College recruiting requires dedication, commitment and a lot of work put in years before to get into a good school and earn good college scholarships.

The recruiting process can start freshman year of high school and can take as long as the spring of your senior year. 

Colleges hold showcases, camps and tournaments all over the nation to scout and recruit college athletes. They have all been put on hold this year because of Covid-19, which can make the process much harder. 

Senior Vincent Anderson said, ”With Covid, it has made being recruited for college quite difficult. Without playing any games, it is hard for coaches to see our skill and get in contact as everything is put on hold.”

Covid has taken away the outside tournaments where coaches can come and see the athletes play in person and have a face-to-face conversation with the athlete.    

With in-person meetings taken away athletes have had to find other way to show coaches their skill as senior soccer player Zavier Hajdukovich says.

“It was a lot more communication over text and email then regular visits to the college or seeing them at different events. Covid changed a lot of the rules for recruiting as well by taking away the communication period for D1 and D2 schools.”

Club practices have changed, too, with a mandate that states athletes have to be six feet apart at all times, which is very hard to do in a contact sport. With practices not being full contact and social distanced it was hard for athletes to stay in top shape; they had to find other ways as Hajdukovich said.

“I did a lot of training on local fields with one or two other teammates when I could and did a lot of hit workouts. Gyms were not open to full capacity but if I got the chance I would go to the gym as much as I could”

With travel not being much of an option as no college events are happening, athletes had to find other ways for college coaches to notice them.

 As Anderson said, ” Getting old game footage, having Zoom calls with coaches and talking to them over the phone has been the best options since travel has been canceled all over from the global pandemic.” 

Athletes are required to find old game film from old tournaments or old showcases to put together highlight films to send out to college coaches. 

The only problem with that is the film may be old and not show the full skill the athlete has, which is a problem.

 As Anderson said, ” With only having old film it is hard to show coaches how I have developed as a player as I have gotten older”

Athletes are not the only ones struggling. Universities have to come up with new ways of recruiting high school athletes with all of the new Covid rules. 

Anderson said, “ College coaches have adapted by being more open to new ideas, by having more online communication, coach recommendations and using film from training sessions instead of games.”