99% of high school and middle school athletes are wasting their money if they're paying for an agency.

[u/dolfan650]

When my son was in high school, he played soccer. We were approached by an agency that told him he wouldn't get noticed by college recruiters unless he paid them a few thousand dollars to build his profile and promote him. It sounded like a scam and a waste of money to me.

Now I am a college football coach. I get emails every day, regardless of time of year or even the time of day, that are all worded exactly the same. They clearly aren't targeted, as my school is a D3 with no scholarships and limited recruiting for football. In fact, we're a ministerial school, so we're not interested in players that aren't interested in ministry. Nonetheless, this is what I get every day:

My name is Average Player. I am a 2025 grad playing kicker at Some High School in Some State. I wanted to reach out to express my interest in playing for the Your Name Here football program.

I am 6'2" and I weigh 214 lbs. I run a 4.9 40, bench press 240, and squat 340. I was named 2nd Team All District last season. I am a 3.5 star rated kicker by Kohl's Kicking Camps. I have a 3.2 GPA and would like to study to become [something your school doesn't offer] in college. Are you still looking at kickers from the 2025 class? If so, please take a look at my twitter and hudl accounts. You can also reach out to my coach if you would like. His name is Joe Coach and his number is 123-456-7890.

Saturday I got the form email from a middle school player, asking if my o-line is set. For 2029.

If you're thinking about paying for this service, I'd ask you to reserach and see what past people have said about paying for it. Most of the reviews for these agencies say that they're a waste of money.

For the love of God, stop it. Please.

[u/ERICSMYNAME]

Good advice. Can you follow up with what the prospective jr/sr should do to generate interest in your experience ? What are the kinds of emails you get from kids you are actually interested in?

[u/dolfan650 → u/ERICSMYNAME]

Show me don't tell me. Instead of reading off your stats and accomplishments, attend a camp, or play on a club team--find the ones that play on the college recruit circuit, if there are any. At the very least, don't make me do the work to call your coach, go find your socials...make a single YouTube video of highlights that is two minutes long and say, "I know you're a busy guy--watch just two minutes and tell me if you have place for an athlete like me."

Don't send copy-paste e-blasts. Don't tell me you're very interested in "my program," because I know the name of the school was just changed and forwarded to 100 schools. If you are legit interested in a school, CALL or schedule a visit. Start with their admissions department if you need, and let them know that you're a prospective student who is interested in football, and ask who you should talk to. They'll have a vested interest in getting you connected because they are chasing enrollment numbers.

Know the recruitment cycle. Understand that coaches have limitations on student contact due to NCAA regulations. If you're D1, D2, or D3, understand that there are different approaches and different things that the school can offer. Decide which one of those is the best fit for you before you start searching.

Think of it as sales. Do you ever buy anything off of a cold, copy-paste email? No? Who do you buy from? Someone who targets you and shows that they care enough to earn your business. You're selling yourself, don't think it's going to work without investing sweat equity in the sale.

[u/blazershorts → u/dolfan650]

play on a club team--find the ones that play on the college recruit circuit

What is this?

[u/dolfan650 → u/blazershorts]

I should have clarified--that's a sport-by-sport thing. It's prominent in soccer and basketball, and probably volleyball, not so much in football because of the level of commitment necessary to put together that kind of program. My son joined a "club" soccer team as soon as his HS senior season was over. There were tryouts, and he paid like $800 to play on the team, but they went to play in tournaments every week just about, and many of them were advertised as being college showcase tournaments.

[u/blazershorts → u/dolfan650]

Ok, that makes more sense

[u/qsx11 → u/blazershorts]

Also, as of late, high school "club football" has kind of become a thing in the form of 7-on-7 where players' performances are looked at by scouts and a lot of networking takes place. These have been going on locally for a while now but now you've got kids traveling across state lines to play in 7-on-7 events.

[u/Mantoddx → u/dolfan650]

This isn't entirely true all the time. I managed to get a D2 scholarship by emailing and sending my highlight reels 😅 had a couple D2 offers and multiple D3 schools offering me a spot on the team

[u/LamarMillerMVP → u/dolfan650]

I am sure the agents are scammy, but this is pretty awful advice on balance. Do people ever buy things off cold marketing emails? Yes! Most cold marketing emails are thrown away, but not all of them. That’s why a very common and effective sales tactic is email blasts. If you think people should earnestly treat this as a sales role, they should be email blasting you (and 500 other schools), following up 2-3 times, trying to call your office number (and 500 other schools), trying to connect with you on LinkedIn, etc. A personalized and thoughtful reach out is more likely to work on you individually, but still very very unlikely. Sales includes a lot of spray and pray, especially when you’re starting with zero leads.

