If you’ve recently integrated with the SportsRecruits platform, you’ve made the first move towards happier staff, fulfilled players, satisfied families, and a stronger club. But what separates the most successful integrations from the least? What approach can help you make the most of your new integration?
Momentum is a crucial factor in determining integration success. It’s important to get into a rhythm with the platform from the start. This is why we’re rolling out a new series documenting a SportsRecruits integration from inception. So you can have at your disposal a realtime view of how a club may leverage the SportsRecruits platform to achieve results.
Allow me to introduce you to Ali. On paper, Ali’s aim for SportsRecruits is easily identified. Ali has coached club field hockey for eight years, and high school teams for three. Over the years, she’s had to balance wearing a myriad of hats with working a full-time job.
Her current trainees are a group of girls playing field hockey at a private high school. While everyone is competitive and wants to play in college, not all may achieve this goal without a good idea of where they fit athletically and academically.
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Last year, the school realized they had a great group of girls that could play at the next level. The head coach asked Ali to be the designated recruiting contact. When the girls need help, Ali would be the go-to resource for all their college concerns.
The first step for Ali was to determine what this role meant.
Ali needed a place to collect all relevant recruiting information. With a full-time job comes an inundated inbox. An overflowing inbox leaves little room for part-time commitments. Ali’s turn to a SportsRecruits integration seems like an obvious next step.
With SportsRecruits, the team would have more opportunities to contact coaches than they would otherwise. Ali could utilize the platform as a one-stop shop for keeping track of each girl’s recruiting process. What’s more, she could make a productive difference with just one to two hours a week.
These reasons are solid on their own, but for Ali, the motive is deeper.
Ali’s decision to integrate with SportsRecruits and, consequently, her approach to utilizing the platform are directly linked to the reason she got into coaching in the first place.
The Inspiration
When Ali was a high-school athlete, she didn’t have a go-to resource for guidance in regards to recruiting. She didn’t have anyone to help her explore options, identify a good fit based on her athletic ability, or prepare for the process. As a result, she ended up accepting the first program that expressed interest. Which turned out to be a poor fit. After spending most of her collegiate experience on crutches, Ali was determined to prevent this from happening to someone else.
“I think to myself, these kids are so lucky. For having coaches that really care, for having a beautiful field to play on, for practicing every day. The sky is the limit.”
– Ali Hellmuth, Coach
“Since I’ve been coaching so much, it’s my absolute favorite thing to do,” said Ali Hellmuth. “Now I play in practice with my kids.”
Ali’s experience gives her perspective the girls are fortunate not to have.
“I think to myself, these kids are so lucky. For having coaches that really care, for having a beautiful field to play on, for practicing every day,” said Ali. “The sky is the limit, you can truly play.”
Ali’s goal for the girls that play on her team is for them to know that they have someone to go to when they aren’t sure. That they have someone who will help them find the right fit. They will have access to all the tools they need to succeed.
If Ali had a tool like SportsRecruits, the result would have been transformative.
In a nutshell, the personal difficulty which introduced Ali to the coaching world, also informed Ali’s goals going forward. It was in the act of recalling this memory that Ali was able to set her ultimate aim.
The goal to help all the girls find a place that fits them. To empower them to prove themselves, to themselves. To realize that they could achieve their goals through avenues they had not known existed.
Armed with the clarity of this goal, Ali is equipped to tackle the first integration phases with deliberate action, which we will explore in our next installment of this series.
This is why identifying your primary motivation at the outset is crucial. This step empowers you to formulate an integration approach that is at once fulfilling and aligned with your goals.
