those tasks easily change year to year.

The recruiting mindset of VolleyFamilies must be the same as with any other National Qualifier - Email updates to college programs you are in conversation with (what court, what time, etc), reach out to new programs with video, re-reach out to programs who may have not responded or told you 'no' (just because things can change in recruiting weekly), etc.

As for those college programs attending both USAV Junior Nationals and AAU National Championships, they will be the DI programs which enjoy very good funding.  The two mid-level DI programs at which I was the head  coach, we did not have the budget to attend both championships.

Good luck in Indianapolis and USA Junior Nationals - I won't be there, but I will be at AAU's in Orlando at the NCSA Athletic Recruiting booth!

Coach Sonnichsen

Post Club Volleyball Season College Recruiting

May, the month of the club volleyball season which seems years away when all the annual club craziness started last November.  

As a club volleyball family, May is either the end of the season or a small breather before ramping up for the national championship tournaments.   Below, you will read the greatest advice ever for the next steps in the recruiting process during the month of May.

Club Season is Done:

Wow, that was a quick season!  The good news is that you have no more monthly payments, no additional travel costs and having to show your wristband to walk in the door and watch your baby girl play volleyball.  You can actually have a weekend free, take a family trip to WallyWorld and go visit those grandparents you have been ignoring for the last three months (and no, they really don't like sitting in a convention center with all the chaos and random volleyball flying around).

For the collegiate recruiting process, you are no longer in a situation where a college coach can see you play in person.  That is the biggest downside of not continuing the club volleyball season into the national championship events.  But, this downside is not really as steep as you might think.

• If you have been reaching out to college programs with video during the club season, then interested college coaches would have already seen you in person.
• Believing that you did reach out to the correct programs and reached out often (please follow my often written advice on collegevolleyballcoach.com and Inside College Volleyball), then the national championship events, from a recruiting perspective, are no different than a late season national qualifier.
• The college volleyball coaching changes have occurred in the early spring, and the corresponding or independent roster changes have also occurred in the early spring.  The table is set for the next recruiting cycle.

Your focus needs to be upon three areas:

1. Rest/Recover/Rehabilitation - Your club season has run from November to May.  That equates to thousands of impacts on hard surfaces and a ton of swings.  Knees, ankles, back, shoulders, hair ties, have all been pounding for months. This is a large amount of wear and tear upon the body and the body must heal.  If it is sore, rest will help but if it hurts, you need to see a doctor/trainer and start rehabilitation.  Resting does not fix pain, resting just masks it.
2. Skill improvement - After you are back physically (whether that takes 1 week or 3 months), then target those areas which need to improve.  If you paid attention to your club coach(es), then it should be obvious about the skills you should focus upon.  If you did not use your ears, then remember what you saw - Who was the best player in your position that you saw this club season?  Mimic what she did; you can't control your height but everything else can me improved.
3. Recruiting management - Just because your club volleyball season has ended does not mean your recruiting season has ended.  Recruiting is now a 12 month a year effort and those families which are consistent and focused in their management of the process, are the ones which enjoy the luxury of choice.  You should still be making videos (open gym, private trainings, camps), still be reaching out to college coaches, still engaged in communication with college programs and still determining which programs would be a good fit for the future.
4. Enjoy being a kid - What? What is this crazy advice?  Be a kid?  Yes, for the love of Tachikara, be a kid!  As quickly as the teens want to grow up these days, they are still just kids and that whole adulthood thing will be here too soon.  Hang out with your friends, go to the beach, stay up all night on a sleepover, set up a lemonade stand and donate all the profits to a charity, etc.

National Championship Events (We are going to Disneyworld!....or Indianapolis....):

While the national championship represents the end of the season and competition against the nation's best in hope of garnering the number one ranking, from a recruiting perspective, the championships are no different than a late season national qualifier.

You still want to keep communicating with college volleyball coaches, you still want to reach out to new programs or re-reach out to a program which may have said no (if you know that the program would be a good fit for you) earlier in the year - While the tempo of college volleyball program changes (coaches/players) may have drastically slowed down from earlier in the spring, stuff happens.

