Ladies and Gentleman, Start your Recruiting Outreach!

Hello;

My daughter is a 6'-1" senior in high school, is athletic and plays multiple sports. Basketball, hockey (goalie), soccer (keeper), and volleyball (middle). Her passion is volleyball. We live in Canada and she would like to play D1 in the States. How would I go about finding out which schools are looking for middles for their programs. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

K.E.

Finding openings on college rosters is a challenge because there really is no central clearinghouse of needed positions.  Sometimes this is due to college coaches not knowing exactly how they wish to allocate a scholarship or if they think they have a good player almost committed; in general, college coaches tend to not advertise their needs very loud.

I know that NCSA Athletic Recruiting has a very large number of college volleyball programs which list what positions they are recruiting, for specific years.  This may be your best bet for research, but it is dependent upon how often a coach may update their filters on NCSA.

As your daughter is a Senior, you are entering the prime time for college volleyball coaches recruiting senior athletes.  The NCAA Division I category is in a Quiet/Dead Period which stops their off campus recruiting and by default, the other college volleyball categories tend not to do much recruiting right now.  

The recruiting tempo will increase after the New Year, with the emphasis on preparing for the MLK Weekend club events which traditionally kick of the club volleyball season!

VolleyFamilies with Seniors who are still engaged in the process, must use this 'slower' time segment to prepare for the intense January and February senior recruiting focus.  

It can be frustrating for VolleyFamilies because the recruiting tempo has been slow through the later summer and the fall, which corresponds to the college volleyball season.  While college coaches are aware of recruiting, their focus is on their competitive season. And, as I have written about many times on this site and Inside College Volleyball, coaches may not know that they will have a scholarship(s) for a senior until after the year end meetings (not to mention job changes and injuries).

Take advantage of this senior recruiting focus in January/February by reaching out to college coaches over the next few weeks with emails and video.  Your entire focus is to get onto the "to see" list of potential programs.  While you may not know if a specific program is recruiting middles, it only costs a mouse click to send the recruiting profile/video to a college coach and with the rapidly changing rosters of the winter, that college coaches may just need a middle.

Lastly, do not limit your outreach to a specific category or small region of the country.  A 6'1" middle blocker, with talent and athleticism, can play anywhere from a good DI team to a quality JC - Just depends on what is best for that recruit!

Ladies and Gentleman, start your recruiting outreach!!!

Good luck!

Coach