The 1st College Call...Worse than a 1st Date?

About the Author: Danna Swenson grew up in a small town of Broomfield Colorado, about 15 minutes outside of Boulder. At age ten she was running in an elementary track meet when the head coach of a then AAU team asked if she wanted to run for their team. She continued running and competing through high school and on to college, where she completed a marketing degree before moving to Arizona with her husband. They had two daughters together, both of who followed in Danna’s footsteps. When her oldest, started looking at college Danna wanted to help her with the process. Even though she had 17 years of advertising and marketing under her belt found the process to be challenging and overwhelming. Danna decided to put her years of marketing and self-promotion to work in order to assist her daughter. Knowing that her times alone might not make the cut, Danna realized the ability to sell one’s self was a vital part of the process as well. With the success of her daughter getting a full ride scholarship, Danna decided to share her secrets, publishing a workbook to help others step through the recruiting process. Recently Arizona Milesplit had chance to sit down with her to chat about a few tips she was willing to share with us:

Can I reach out to College Coaches?

YES! After July 1st going into your senior year. Most College Coaches like that, it shows that you are interested in the school and team enough to take the time to call. Hopefully, you have emailed them and filled out the student athlete questionnaire prior to your call. Get prepared for your call, the first call is the first impression! Have your list of questions ready to go and make sure you have done your research on the school prior to your call. Think about any possible question the coach might ask you. Even down to “what is our mascot”? How embarrassing if you didn't know right? That would be like calling your date by the wrong name... yikes!

How do you practice letting the conversation flow, while on the phone with a College Coach?

The first call will be the hardest but trust me. It will get easier. BE PREPARED! It will help keep you on track. I tell all my student athletes to see if they can find something they both may have in common or something to break the ice with. If you have done your research, you can talk about the team or maybe a championship meets they won. You also, don't want to sound like a robot when asking questions and the Coach may have answered a lot of your questions before you even get around to asking them, so pay attention. Always, be polite and never say anything negative!

Will College Coaches look at my Milesplit profile before or after my call?

Yes they will! In my workbook, that is one of the first things I ask you to set up. Milesplit does such a great job at recording all times and meets that the Coach can get a long term profile on each athlete and their progression through the years. I ask them to go and tag photos/videos/articles in your profile so the coach can see the athlete. College Coaches have said that they refer back to Milesplit throughout the recruiting process to see how the athletes are doing. Most Coaches will look at your profile prior to calling you back. Just like you doing research on them, they do research on you!

Where do I find the Coaches contact information? I have looked everywhere!

Most college website have similar formats. You can easily go to the team website and click coaches or roster, but most of the time it will only pull up the coaching staff's bio's. If you go to staff directory, you can scroll down and find Track & Field or Cross Country and find the Coach's information there. Make sure you have a really good introduction email, similar to the one we have in our workbook. It will cover what you should and should not put in there.

How can I tell if I am going to like the Coach once I am on the team?

You want to make sure that you can have this coach in your daily life for the next four years. Asking the right questions, before accepting, can help you determine whether or not you will be able to be a part of the team and get along with your coach and the staff. Some examples of questions you will want to ask teammates as well as coaches are: What his/her coaching style is? How are they when things don't go right? Do they motivate the team/individual? If you are used to a quite, gentle coach in high school you need to make sure that your college coach will be compatible with what you are used to, if not, you need to think about if you will be able to handle this type of coaching over the next four years. Again, be detailed in your research, like each question in the workbook, they are designed to help you determine whether or not you will fit in!