The issue with coaches/parents controlling the entire athletic recruiting process

There is no doubt in my mind that I feel having parents and coaches involved in the athletic recruiting process, regardless of the sport, is vital overall. Regardless if you are a parent, a coach, or even an athlete reading this, your coach and parents are an important part of your overall recruiting team that should be able to help you be evaluated by coaches at the college level.

But I have a major problem when one of the powers mentioned above take too much control and do everything. It may be the high school coach being overbearing and handling the entire recruiting process. Or it could also be a parent not even relaying the interest to the high school coach and handling everything themselves. In my opinion, it is a huge mistake for either to dominate the athletic recruiting process.

I recently heard a good example of a high school coach handling things a little too much. Don’t get me wrong about this coach. He does do a nice job in getting attention for his athletes and has helped many land scholarship offers over the years. But this coach also frowns upon his athletes leaving during the summer to attend camps. For athletes without scholarships, these camps are vital. I know that he hurt a recent quarterback recruit because he wanted to keep the team together all summer. The quarterback skipped camps that could have landed him scholarship offers and he ended up walking-on somewhere.

Anyways, the story is about a current recruit who already boasts numerous scholarship offers. One of the schools that had offered him in a major conference used the spring evaluation period to come and see him. The coach had extended the offer before his junior season and wanted to see video of him while at the school. The head coach did all that he could to not show him the video. Why would anyone do that? It makes no sense but this is just a good reason why coaches shouldn’t have complete power in the recruiting process.

A parent can do the same thing. I recently spoke with a high school coach about a certain player on his team. I was asking him a variety of questions about his skills, abilities, and then came to his recruiting. All the coach said is I don’t know, his dad is handling it. If the high school coach is telling me that, then he is likely telling college coaches the exact same thing. With this being an All State running back, I am sure the prep coach had to repeat that story a lot.

When a college coach hears that the parent is handling the entire recruiting process, that doesn’t bode well for the recruit. The reason is that most parents who control the entire process are the ones that are overbearing and can be extremely annoying during recruiting. They may also be the same ones who push for their son to transfer when he is not starting early in his career (see Mitch Mustain). This happens all the time too.

In a perfect world, what I recommend is doing everything you can to be on the same page with your recruiting team. That includes the athlete, the parents, and the coaches at the high school. I believe that the parents should be the leaders of this team. High school coaches just don’t have the time to be sending out recruiting profiles. They will help you where they can but be realistic about the burden you are playing on them.

If you can, go in with your family and talk to the high school coach about the recruiting process, what your goals are, and what level the coaches feel he can play at in college. The biggest thing hear is to keep the lines of communication open and help the athlete have his or her best chance of getting a scholarship offer.