Why am I not being Recruited by NCAA Teams?

Written by Mark Wires of Jr. Hockey Recruit!

*I wan to apologize to the JR Hockey Recruit, as I forgot to link back their site in a previous article!

The NCAA Recruiting Process & Rules

Post 1 of the Series

Wondering why you have not received recruitment materials, or why the head coach of your favourite D1 program walked right past you, well here are some reasons.

The NCAA recruitment process is complex, and for prospective student athletes it can become confusing and frustrating. First, the NCAA has a very broad definition of ‘Recruiting’, which incorporates making contact with the athlete, their parents, relatives or legal guardian by any university staff member or representative for the purpose of securing the athletes enrolment. The purpose is to eliminate influences on the athlete’s decision outside of the prescribed recruitment periods.

When can college coaches start recruiting and make contact with potential student athletes?

Grade 10 (Sophomore Year)

The first opportunity for D1 coaches to make contact is on July 15th after the athletes grade 10/sophomore high school year. At this time coaches are restricted to sending questionnaires, NCAA materials, nonathletic recruiting materials and making phone contact no more than once per month. In other words, if you have not been contacted before this date don’t sweat it. Further, if you are not contacted during your grade 11/junior year, relax and keep playing, you have 2 years of eligibility left. Not to mention, the average age for joining an NCAA hockey team is 20 years old!

During an athletes grade 10/sophomore year of high school no contact is allow other than the one phone call per month. This means that all off campus contact is forbidden as well as on campus contact. On campus contact refers to Official and Unofficial visits. This gradually changes as the athlete progresses through high school.

Grade 11 (Junior Year)

During an athletes grade 11/junior year the recruitment process escalates and full recruiting materials are able to be sent. On July 1st after the completion of the school year coaches are permitted to make off campus contact. At this point it is likely that you will experience a home visit, or other type of personal meeting where you will get to meet and get to know the coaches. In this phase an athlete is able to visit campuses on unofficial visits as many times as they want (more on this under the Unofficial Visits section).

Grade 12 (Senior Year)

During an athletes grade 12/senior year the recruitment process hits full stride. The progression continues with coaches being able to call athletes once a week starting August 1st. Off campus contact is strangely limited to 3 times, but official visits are not allowed. An athlete can start going on official visits the day their classes commence, but are limited to 1 per university and 5 visits in total to D1 programs (more about this in the Official Visits section).

If you have yet to be contacted or recruited those are some of the major restriction effecting NCAA programs from doing so. This is the first of a series of posts about the NCAA recruitment process, the posts to come will go into more detail about the specifics that you need to know.