College coaches are very busy, and in some cases, they cannot travel from one side of the country to the other. Make sure you have a solid highlight video to showcase your abilities and skills. A well done recruiting video can receive serious attention from the college head coaches as well as position coaches. Highlight videos are snip-its of your game footage that showcase your talent and skill set. You want them to be no longer than five minutes, and showcasing your best plays will be a must — advice from a Villanova athlete.
The full spectrum of a highlight video:
The full spectrum is the total picture. For tennis, there are groundstrokes, volleys, serves, and general gameplay. The technique is shown across the board. For other sports like basketball, this includes offensive and defensive facets. The video should show off your complete game from all angles in a short five-minute video.
Show your strengths in your highlight video:
Strengths are a MAJOR piece of the video. In my high school days, my video would capture a skinny kid who could crack a serve, a few laser groundstrokes, speed and finishing points at the net. I was not a ground-and-pound guy who was going to rally with you for five hours. Instead, I was the guy who was going for the kill and would make you play my game. Therefore, my strengths in the video were points demonstrating this.
Fluidity of your highlight video:
What does Fluidity mean? Fluidity is the grace or athleticism that you possess and use in your game. For example, it's that diving grab in the outfield, or the ability to explode off the floor for a kill in volleyball. This is something a coach needs to see in order for them to know where you can fit in on his/her team.
Style of highlight video:
By style, I do not mean what type of Jordan's you are dunking in or what new dri-fit you are rocking when you are training. I am talking about the personality and the chemistry facet of your game. My style was a high-energy power player. There isn't anything wrong with this, however, imagine a coach has 15 of these guys on a team. The players are going to butt heads, and this is not practical for success. I was a leader and liked to be in control through example. Again this is fine, but if there are 15 leaders on a team, the team will be going in 15 different directions. In your video, show what type of personality you have in the game and what kind of game you sport. If you are the drive and dish role player, who feeds off the other guys while supplying assists, make sure that is what is shown!
Length of highlight videos:
The duration or length of the video should not be longer than five minutes. Five minutes at the absolute max! A coach gets hundreds of videos and has other things to do so make sure you capture his attention with a short video that summarizes what you are going to bring to the program, how you are going to do it, and who you are as a player as well as a person.
Now that you have some ideas about your new recruiting video, give it a try and see what you come up with! You may even see something on there that you want to change in your own game. Take advantage of the opportunities, and if you have the chance, try and have a company tape/edit it for you to make the process as easy as possible. An excellent resource for high light videos is Hudl.
Updated on: 10/23/19
* Originally published on July 9, 2015, by 2aDays Staff
