Offseason Importance - College Golf Scholarships
You may have noticed that you’re playing in fewer tournaments now than in the spring and summer. That’s true of college teams, too. That makes these few months an important time to reach out to college coaches. The offseason should be your “on season” for making coach connections. Darren Pang, 2019 AmateurGolf.com Winter Invitational Winner, is taking a gap year before joining the Columbia golf team next fall. Here are his keys to creating offseason connections.
1: Understand the college golf calendar.
“For golf, since the winter is the offseason, if you’re looking to schedule a time to talk, coaches are a lot more inclined to reply to that request during the winter. They’re not traveling as much with their teams and they’re usually not traveling around watching other kids play. So, winter is a good time to capitalize. You have to understand that these college coaches are human and that they’re very busy, and they’re constantly traveling and working with their team. So if you understand their schedules, you’ll have a bigger chance of catching their attention when you need to.”
2: There are a couple important steps before sending that first email.
“I did a lot of research. Finding specific information about the team, program, schedule, etc. It shows the coach you care. It’s an easy way to set yourself apart from the other recruits. An example would be ending my email with a ‘good luck wish’ in a specific upcoming event for the team. Filling out recruit questionnaires, which are found on team websites, can help because that’s how coaches store information about recruits in an accessible way.”
3: Brevity is the key to a strong coach email.
“I started emailing college coaches at the end of my freshman year. I reached out through email before I started learning more about the recruiting process. After learning more later in my high school career, I reflected on my first email, and thought, ‘wow, I made a lot of mistakes.’ One of the lessons I learned about writing a good email is to be really direct and concise in the message you want to portray. Coaches are getting a lot of emails every week and every day, and they’re very busy people. You want to make sure that your email gets to the point. Whether it’s an update on recent tournaments, trying to schedule a time to talk, or inviting them to an event, you need to be precise and clear.” [Note: An upcoming Athlos newsletter will share more specifics of a strongcoach email]
4: There’s more to do after that initial email.
“I sent follow-up emails all the time. Even if a coach didn’t directly respond to me, when I had something to follow up with or an update, then I sent a follow up. More often than not, if they don’t respond to an email, it’s nothing personal. They’re just really busy people and it’s really easy for them to overlook an email. It can never hurt to keep sending updates. And, it’s not just about sending emails. It’s about preparing for those phone calls and doing your research on the school and working to establish a relationship with the coach.”
5: The recruiting process is in your hands.
“Recruiting was a lot more work than what I thought it was going to be when I first started the whole process. It’s a very overlooked aspect of the journey to college athletics because it’s not really talked about as much as training or working out. I always thought that if you play well, you’re going to get the attention from the coaches you want attention from. In reality, that’s not how it works at all. You have to take control of the wheel and put yourself out there and not wait for anything to happen. Working hard in the recruiting process is just as important as everything else.”