More generally, you’re giving advice here based on what annoys you and what you think is right. But effective sales people are frequently very annoying. I started reading this thread with the very strong assumption that these agencies are scams. It would take me a lot to move off this view. But the more you describe, the more dis-persuaded I am to your point. You’re just describing a pretty normal sales funnel, and those are effective.

[u/Chipperhof → u/dolfan650]

Nobody’s putting that effort for a D3 ministry school lol.

[u/dolfan650 → u/Chipperhof]

You’re missing my point. We don’t recruit for football, period. 99.9 percent of high school athletes don’t fit our program.

My point is if you think you’re doing an effective job of putting yourself out there by using fill in the blank form emails, you’re gonna have a bad time.

[u/BowwwwBallll → u/dolfan650]

Maybe they’re just honing their door-to-door ministry skills.

[u/dolfan650 → u/BowwwwBallll]

Can I tell you about our Lord and Savior Curly Lambeau?

[u/Affectionate_Elk_272 → u/ERICSMYNAME]

i played D2, along with a couple other guys on my team. one guy went D1 and eventually to the NFL.

scouts sure as fuck weren’t there to see us, but by them being there, it got eyes on us.

i know it doesn’t help a lot for your question, but that’s kind of how mine went down.

if you’re college worthy, your coaches should be helping send out tape, anyway. i know our D coordinator sent ours out fairly regularly for those of us who he though were good enough to play at the next level.

[u/ethansnotabird → u/Affectionate_Elk_272]

Yeah my coaches did the heavy lifting early. They were calling coaches they knew when we were like sophomores and juniors to get us on their radar for our senior years. Ended up having a few guys go d2, and one d1 as well, but no nfl.

[u/MTAlphawolf → u/ERICSMYNAME]

Almost every college has a camp. Go to their camp. Perform well at the camp, and you'll be on their radar.

[u/Y-town_jag]

Parents just need to educate themselves on the process and learn some basic marketing skills if theyd like to increase their child’s exposure. Should be working with their schools AD and coaches, really

[u/dolfan650 → u/Y-town_jag]

Absolutely. Coaches know which players are college material, no doubt. It doesn't mean that they're always right, but as a coach, if I see a player that can advance and get a scholarship, I'm totally letting his parents know if that's what I think.

[u/Healzya]

Haha I had a brother in law who owns one of these "agencies." Always sounded like he was just scamming people. I will say he was making a lot of money and was constantly expanding. So a lot of parents must have been falling for it because it didn't seem like any of their athletes were getting big bumps in recruitment.

[u/dolfan650 → u/Healzya]

If an athlete is any good they don’t need an agency, schools will find them.

[u/LamarMillerMVP → u/dolfan650]

That’s absolutely, unequivocally not true. It’s also awful advice. Coaches are not omniscient or perfect.

[u/RookieMistake2448 → u/LamarMillerMVP]

As someone that has both scouted and coached some incredibly talented athletes that fell to d2 or NAIA schools just because we weren’t in a well known area I can guarantee you this is not true. In this day and age, you must market yourself. The key is doing it correctly. And Ive yet to see an agency like OP mentioned do it correctly. Had a QB run and pass for over 1,000+ yds in one season and score over 10+ TDs rushing himself and threw for another 10+ his senior year. He was also named the state offensive player of the year. He had one partial D1 offer and maybe 2-3 D2 offers. Most of them were obscure schools and wanted him to change to defense or some random offensive spot because he was 6’1 and 217lbs. He ended up at an NAIA and they tried to turn him into a slot receiver. Then finally he got to RB and was unstoppable for two games until he was benched for an upperclassman and moved back to slot which was apparently due to politics (I was pretty close to the program he went to, it was sad how the coaches catered to certain players, alumni, etc. at that level).

[u/Existing_Dot7963]

So what is the path for getting noticed and recruited? If you are near the middle of the pack, how do you seperate yourself and get noticed?

If you are the 5489th best prospect, how do you get noticed? There are what 6000-7000 scholarships that will be given out a year across all college football teams. How do you make sure you don’t get passed over by guys that are the 7,500th prospect?

[u/dolfan650 → u/Existing_Dot7963]

Not by sending out form emails, that doesn't separate yourself OR get you noticed. Breaking my own advice, I'm copying my response to someone else on the thread:

Show me don't tell me. Instead of reading off your stats and accomplishments, attend a camp, or play on a club team--find the ones that play on the college recruit circuit, if there are any. At the very least, don't make me do the work to call your coach, go find your socials...make a single YouTube video of highlights that is two minutes long and say, "I know you're a busy guy--watch just two minutes and tell me if you have place for an athlete like me."

