Recruiting Athletes

Sports Illustrated's latest issue includes a story about how college coaches go about the process of mailing information and letters to prospective student athletes. They provide some fascinating data about the quantity and substance of many of these mailings. I think what impacted me most (and is consistent with what I have seen in letters to WKHS students) is how few of the letters are personalized and how many are just a standard mass mailing communication. I was a bit shocked by how few of the letters that the student athlete they were following actually opened. I wonder if they would have looked at the times of when the letters were mailed if they would have found that he read more of the letters early on and then as the letters became overwhelming and he had realized that they were not personalized that the liklihood that he would actually open and read them decreased. For those students who are hoping to pursue athletics in college, this is an article worth the time to read.