When you are at the championship, don't get too caught up in the recruiting process as it relates to how your team is doing.  College coaches don't put any additional value on the championship versus  watching you play in a February practice.  Just play to the best of your ability and forget those logo wearing crazy college coaches walking around.  I had a recruit who's team did not win a set at Nationals; not one set, much less a match.  Her team winning or losing at the championship did not mean a thing to me.  She was a quality player and person who was an immediate positive to my collegiate team.

Focus instead on the recruiting management before you ever step foot in the the Sunshine or Hoosier State - Reach out to college programs, send video taken recently, re-reach out because the worse case scenario is the coach hits the delete button, and don't get stressed about this being the championship with regards to recruiting; for college coaches this is another tournament to recruit at.

As the championships don't start until mid to later June, you have a small window of time to rest and heal your body.  As per the examples above, you have been physically stressing your body for months and now is the time to recover.  Find time to rest anything that is sore, go see a specialist if something hurts and if all is good, then keep your conditioning steady, so there is no drop off in your physicality pre nationals.  

Lastly, use this segment to generate some new video; either cut up footage of your last national qualifier or film a trainings session or two.  Remember that college coaches don't need fancy video  they just need recent video.

Have a great summer if you are free and Good luck at the Championships if you are playing!

Poor Championship Tournament impact upon College Volleyball Recruiting

Hello Coach,

     I wanted to help with the right words for my daughter.  You see we have just finished up play at AAU’s this week and her club team did not not preform well at all.  The team has done well all season but tanked this week.  My daughter is a 2017 OH and wants to play at college.  

We have been NCSA members since her freshman year when she made varsity as a freshman.  We have been active in emailing coaches and have gotten some interest from D1 and D2 school.  Most recent since June 15 are the D2 schools.  She is striving for D1.  Grades are great and she has skills that set her apart.  She is on the shorter side at 5’ 11”.  We emailed close to 40 schools through NCSA for AAUs but she is upset that she did not do well.  We played 18 open and she is a younger player but she does have the ability to play at a high level.  I feel like I can picture your face saying yeah yeah so does everybody else.  Well there were very few coaches that I was able to identify at our court.  She is afraid that she has left anyone that was watching with not a good representation of her as an athlete.  I tried to tell her that volleyball is a team sport and if the team is not doing well then you as a hitter will not do well either.  Do you think she has hurt her chances for future consideration at D1 schools on poor performance at one tournament?   Is she and myself just overacting to the situation?  Looking for some words of wisdom.  I have been through your NCSA recruiting seminar in Seattle a few years ago even though we were members already.  It was still great to hear.  Your knowledge is great about this process.  Any advise would be great.  If I have not been clear in my email please ask any questions and I will get back with you.

Sincerely, 

W.G.

Good teams will have a bad tournament and it is just bad luck when that bad tournament comes in a championship event. One of my favorite recruits and college player, playing on a nationally recognized club program, when O'fer at Nationals her Junior year!!  Did not win one match, and I think they won a single game in the whole tournament!!!!

When it comes to recruiting at tournaments, college coaches don't care about how the team does - They may say they do, but they are just being polite.  What they care about is how talented is the player; most of the time, they don't even know the score or stay for the whole match because they are evaluating hundreds of players in an event. 

Even though this is not what any club or high school coach wants to hear, the players must always be aware of how they are performing as individuals (beyond/in addition to the team).  If the team is losing, but the player is doing well, then that is good for recruiting.  If the team is winning, but the player is doing poorly, then that is bad for recruiting - Please note, that this statement should be viewed through the lens of recruiting.

With regards to your daughter, she is putting too much emphasis on the tournament.  As a 2017 5'11" OH, with interest from NCAA DI and DII schools (a bit weighted toward DII right now), she needs to stay patient and positive in the recruiting process.  As a rising Junior, and it being the summer time, DI coaches are going to slow play her, while the DII's may be a bit more aggressive.  She has the height to play DI, and by her response from a few DI schools has the talent to play DI, but since she is also getting contact from a number of DII schools, her skill sets may not be over the top (or DII's would not take time to recruit her; they are not recruiting the player that is going to the Big 10!).

This is the slowest extended period of time in the college volleyball recruiting cycle - The Championship events (and all club volleyball) has finished, college coaches are trying to get a bit of vacation and down time in before their season starts, they are also conducting camps, mowing the lawn, ordering equipment, checking on eligibility of current and incoming athletes, taking a vacation, finishing the travel scenarios for the fall season; there are many other items which take priority over active recruiting right now.

