October College Recruiting Newsletter 2024

Welcome to the Kings Hammer October College Recruiting Newsletter! The club is excited to work with you to accomplish all of your player’s goals for this upcoming soccer year, on and off of the soccer field. Each month, we will be providing this resource to help you navigate the craziness that is the college recruiting process. We hope you find value in this newsletter and we are excited to assist in this exciting process for your family!

This month’s newsletter will go through the things you should focus on before, during and after participating in a showcase or an event.

Getting the Most Out of Showcases and Events

As November, and the start of the High School Club season, approaches many of you will be competing in showcases with the hope of catching the eye of a college coach or two. Many athletes mistakenly assume that attending these events, whether local, regional, or national means automatically being seen and recruited by a vast number of coaches. That is not always the case! Just because college coaches attend these events does not mean they are going to be recruiting YOU. Fortunately, each Kings Hammer HS age players have access to the Sports Recruits platform to assist them with getting ahead of the recruiting process. Here are some steps to take to improve your chances of being seen at your upcoming event.

Before Each Event

Update Your Profile
- SportsRecruits Profile is your active resume. Keep information up to date on all recruiting spaces
- SportsRecruits Bio – What is it and Why is it so Important
Build or Update your Favorite Schools
- Add Schools to your favorites listIncreases odd of appearing on searches conducted by that college’s coaches
Message College Coaches
- SportsRecruits email template and info – Utilize SR Messaging platform to email coaches about your upcoming eventsInclude coaches attending and those not attendingAthletes should NEVER attend an event unknown to coaches
- 3 types of messages
  - Intro message – first time message to a coach/college providing basic informationPre-Season Message – follow-up message providing as much information about your season as possible (outline)
  - Pre-Event message – sent 3-5 days prior to the event providing more details on how the coach can find you (match details, jersey #, colors if known, etc)

During the Event

Be Your Best
- Come prepared – sleep, hydration, fuel, and prior practicesWork hard at all times-there are no “small moments”
- Movement on and off the ball highlights awareness and intelligence
Character Counts – you are being recruited (watched) throughout the event
- Encourage teammates whether you are playing or on the sidelinesShow respect-referees, teammates, coaches, parents
- Body language says a great deal about a player

After the Event

Message Coaches
- Thank those who attended and/or watched you – check notifications on S/R to see who viewed your profile
- Update those who were unable to attend and provide an update on the event
Video – building out an event highlight reel for your profile
- Show your core attributes – pace, hustle, vision, good dribbling, good passing, etcPut in goals scored (or prevented) first, then assists or chances createdVersatility
- 50/50 Challenges
- SportsRecruits – How to Use the Highlight Reel Editor

For more details, click the link to check out this prior SportsRecruits Webinar – Gearing Up for Events Season

Personal Development – Patience

The recruiting process can be a tricky one to navigate, and more often than not, takes a while to play itself out. Between initial contact and gauging interest, figuring out how genuine that interest actually is (on both sides), taking visits, and finally accepting an offer and crossing the finish line, this process can take months or even years! It is human nature to want to have all of the answers right away, and for a lot of potential student athletes at 16 or 17, making their college selection is their biggest life decision to date. It is important that you understand that rushing into a decision for the wrong reasons can lead to frustration down the road. Instead, being thorough, proactive and patient in your recruiting process will lead to more fulfillment, joy, and satisfaction with the decision that you ultimately make. Take a look below at 5 ways to practice patience on a daily basis and determine how you can add this to your toolbox of daily habits to help set you up for success!

1. Be more aware of when you’re being impatient (and patient)

Patience is one of those areas where being more aware – more mindful – really pays off. So, what do we get impatient about? What situations and behaviors set off our impatience? Identify them, and then be more aware of when one of these triggers might be coming up. Once we think more about what they are, we can begin to work out strategies to deal with them more patiently.

2. Simply enjoy the process

It also pays to be mindful in another way too. Often our impatience comes about because we’re focusing too hard on the end goal. Rather than enjoying the journey to get there, we’re stressing about achieving something that might take some time. One way of combatting this is to try and do more things that aren’t immediately rewarding, but which pay off in the end.

3. Take three big breaths

Take a breath. And another, and another. It is one of the simplest and most effective ways to stop yourself being impatient. It works for a number of reasons. For one, it returns your breathing to normal. When you’re stressed, the first thing that is affected is your breathing. Secondly, the extra oxygen has a calming effect on your mind and body. You simply feel more relaxed and less stressed when you’re breathing more slowly. And thirdly, it creates space. It puts a bit of distance between the thing that is triggering your impatience, and your reaction to it

4. Practice being patient

In many ways, being patient is a habit. Like any good habit it can be learned. And once we’ve learned it, we can improve it with regular practice. The simplest way to do this to build up your tolerance for waiting, or for disappointment. This might sound strange, but it can be useful. For example, don’t always give yourself what you want, straightaway. Make yourself wait for good things from time to time. Or lower your expectations about how things are going to turn out. This isn’t about settling for second-best or taking a cynical approach to life. But rather, it is about being honest about how the world works (and how things don’t always go your way).

5. Be realistic

Building on this last point, patience is also about looking at the bigger picture. Having strategies up your sleeve for dealing with those moments when you get impatient is good. But it is also necessary to be realistic and honest about what is driving your impatience. Expectations are central to this. When we set unrealistic expectations, we cause ourselves stress when, unsurprisingly, things don’t work out.

Recent Kings Hammer College Commitments

Congratulations to the most recent Kings Hammer soccer players to make college commitment decisions! Remember to post your commitment to your Sports Recruits account, send a commitment photo to info@kingshammer.com, and include @kingshammer or tag Kings Hammer on any social media posts so that you can be recognized for your achievements!