Technology Gives College Recruiting a Boost

In this day and age college recruiters no longer have to read the scores of all the high school basketball games in teeny, tiny print in the local sports sections of printed newspapers across the country. Nor do recruiters have to travel hundreds of miles to catch their prospects in action. Instead, they can simply log online from the convenience of their own home and catch the highlights.

The Internet and various video sharing agents, most notably YouTube, allow recruits to show college coaches and recruiters what they are capable of doing out on the field or on the court. The Internet's ability to show recruiters prospective athletes' talent adds one more item to the list of things computers make easier to do--athletes getting noticed and thus earning an athletic scholarship to college. Such online postings not only save gas money for the college recruiters, but it saves the potential recruit the money for postage necessary to mail video tape footage of games to recruiters. Computers make editing these films much easier, thus adding to the benefits of online coverage of recruits.

April Carson, a 15-year-old basketball prodigy, is just one example of how online video sharing has already paid off. April's father posted footage of her breaking the Tequesta Trace Middle School record for 3-pointers in a game. April's outstanding performance would have perhaps gone unseen by everyone not in attendance (including recruiters) had it not been posted online.

A performance that had only been seen by Tequesta Trace's fans has now gone on to receive 11,858 views (at the time of this post), including views by notable basketball coaches across the country, following her father posting the highlights online. April and her family have already received mailings from Baylor, Clemson, Princeton and Yale, and she is only a sophomore in high school!

April is not the only high school athlete to benefit from the ease the Internet provides of recording, posting and watching stellar atheletic performances online. Some athletes, like Jashaun Agosto, even use similiar methods to record and show their daily workouts and athletic training. Jashaun's footage had received 260,400 views at the time of this post.

YouTube links to these recordings can be sent to scouts and recruiters quickly in an e-mail. Although online films are not the only indicator of talented players, many coaches think that viewing such films is a good jumping off place when scouting. Online links also lower the age at which recruiters begin to watch and track prospective athletes. Such internet communication makes it easy for players to talk with coaches and coaches to talk with coaches. If only students could post videos of them acing their tests for academic scholarships, and we would be set!

For more information about this new media topic, visit http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/sports/ncaabasketball/02youtube.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=login.