Why Game Footage is Important
Whether you are a rising freshman or senior in high school, it is important to have game film to show coaches in order for them to start evaluating you as an athlete. If you haven’t filmed any of your competitions yet, be sure to get out there and start filming!
Rising freshmen and sophomores, filming games early in your high school career is important to show coaches in your later years how you’ve improved. Also, if you’re playing on Varsity, game film is especially important for college coaches who start recruiting early! Rising juniors, this is a heavy recruiting time for you, so be sure you have film to present to coaches. Rising seniors, you’re a little behind in the recruiting game if you don’t have game footage, but you can still catch up and get your footage seen, so film some competitions as soon as you can!
While in the height of the summer sports camp season look for opportunities to showcase your 1-on1 individual drill training or team competition highlights. Remember, if you are attending a showcase camp, elite prep camp or invitational camp you’ll likely be competing against other rising starts from the region or country. If not, a serious sports camp is still a great way to get more highlight footage of yourself in action over the summer.
While all student-athletes should have a few full games on tape since college coaches may ask for this, it’s also a great idea to create a highlight tape. This video should be about 2-5 minutes long and consist of about 25 of your best highlights from each game you filmed. Depending on your sport, you might need to have a skills video instead of a highlight video. Softball and baseball athletes for example should film a skills video that would require you to hit the diamond one day with a few friends, set up a camera and film the athlete while showing off your “skills” at your position and also at bat.
How to Send Game Film to College Coaches
Student-athletes who are a part of the NCSA Athletic Recruiting Network or BeRecruited have the opportunity to create an athletic profile including stats, academic info and a place to post full game or highlight footage. These profiles are a great way to showcase the student-athlete and allow a college coach to start evaluating the athlete through the highlight video – and it’s easy to send your profile to college coaches! Check out their sites for more information.
If you don’t have your own athletic profile, here are a few other ways to distribute your videos:
- Post your films on YouTube so you can email coaches the link to your video(s)
- Hand coaches hard copies of your film when you go on college campus visits or attend college camps
- Mail your DVD with any introduction letters or other correspondence you have with college coaches
Good luck filming and creating your highlight videos. Just remember, coaches don’t want to see any extra glitz or flare in your tapes, so leave out the background music and effects. Your skills should be enough to awe the coach!
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