How To Get Coaches To Want You
College football has a scarcity fetish.
According to Bob Cialdini, author of the wildly popular psychology books Influence and Presuasion, looks at techniques people use to get other people to say yes to them. When you’re making a request to someone, you are really doing two things (1) you are asking them to do something for you and (2) you are crafting what you are saying. Cialdini’s work is on the craft of presenting requests in ways that will help others say yes to you.
One of the eight principles he lays out in his book is the principle of scarcity.
People always desire to have more of what they can’t have a lot of. If everyone has something, nobody wants it, but if nobody can have something, then everybody wants it.
Take college offers at Power 5 schools, for example. Everyone knows there are only 100 some odd teams with recognizable logos who play on ESPN on Saturdays sending out a very limited number of offers to transfer or freshmen recruits every recruiting cycle. Even though 98% of hopeful high school football recruits most likely are not academically, athletically or personally what these Power 5 programs are looking for, 100% of them covet and believe (wrongly) they realistically have a shot, and in most cases a right to play at these scarce schools.
This works the other way too.
Scarcity drives college football coach behavior as much as it drives recruits’ behavior.
Usually, once one or two teams in the same conference begin offering and recruiting one player, the word is out that this is a player who must be worth the time to look at since your rivals are. All it really takes is two or three Twitter posts of you posing with a college coach in front of a famous college brand logo on their field or football office to get the ball rolling on other coaches’ interest from those same program.
If not every conference rival can have you, then every conference team wants you.
This is kinda like high school dating.
When that girl who wouldn’t give you the time of day to go to the school dance with sees another girl in a peer or rival group talking to you, there is a good chance she might become interested in you. Not because she might actually like you, but because you now have an aura of scarcity around you that did not exist before.
Scarcity isn’t an exact science. In fact, it is more of an art. And, here are a few artful ways you might consider injecting scarcity in an ethical way into your interactions with a college coach:
Name Drop (Tastefully)
When speaking with a college coach via email or DM, I like this general script to follow that will help you communicate your scarcity in a tasteful way:
Coach,
I understand you’re busy and get plenty of messages a day so this will only take 30 seconds of your time.
My name is John Doe and I am a 22’ K/P/QB from (school, state) and while I’ve been on visits to Harvard, UCONN and Tufts, I’d seriously consider committing to your program next year. I’ve attached all my academic and athletic stats below.
Thank you for your time, and again, I understand if you can’t get back to me right away but even a quick 1-2 line reply would really help.
Respectfully,
John Doe
Post Name Drop
Whenever it is appropriate, it’s totally OK to tweet out that you received an offer from a program you’re excited about. Something simple like: “Excited to receive an offer from Army!” It totally fine. It’s the “Prove all the doubters wrong!” or “I need more haters to fuel my fire!” or “Everyone slept on me!” type tweets that really get irksome and are immature that I’d recommend you avoid.
But, ALWAYS check first with a college coach before you hit post. Even if the coach would be cool with it, which usually 98% of the time they are, it is just good practice to respect their authority as your new coach or as a potential new coach by asking them if it’s OK to tweet something out. I think type out on Twitter Draft Post what you’d like to say, screen shot that, send it over to the coach with a simple, “Coach, might this be OK to post? If not, totally get it and will await your call.”
Remember, this might not be your livelihood, but is the coach’s. Always check, first.
What Scarcity Won’t Do For You
Scarcity is a technique to get a coach to move towards saying “yes” to you, but it will not make your game tape amazing.
Scarcity will not turn you from a 5’10 scrappy HS QB into a 6’5 unit, it will not add 15 yards to your KO’s and it will not make a magical full ride drop from the sky.
Scarcity, at best, is a tool best utilized to get a coach to take a peak at your film, but what the coach then decides to do with the film from there, if up to what they see.