​A deep dive on 4 highlight tape tips
“If you’re good enough, they’ll find you.”
That’s a load of garbage.
I’ve seen a ton of insane athletes end up getting little to no recruiting attention. I’ve also seen plenty of below average athletes get big time scholarships.
Why?
It’s not about whether or not you’re good enough, it’s about whether or not college coaches know about you and think you’re good enough.
Recruiting is a business. You have to sell yourself. The best marketing tool you have is your highlight tape.
If you set your tape up the right way, then you exponentially increase your odds of getting recruited at the highest level.
If you set it up the wrong way, you’re shooting yourself in the foot before the race even starts.
Here’s the TL;DR version:
- You have to actually have good plays to put on a tape.
- Stack your best plays at the front of the tape.
- Brevity is your friend. Most coaches will turn your tape off in less than 60 seconds.
- Leave them wanting more with a killer cliff-hanger.
Tell a story
Your highlight tape needs to tell a story. And it needs to be a thriller, not a textbook.
College coaches have a million athletes reaching out to them to get them to watch their tape. Seriously, log into Twitter and look at any tweet that a college coach sends out. The replies are filled with kids spamming them to “Check out this tape.”
Your story needs to stand out. It needs to be entertaining. Your story has to make them want to keep watching.
1. Ball out on game day
This one should go without saying, but we’ll say it anyways.
Being really good and making really good plays makes this process a whole heck of a lot easier.
2. Your best plays should be at the very beginning (with one exception)
Imagine you’re watching a college basketball coach in their office. In the last week, they’ve had 500 kids DM or email them about watching their tape.
They click the link of someone whose bio says they’re 2x All-Conference and a 1,000 point scorer.
The first 5 plays are a couple of fast break lay-ups and wide-open spot-up shooting.
What’d you think the coach would do next? They close the link and move on to the next one of the other 499 players.
Their time is limited. This person looked average. They have to move on.
They’ll never know that the 7th play was a poster dunk. Or that they 11th play was an insane cross-over step back 3 from NBA range.
You have to lead with your best plays. Get them hooked, then reel them in.
Your first 3 plays should make the coach think “Oh shoot. We’ve got an athlete here.”
3. Keep it short
​Tavon Austin ​is allowed to have an 11 minute high school tape. You are not.
Leave out all the fluff. If the play is an average, run of the mill play, leave it out.
You want to leave them wanting more. If you put every tackle you had that season on your highlight tape, there is no mystery. There is no cliff-hanger that leaves them wanting more.
Putting average plays on there makes your highlight tape feel like a textbook, not a thriller.
Think about how your favorite TV show leaves you questioning what comes next at the end of every episode.
You want to re-create that emotion in the coaches who watch your tape.
I received 100% of my D1 scholarship offers off of ​my junior year highlight tape​ that is 6.5 minutes worth of game film. If I had to do it over again, I would take off an addition 30-60 seconds.
4. Leave them wanting more. End with a great play.
I cannot overemphasize how much you want to leave them wanting more. You want them to feel obligated to pick up their phone right away and call you or your coach to learn more about you.
Save one of your best plays for last. Leave them on a cliff-hanger.
A quick thought on work capacity
If you’re a waitress at a slow, suburban restaurant that struggles to get business, you’re going to feel overwhelmed when the rare time comes that all your tables are full.
If you’re a waitress at a busy NYC restaurant that’s always at capacity, having all of your tables full is just another day at the office. You’ll feel completely calm.
Getting your athlete acclimated to a busy schedule is a cheat code for later in life.
If they get overwhelmed by having school and practice 3x per week, they’re probably going to struggle when they’re trying to start a family and pay the bills later in life.
Build their capacity to handle stress and work hard.
More from me…
- 2024 is geared toward pumping out more educational content on social media. Follow me on Instagram ​@gtperformance_​ to learn all about athlete development.
- If you think this newsletter doesn’t suck (or maybe you even enjoy reading it), I would really appreciate you sharing it with some other parents that might benefit from reading it. You can just send them to ​gtperformance.co/free​ and they can subscribe there!
Thanks so much for your help in spreading the word about long-term athlete development!
Be >,
Zach
Dr. Zach Guiser, PT, DPT, CSCS