Connecting High School Athletes and College Coaches with the Largest College Recruiting Service on the Web

Sites such as beRecruited.com are leading the shift.

The sites offer high school athletes the opportunity to upload videos, update their statistics and essentially make a pitch to colleges as to why they'd be a good fit for their program.

A growing number of athletes and coaches are gravitating toward the technological trend, which also has eased some of the economic strains of recruiting.

When national signing day arrives Wednesday, some local athletes will credit beRecruited.com for helping cultivate their college commitments.

"BeRecruited had a big role when I signed with Washington," said John Dalton, a swimmer from Arvada West High School who recently committed to the Huskies. "It helped me get to know the coach more and see what their meet schedule was like."

Dalton is one of about 1,200 in- state athletes from more than 70 schools with an account on the free site. Many student-athletes share similar stories.

Other recruiting sites such as ncsasports.org and takkle.com also specialize in matching potential recruits with coaches.

BeRecruited.com claims to be the fastest-growing choice among athletes. After record growth in 2008, beRecruited.com has about 400,000 users. Of those, an estimated 350,000 are athletes, the remainder college and high school coaches.

Of course, top-tier prospects in football and other high-profile sports won't need such sites. And the recruiting service won't make an unqualified athlete a sudden college prospect.

But for everyone in the middle, such as that volleyball player who is talented enough to play at Northwest Missouri State or the football player who'd be a perfect fit for Garden City Community College in Kansas, this is a cutting-edge way to get noticed.

Kirsten Bladek, a volleyball player from Monarch High School, received an expense-paid trip to New Mexico Highlands after contacting it on the site. The school offered her a scholarship, but she hasn't made a decision.

"A lot of schools have been contacting me; I can't keep track of how many anymore," said Bla- dek, who probably will wait beyond Wednesday to make her decision. "Just this week, I've talked to three schools already. I try to make sure to update my profile every week or so. Since I'm in club (volleyball) right now and we play every other weekend, my mom takes footage of that and we tried to put it online as much as possible."

Unlike blindly sending a highlight tape to a coach, the sites allow student-athletes to be interactive and proactive.

"You can't just put your name out there and hope coaches are going to contact you," said Tyler Davis, a Ralston Valley High School athlete who will swim at Wyoming next year. "You have to show them you're interested. I'd say Facebook and sites like that familiarized me with what (beRecruited.com) is all about, how to update regularly, filling out coaches' questionnaires, things like that."

Coaches' helper

The site doesn't just help athletes. Coaches use the tool, too.

Registered users don't have to spend valuable hours searching blindly through an abundance of profiles for that diamond in the rough. The site will update the coach when a new athlete registers who fits the parameters they are looking for.

"It's obviously nice, because we know a lot of people in Colorado and what their skill sets are, but it lets us see athletes nationwide and internationally," said Elizabeth Moore, a Colorado State assistant coach in cross country and track and field. "It not only helps us find athletes, but also weed athletes out. We have recruiting standards, of course, and not everyone fits the standards."

A coach's parameters might include items beyond seeking a running back who weighs at least 180 pounds and runs no worse than a 4.5-second 40-yard dash, or a power forward who is at least 6-foot-8, played at a large-classification high school and is an accomplished low-post player.

At Colorado Mines, coaches also need athletes who are seeking an engineering degree. Men's basketball assistant Brad Schick is a beRecruited.com user and is seeking a point guard who fits Mines' athletic and educational parameters.

"This is my third coaching job, and by far and away it helps more at Mines than it would have anywhere else, because the pool of kids we can get is so small," said Schick, who also has served as an assistant at Fort Lewis and Nebraska-Omaha.

"At Fort Lewis, I wouldn't have used it nearly as much, because we were purely focused on the player's basketball ability."

Schick believes such sites help a school like Mines more because of its smaller size and strict academic standards. He sees the concept continuing to grow, at least for certain types of schools.

"I do see it continuing for higher academic schools and schools that recruit nationally," Schick said. "Some of the schools that recruit locally will continue to have their pipeline of local student- athletes who they'll mostly see in person."