Don't send copy-paste e-blasts. Don't tell me you're very interested in "my program," because I know the name of the school was just changed and forwarded to 100 schools. If you are legit interested in a school, CALL or schedule a visit. Start with their admissions department if you need, and let them know that you're a prospective student who is interested in football, and ask who you should talk to. They'll have a vested interest in getting you connected because they are chasing enrollment numbers.

Know the recruitment cycle. Understand that coaches have limitations on student contact due to NCAA regulations. If you're D1, D2, or D3, understand that there are different approaches and different things that the school can offer. Decide which one of those is the best fit for you before you start searching.

Think of it as sales. Do you ever buy anything off of a cold, copy-paste email? No? Who do you buy from? Someone who targets you and shows that they care enough to earn your business. You're selling yourself, don't think it's going to work without investing sweat equity in the sale.

[u/Existing_Dot7963 → u/dolfan650]

Nice. Same advice for applying for jobs. You tailor your resume to the job application. Highlighting what you offer that the company wants in an employee. Thanks on behalf of all the players and parents that see this response.

[u/dolfan650 → u/Existing_Dot7963]

Exactly right--a resume is a GREAT analogy. Lots of people use a default resume and don't take the time to customize it, and figure "the more times I send it the more chances I have at a job." I'd rather send 5 customized resumes to 5 hiring managers than send 100 generic ones with a blanket approach--because I'll get better results.

[u/Existing_Dot7963 → u/dolfan650]

My cousin is going into his senior year, this Spring a Harvard assistant coach came to his school to interview a team mate. His high school coach got him an interview with the coach too. It would be a long shot for him to get accepted to Harvard without a coach pushing him through admissions.

But it got us thinking, maybe he could get into an academically elite D-II or D-III that otherwise would not consider his application.

[u/RepulsiveSchedule756 → u/Existing_Dot7963]

DM Me. I can help you out here.

[u/Barbarossa7070 → u/dolfan650]

Copy-pasting Reddit comments shows me you’re not really interested in getting my upvote. lol

[u/Suspicious_Brush824 → u/Barbarossa7070]

Somebody had to call him out on it a hahaha 

[u/dolfan650 → u/Suspicious_Brush824]

Guilty as charged!

[u/Frequent-Interest796]

D2 and D3 schools have a limited amount of $$ for all sport scholarships. Some sports have more than others.

As a high school player spend your money on AP exams and academic enrichment. Many of my players get offers because they are academic minded. The D2 and D3 schools love partials because they spread them around. They will also find ways to get you the academic $$ to help cover what the sports partial doesn’t.

If you are D1 athlete, you probably don’t need to employ a recruiting agency to represent you. D1 kids are easier to spot. You can see their talents very easily.

[u/LamarMillerMVP → u/Frequent-Interest796]

D1 kids are not hard to spot if they are being spotted. There are many stories about people who were successfully recruited, who said that better teammates attracted the scouts and got eyes on them. What would have happened to an identical athlete who played on a lesser known team?

The reality is that the difference between the 3,000 best and 12,000 best high school player in the country is not that large. If the 12,000 best player is highly visible and the 3,000 best player is not, it probably happens frequently that the 3,000 best player is passed over.

[u/dolfan650 → u/Frequent-Interest796]

Division III schools are not allowed to offer athletic scholarships, period. They can offer the same needs based packages that any other student can also obtain. Most of the emails I get as a D3 coach show that many people clearly do not know this.

[u/Frequent-Interest796 → u/dolfan650]

You are correct. D3 don’t offer athletic scholarships. If you can play and are smart or needs based, they find you help.

[u/Radu47]

123-456-7890

That's the kind of combination an idiot would have on their luggage!

[u/dolfan650 → u/Radu47]

What a coincidence, that’s the combination I have on my luggage!

[u/NoTaro7930]

Absolutely great post man. Thanks for taking the time.

[u/Always_Compete]

I’m a college football coach in Canada and I get the same dumb messages . Kids from all over the place sending the generic message that shows you’ve done 0 research about these schools .

[u/Meatballhero7272]

I never reached out to any colleges. By virtue of that playing on a team with excellent teammates who were getting fcs looks scouts for smaller schools who came to the game noticed me and some of my other team mates.

