Sports Recruiting Videos, p. 1: VideOccasions, Bellevue WA

Preparing an Athletic Recruiting Video

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Page 3 Preparing a Recruiting Video requires the all-out cooperation of three participants: you, the student who is seeking an athletic scholarship; your parents or friends who are helping to prepare the DVD that will be sent out to college and university athletic programs across the country, and we at VideOccasions, who will help pull all your hard work together into a professional looking presentation.
Lets start with you, the athlete.
Think about this scenario for a minute: You're going to interview for a $100,000 job, one that will change the course of your life. Would you scratch out a resume in pencil on the back of an envelope, put on your old torn sweat shirt and go to the interview; talk vaguely about your qualifications and hope everything works out for the best?
Probably not; not if you really wanted the job.
Yet every year high school athletes come to us who hope to get a four-year $100,000 sports scholarship by putting together a recruiting video that's the equivalent of an envelope resume and a sweat shirt and vague qualifications.
Consider what you're up against in the sports market place and you'll see why we think spending the time and money to prepare a great recruiting video is time and money well spent.

Why you need the competitive edge:

You're a high school athlete and you've applied to the colleges of your choice, hoping to get an athletic scholarship.

You prepare a video of high lights from some of your games, up-load it to Youtube and make a link in the resume you send out. So do two hundred other student athletes who are applying to the same school for the same scholarship.

Or you can make a DVD of the same material, or put it on a flash drive.

Of the three choices -- Youtube, flash drive, DVD, we favor the DVD. It gives the coaching staff your achievements in hand, and the DVD's cover alone contains lots of information.

By the time the Coaching staff gets to the DVD of applicant #145 -- that's you -- they've looked at a couple of thousand minutes of play and have a stack of 144 discs sitting in the center of their table, with 55 still to watch.

So, we've got to work together to make yours the best disc of the whole bunch, the most memorable, and the most easily identifiable. This is marketing 101 -- your sales pitch!

Here's what we need to do:

SEQUENCE OF VIDEO

On the front of your DVD we'll print your photograph. Look sharp here -- clean up, dress well : first impressions count.
Under your picture we'll have your jersey colors and number, the organization (high school or club you play for), your name, address, phone number and e-mail address; date of birth, height and weight.
This puts all the relevant information about you right out in plain sight. When the Coaches refer back to you they have only to look at the front of your DVD to see all the pertinent information.
The DVD starts with a menu, on which is a still picture of you, underneath which will be your name, e-mail address and phone number; the high school you play for, your Coach's name and phone number; your class number (e.g., "Class of 2008") and your GPA (and SAT scores if you have them) and any athletic honors you've received. There will be links to your introduction, skills, game highlights and game action.
Your introduction should be a minute to a minute and a half in length. It should start with a nice closeup of you saying something like this "My name is Bill Smith (don't start with "Hi.") I've played football on club teams here in Kirkland Washington since I was 10 years old, and for the past 4 years I've played left guard on the Class A varsity team at Kirkland High School. My jersey number is 73"
Go on to include any information you think is additionally important -- e.g., number of sacks, tackles, interceptions, etc. Remember: You're marketing yourself, so make sure a viewer knows why it's better to pick you than others at your same position.
Keep in mind that the goal here is to make the coaching staff remember you and, obviously, to have them understand what a fine player and good student you are.
Next comes 4-6 minutes of video clips showing your individual skills. As you select these clips, remember that Coaches are looking for outstanding abilities: Quickness, hand/eye coordination, intensity, seriousness, toughness, attitude, and desire.
These clips should show you executing the skills of your sport. In basketball, for example, foul throws, dunks and long shots, break aways. In soccer it might be throw-ins, dribbling, passing, left and right foot shots on goal, etc., while in tennis it would be volleys, drop shots, service and so on.
These clips must show you at your best. If you use material taped by family and friends, no out-of-focus shots, no shots of your family in the grandstand, no shots where it isn't possible to tell the player is you (especially true in basketball, football, rugby, etc.) Don't include time outs and plays where you're not in the game.
Next come two to three minutes of game highlights, shots that show you playing spectacularly.
Then some game action, where we can see you at work during the course of a game. 12-14 minutes of this is enough, although in some sports the recruiting Coaches may request that you include an entire half, or even the tape of an entire game. If they want that, we'll put it at the end of the DVD, linked on the menu to a chapter stop so they can find it easily.
Finally, an ending statement. It might be something like " I know what a fine football team Wake Forest has and I believe I can contribute to its excellence. Please let me know if you require additional information about my academic and athletic abilities."
Last but not least, a wrap-up screen with your name, high school, jersey number, phone number and e-mail address and your Coach's name and phone number.

And a note of caution: It's o.k. to have music playing under the skill and game shots, but select something without lyrics. The Coach wants to see how you play the game, not listen to your favorite song!

VideOccasions

Pages two and three will guide you through the steps you and your parents can take to guarantee an excellent presentation.

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