Also, coaches will slow play recruiting now because they need to evaluate their current team when fall practice starts before they will know exactly what they may need in the 2016 and 2017 recruiting classes.  When the college volleyball season arrives, college coaches will be see which players are in shape, who did not recover from a surgery/injury, who failed a summer school class, who has had a drastic change in attitude, who was not as good as the coach evaluated, etc. - All of this affects their next recruiting classes.  DI college coaches tend to slow down their recruiting tempo, as to have time to evaluate their current team, and then move forward with recruiting in the late fall and winter.

Because of this scenario, families of the mid level recruits (average height with talents between DI and DII) must be extremely patient in the summer and fall.  The best thing to do is focus on recovery from the club season (both physically and mentally), enjoy the 4 days or 4 weeks before the high school season begins, continue to develop your volleyball skill sets, and then start preparing the active outreach to college volleyball programs to be sent in the late fall.

Specific to your daughter, she needs to mentally flush this tournament because there will be very little, if any, impact upon her recruiting process.  As referenced above, the DI coaches are not active now and won't ramp up their recruiting tempo until the winter; she will be a better player come next winter simply because she will have another 4 months of volleyball experience and another 4 month of physical maturity! 

Lastly, her outreach effort will be important come next winter - her, along with a thousand other players, have the skill sets to possibly play DI and for sure play DII - the DI opportunity will go to those players that manage the recruiting process the most effectively.  This is where NCSA Athletic Recruiting can be a huge resource for her; from education to getting her profile/video in front of the correct college programs - She has to stay active in the management and updating of her NCSA profile!

Enjoy the few moments of summer before the high school season kicks in!

Coach

AAU Championships vs USA Volleyball Junior Nationals

Hi Coach,

I stumbled across your Collegevolleyballcoach.com blog while researching the question of AAUs vs. Jr. Nationals.  I have a related question:

At Jr. Nationals, do college recruiters watch all the divisions or focus on the Open Division only?  Our team had planned to go to AAUs until just recently.  A vocal minority of parents (some of whom are a bit older) seem to have a bias toward Jr. Nationals.  They basically told the club director that unless we go to Jr. Nationals in Dallas, their daughters will have a conflict and will skip the postseason altogether.  Coincidentally, our team recently got a call and was offered a spot in the American Division at Jr. Nationals--which our coach made the executive decision and accepted.  About 4 of 13 of the parents are happy and the rest (including me) are concerned that it will be a waste of time in terms of level of competition and level of exposure to college coaches.  

In other words, I don't just want to know if AAUs are a better option than Jr. Nationals but to drill down and get your thoughts on the different divisions at Jr. Nationals--Open, National, USA, American.  Even more specifically, which option makes more sense from a recruiting/showcasing standpoint:  Jr. Nationals American division or AAU Open?  Seems like a no brainer to me but I'm just a parent and would like an expert opinion to confirm or deny my instincts on the matter.

Any insights you can provide would be great and much appreciated!  It may be too late to change our plans for this year but I think it's an important discussion our club and families need to have for next year.  

Thank you! 

C.S.

In my opinion, AAU's is now the superior recruiting destination and many other college coaches feel this way.  For so many years, the mindset was that USA Volleyball Junior Nationals was the summer championship event for recruiting, and I think the older parents are reflecting this stance.

At USA Volleyball Junior Nationals, the college coaches' focus tends to drift towards the Open Division, but they will pay attention the National Division (which I used to call Club - I just read the USA Volleyball pdf of divisions, and if it is in rank order, American is the 3rd of the 4 divisions).  If in the gym, college coaches will make the effort to see any team, but they rank order the players/teams they need to see with Open being the top and the American Division will not be a high priority.

What I have always found difficult about Jr Nationals is the staggered start date of the age divisions; it makes effective recruiting a challenge because of the time commitment involved.  Also, with the host city always being in a new locale, which presents its own travel and budget challenges.

AAU's has grown in attractiveness because it is always in Orlando, it is extremely well run and user friendly, and more effectively groups the ages together.  I would also say that AAU's has a larger variety of teams, with clubs from SoCal, the Great Lakes, Hawaii and Puerto Rico - This diversity is attractive to college coaches.

Hope that helps!

Coach Matt