Preamble: #
This will be a post about how to get recruited to run in college (I’ve made another post about running unattached in college). I personally was recruited to a handful of schools, and recieved walk-on offers at a handful of other schools. Most importantly however, I recieved a response from every school I reached out too. While this post cannot make a coach fall in love with you, it will show you how to write an email they will actually read.
For those who want to know, I reached out too (and recieved a response from):
- Every UC
- Virginia Tech
- Purdue
- UNC Chapel Hill
- Stanford
- Cal State Long Beach
Write Emails! #
The biggest downfall I see most recruits fall through, is thinking your times aren’t good enough to send out. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that your times are fast enough, but I will tell you that waiting for them to get faster, will not help you! If you get faster, great! Send more emails! If not, be glad you sent the emails earlier. There is no perfect time to reach out to coaches, so I advise you start right now.
Writing Emails: Subject Line #
The singular most important part of an email, is the subject line. Most coaches won’t even read past the subject line unless they like what they see, so write EVERYTHING in the subject line.
Sample Subject: CO ‘23: Daniel Municio | 4:07 1500m, 9:32 3200m | 4.07 GPA | 1560 SAT
See in the subject, you can get almost all relevant information, and most coaches can decide purely off the subject line, if they’re interested in recruiting you. Most coaches will not open emails unless they see a fast time in the subject line.
After I got into schools, I also added “Accepted, Hoping to Walk-On,” which also netted me responses from every school I hadn’t yet heard from
Writing Emails: The body #
The body of an email generally doesn’t matter too much, but here’s a quick checklist:
- Don’t make it too long
- Coaches are lazy! They don’t want to hear your life story
- Specify Key Times AND Key Places
- Ex: What place you got at the state/regional/league meet
- Bold and Underline them
- Again, don’t dump your life story.
- Give your GPA and SAT Score!
- Mention what you like about their school -> What you want to study
- Do a grammar pass-through
- For the third time, don’t overthink it, just keep it simple and send out the email.
- You can and should do this in less than an hour, the longer you spend, the worse it becomes
Sample Email:
Dear Coach _____________,
My name is Marcelo Rivera, I’m currently a senior at Dougherty Valley High School. This past cross country season, I ran a time of 14:12 at the Woodbridge Invitational and finished with a time of 15:12 at the CIF State Championships, securing 14th place in the D1 race. On the track, I closed my junior year running a 4:05 mile at NCS Meet of Champions (1st place overall), the day after running a 4:15 in prelims.
Off the track, I’m an excellent student with a GPA of 3.7 and an SAT of 1380. Running has been a defining part of my life and my teammates and coaches are like family to me. I would love to be a part of your program and contribute not just as a student or athlete, but as a caring and reliable teammate.
If there are any additional details or specific questions you have for me, feel free to ask. I’d love to come visit and meet the team whenever possible.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you!
Best Regards, Marcelo Rivera
Who To Email: #
- Do not email the head coach.
- Email the XC Coach
- EMAIL ASSISTANT COACHES
- This one is probably the biggest way to get responses
- Assistant Coaches are much more likely to see the email and respond to it or forward it to the head coach.
- Volunteer Coaches are also great!
- Again, only email the coaches for CROSS COUNTRY. Don’t email a hurdles coach unless you want to get laughed at.
- Side-note: This happened to me with Cal State Long Beach, but the coaches were very nice and still responded to me and offered me a spot, but it was still embarassing
Social Media: #
Social media can also be a great way to reach out too coaches! But remember:
- Don’t like weird posts! They can see that!
- Keep things formal, it’s always better to be extra courteous than inconsiderate
Conclusion: #
Once again, the most important thing to do is start emailing now! If you are reading this post, you probably should start emailing instead of overthinking how to write a perfect email.
If a program doesn't respond or doesn't seem interested in you, it's their loss. You will end up where you need to be, enjoy the journey.
Most of the schools that passed on me, have a top 5 average slower than my 8k PR -> I'm glad they never recruited me. There's only a few actual schools that passed on me that are actually better off without me (UNC and Stanford and VT)