To market yourself properly, you must prepare properly. I compare looking for a school is like looking for a job. You have to have a clean and up-to-date resume, be able to stress who you are and why you are a great candidate in breif manner, and do a lot of homework to find what you are looking for!
Prepare: Three must Do's for anyone looking to go to college.
1. Have your own website - Be able to have your own "online resume" that you can keep updated with video, pictures, stats, and anything else you would like. The websites that I tell my specialist to use is easy to create, you pick the URL name (for google search purposes), and you can see if a school looks it from a school or desk computer.
Check out http://www.seankelly8.com/ for an example website
2. Consectutive Kicks film - Put together a film of you taking 10 or so consecutive kicks. Do not cut the footage as you want to show "this is what I can do out of 10 kicks". If you cut it (even if it saves time), coaches have no choice but to assume you cut out the bad kicks. For Field Goals, make sure you hit from multiple locations. Kickoffs, Punts, and Snaps just need to do 10 in a row from the same location! So, you have to get yourself 10 balls to kick, get your plan together of what angles or which ball your going to hit next, etc.
3. Highlight film from your season - Make sure you have a good highlight film that only shows what is necessary. Coaches don't care about the entire play, just your kick. The only part you need to include is from the time the snap begins, to the time the ball hits the ground. The more "fat" you can trim off each clip, the more quality clips you can add. College coaches don't have time to watch 20 min. highlight films, so you need to keep it at 5-7min. at best. Trimming each clip up will make sure you can fit 10+ clips per min!
Do your Homework!
Every year I have a handle of specialist and parents coming to me wondering what happened. The first question I ask them in return is "What did you do to promote yourself"...Most do the combines and the competitions and that is great, but they miss the big picture by not contacting schools, sending links to their websites, and reasearching which schools need specialist. Being recruited takes a lot of unseccessful cold calls, emails, and college kicking camps. Make sure each college that visits your campus is walking away with one of your highlight films, even if they didn't show you and interest. If you put the time in doing your reasearch and reaching out to colleges, good things will come. Remember, you only need one school to be interested to make it worth your time!
I am not a great writer and I get excited when I start talking about these types of things and tend to bounce around. Feel free to visit me at http://www.allamericankicking.com/ or email me at Nick@AllAmericanKicking.com with any questions and I will be glad to help you out!
