College coaches can start evaluating athletes any time they want. There are rules around when to engage an athlete directly, but they can begin to assess at any time. We recommend engaging via recruiting questionnaires, emails, social media, etc., following the 9th-grade season.

Consider this: 80% of DI athletes are involved with colleges by the end of their sophomore year. If college coaches don’t know who you are, they can’t evaluate you.

As an athlete, do not “outsource” or transfer control of the recruiting process to club coaches, high school coaches, recruiting services, etc. Colleges will look to see if you can lead the engagement. Coaches, parents, etc, are part of supporting the process, not showing it.

Most college recruiting will begin online. Over the years, recruiting has become a national exercise, even for small schools. Colleges need to find a way to afford to have their coaches on the road to evaluate talent. Recruiting Questionnaires, direct emails to the coaching staff, highlight videos, videos of full matches, etc., are the best places to start. Over-communicating your national tournament schedule with the coaching staff is a good idea, as most will have some staff attending the more renowned tournaments: Super 32, Beast of the East, Journeyman, Fargo, etc.

The biggest mistake a recruit can make is putting all eggs in one basket. It would help if you had exposure to many different types of schools, leadership, Divisions (I, II, and III), etc. The process enables you to learn and build qualifying criteria to evaluate the right fit for you properly. Start with 50 schools across all Divisions.

Start to document your initial qualifying criteria: geography (state), do they have the educational pathway (major) you are interested in, small school vs large school, etc. What I thought was necessary at the beginning of the process often changes with learning and engagement.