Contacting XC/Track Coaches

UrsaMajoric
Sun, 27 Nov 2011 22:23:12 +0000

Riverrunner, your admonition about controlling the coach so he doesn’t contact the wrong schools may be unnecessary, as Editor’s original post clearly states that “Her coach would like to contact the XC/track coaches of the universities that she plans on applying to.”

Beenthere2 and Riverrunner, your posts lead me to one other thought. Sure, if Editor’s daughter’s times are magnificent, they should speak for themselves and no interference by the coach should be necessary. But, if she’s just one of many kids whose times are in the range of interest of a particular level of school, a prompt from the coach may be what’s needed to help get her some extra attention early on. (And since we’re talking Big 10 schools with huge student bodies, it may be tough to have one kid stand out.) The coach may be able to say that she’s a particularly responsible teammate, or seems to have a lot of room to grow and improve her times, or has had some injury or other issue that, when corrected, will likely permit her to improve her times further. Editor is not suggesting that anyone other than the HS coach should be contacting the college coaches, so the concern about having too many voices is moot.

What may be important is to rely on the judgment of the HS coach. Does he/she have a track record getting kids into college and know whether a particular coach would welcome a reference? Or, rather, is the HS coach a newcomer and just using E’s daughter as an excuse to start networking with those coaches? Is the coach a good, diplomatic communicator, or is he the sort who’s more likely to stick his foot in his mouth and hurt her chances? Certainly, they should gently ‘grill’ the HS coach to make sure that they’re comfortable with the benefits of him making an approach. But, on balance, it’s hard to see where she’d be hurt by a call from the HS coach to the effect of “I don’t normally make these calls but this runner is pretty special and has top grades and I think she’d be a perfect fit for your program.” If her questionnaire/email/resume/YouTube video link reaches the coach at about the same time, it is more likely to get her on the coach’s “I’ll keep her in mind” list than a contact from the kid alone, IMHO.

Remember, E’s daughter is only a junior, so the college coaches are limited in the way they can communicate with her. Expecting a coach to suddenly call her HS coach this early in the game is probably not realistic. That likely will come later on when the college coach is more serious about her and is doing his or her due diligence to make sure she’s not a mass murderer - that’s a different conversation than the sort that the HS coach is talking about making now.