Colorado State recruits nationally, but Moore has relished some of the site's conveniences. If the Rams are seeking sprinters and jumpers, for instance, it not only matches CSU with fitting athletes but lets athletes in other events know the school might be full at that position.

It also prevents troublesome contact issues.

Sometimes a coach will leave a message for a student at school, but the message is tossed around through several administrators before it reaches the student.

Still, Moore cautions that coaches can't become overly reliant on such sites.

"You don't know if the athlete is sending their profile to every school in the nation, just to me, or to me and 20 other coaches," she said.

Easing the strain

With the economy hurting, finding ways to save money, whether in paying for college or recruiting expenses, is a prime concern.

For parents, recruiting sites offer an increased opportunity for their student-athlete to corral an athletic scholarship, which, obviously, would save heaps of money.

For colleges and athletes alike, the sites eliminate some of the precious time spent in the recruiting process and possibly prevent unwanted, costly visits.

And, for the student, the free site is the right price (although beRecruited.com users can upgrade to a deluxe profile for about $40).

"That's one of the big positives about it," said Schick, the Mines assistant. "If you try it and it doesn't work out, you're not out a lot of money. I think you might see a different stress level if it was a high-cost thing."

Matchmaker

Jeff Cravens, president of beRecruited.com, talked with the Rocky about his Web site, which allows high school athletes to easily connect with college coaches.

* What makes your site unique when comparing it to other recruit-match sites?

"Probably the biggest difference here for us is the level of engagement we have with college coaches. We have over 14,000 college coaches registered with the site, and that's really the thing that drives the interest. A lot of people can get a kids' profile on a site, but if you don't have a coach who's engaged to it, it doesn't help the kid too much."

* How important is the concept of keeping it free (or low cost for deluxe users)?

"Our goal is to be the online marketplace to start your recruiting efforts, and I think the only way to do that is to keep it free or extremely low cost, especially with the current economic climate. Another part of that is, historically, there have been some people who have been less than reputable involved in recruiting services, which makes people a little leery from the outset. If you let people engage in your product for free, it takes away that initial level of skepticism."

* Does the notion that everyone loves Facebook play in to what you're doing?

"We try to help our kids understand that it's different from social networking because this is really almost a professional network, and they're not going to convey the same things most teenagers do on a MySpace or a Facebook. But the fact that people are very comfortable presenting themselves in that type of format definitely plays to our advantage. If you look at where teens are spending their time, it's online."

* What do you think allowed the concept to boom in the past year?

"In a business like ours, the larger your community gets, the quicker you sail. Once we passed the 100,000-user mark, things increased in word of mouth and quality athletes that are using the service. More coaches started using it and it's just a self-perpetuating thing. Now more than ever, people are looking for efficiency in what has been an inefficient marketplace of college recruiting."

Decision day

Monarch High School volleyball player Kirsten Bladek, who has been contacted by numerous schools on her beRecruited.com account, talked to the Rocky about the recruiting process.

* How stressful is signing day?

"The process leading up to it is stressful because there are a lot of big decisions I have to make about where I want to go. But the day I know where I'm going to sign, that, to me, will be a big relief. "

* Your thoughts on all the attention given to signing day?

"I think it's kind of exciting. It's fun to be in the spotlight. It doesn't matter too much to me personally, because I just want to be happy with where I'm going. But if you're really good and you're getting a lot of publicity, I'm sure that would be fun."

* Do you wish volleyball and other lower-profile sports were given the same amount of attention as football and basketball?

"I guess volleyball isn't too big a deal if you're signing, because the teams aren't as important as football and other bigger sports. But, yeah, I think people should pay attention."

* Is updating your beRecruited. com account as addicting as updating Facebook and similar sites?

"It's not addictive, but it's really fun to go on and see what coaches have been looking at your profile, then contacting them, reaching out, talking to them and seeing if they have any interest in you. It's fun, because every day, different coaches are looking."

* How many times do you think a typical athlete in your position changes her mind before reaching a decision where to commit?

"A lot of my friends already know where they're going, and because we live in Colorado, a lot of them want to go to CU. A lot of them still have options. I have a lot of smart friends, and they're excited to see where they can potentially go. "