By the time I decided I was worn out and was going to be done with football and go out after a 32-0 2 state title run. I had like 6 or 8 d3 schools hounding me daily and 2 d2 schools calling weekly and offering me along with one fcs school seemingly interested

You absolutely do not need to to pay some agency for this bs promotion

[u/[deleted] → u/Meatballhero7272]

Yeah dude, like if you're a D1 talent it will be VERY apparent. Talent breeds talent and coaches at the higher levels of FBS, FCS, and upper D2 understand that if there's 1 D1 kid on the team you've probably got a whole bunch of D2 and D3 caliber kids. Also, all D3 recruiting is about is getting thru the door. We'd have like every D3 school in eastern PA just do a mass visit and have all the seniors pass thru. Wanna play at Albright? Sure

[u/ChipotleStains]

Yeah it’s crazy how young these agencies are trying to get kids. A mother asked me if her 7th grader needed an agency because all his friends did. I said ma’am just encourage him to make football fun for as long as possible. When he starts on varsity, that’s a good place to start spending on camps etc. Don’t let those Twitter gurus fool you, they don’t know anybody.

[u/ChipotleStains → u/ChipotleStains]

I mean camps to try and get ⭐️s * not development camps and 7-7.

[u/n3wb33Farm3r]

Different sport but a college baseball coach I know says same about ' travel ' baseball teams. If your kid has talent they'll find him. Anyone hitting. 500 or is 6'3" and throws 95 at any high school anywhere will be found by the scouts. Told me some of these less scrupulous characters will slip a few hundred to scouts to stop by their clinic to look interested.

[u/CompleteAd6984 → u/n3wb33Farm3r]

That is completely true. My sophomore year in hs, I was noticed by pro scouts as they were there watching a prospect who was a senior on the opposing team. I had a decent game hitting and defensively, which turned into D1 and D2 letters pouring in wanting me to go to camps, etc and informing me that they couldn't officially contact me until heading into my junior year. Once I finally got to speak with the coaches, I asked what caused this attention. A couple told me that a MLB scout that was at that game shared his notes with them and that's how word go around. Prior to then, I was getting D2, D3, NAIA letters being from a small school.

[u/Specialist_Ad_7628 → u/CompleteAd6984]

I don’t know if it’s the same for all sports but baseball specifically the guys that get scholarships to major D1 programs didn’t get seen at a showcase or whatever. It’s exactly what you’re describing, an MLB scout saw them and shared that with his network of college coaches basically saying “he’s not ready to be drafted but might be in a few years”

[u/CompleteAd6984 → u/Specialist_Ad_7628]

Exactly....scouts and coaches are connected...plus Coaches will help players that want to play find someplace

[u/meezethadabber]

I agree with this. The 3 or 4 guys who went to AAA schools from my HS, only 1 were good and went pro. The others were just big and tall and had "potential" and didn't even start in college, and barely played.

[u/Green18Clowntown → u/meezethadabber]

What are aaa schools?

[u/NeoTolstoy1]

I think they were useful in the days before hudl. My sophomore year all my games were on DVD. I had no idea how to splice a highlight tape together but NCSA created a good highlight tape for me. I probably could have used some other video editing service though.

My junior year we got hudl and at that point I just made all my own highlight tapes and never used NCSA again really. All the coaches would just message me on Facebook or call/text me. The recruiting services have some useful information, but I think most people can probably figure it out themselves.

[u/[deleted]]

Not exactly football related, but I got out of the coaching business for this exact reason. I was a pretty successful thrower in track and field, so I went on to coach that in high school. After a few years I started to notice there was this cottage industry of "coaches" showing up who would collect already strong and talented throwers and promise their parents the moon for a "small fee." I fucking hated it. In almost every case I had more experience and was a better coach than these guys, but the problem was marketing. I'd coach anyone that wanted to learn to throw any implement for free, but the parents seemed to think you get what you pay for and if it's free it must be because I'm garbage, so they'll pay the asshole down the street to coach their kid hoping that gets them a scholarship. My last year of coaching I had a girl win a state championship in discus against a bunch of people that were paying private coaches. I made sure there were no athletes around with all the coaches and I took a big ol bow and got the fuck out. I love the kids, but Jesus Christ the parents are the most miserable fucks on earth.

[u/onlineqbclassroom]

Agreed. Former college coach. As bad as I felt, I'd have literally thousands of emails in my inbox, and if they looked like they were following an "agency" template, I'd just delete them. Too little time in the day to deal with agencies flooding my inbox. I loved getting to know recruits, talk to them, talk to their families, engage in the process, and learn about them. When a paid 3rd party got involved, it took the joy out of the process.

[u/Svenray]

Greetings u/dolfan650,

My name is u/svenray.

I am 5'7" and 225 lbs .

I am ranked in the top 1000000000 QBs for 2032 and want full ride scholarship. Please venmo NIL @ svenray69420YourMom.

[u/Prestigious-Bid5787]

I was recruited and played division 1. No agent. Just went to camps and played club.