Video will be more key in recruiting process

“When I first started, I pulled the video (off) a double-deck VCR,” said Burlingame head football coach John Philipopoulos. “Start, stop, rewind, record.”

Those highlight and game videos may take on even more importance amid the coronavirus pandemic. With the high school spring sports season being canceled, summer sports all but done and no guarantee a prep fall season will be played, high school athletes who want to play at the next level are going to have to get their best highlights to send to college coaches.

“Video is all we got right now,” said Doug Williams, College of San Mateo baseball manager. “Luckily, we start our recruiting about a year in advance. We were able to see some guys before it was all canceled (this baseball season).”

Even with all the video available, Williams said it still can’t replace the human eye.

“There’s nothing to compare to live evaluation, to see how a guy responds in person, how he is with his teammates,” Williams said. “Even with all the tech out there — where we can get spin rate, tumbling … the analytics part of it, to be able to have an eye on somebody is so valuable.”

Now, with video all around from all kinds of different sources, putting together a recruiting video is as easy as 1-2-3. Whether it’s the coach’s game video, or parents from the stands or friends on the sideline filming on their cellphones, or the myriad television-quality cameras used by yearbook or school video classes, athletes have all kinds of sources to find video from which to make a highlight reel.

“These kids are getting good quality tape (video). They have a lot of stuff to choose from,” said Aaron Boyd, who teaches a broadcast sports journalism class at South City High School and is also the school’s golf coach.

“These kids have so much media documentation.”

Today’s high school athletes are also a lot more sophisticated when it comes to the recruiting process. There are recruiting services that can help athletes tailor their pitch to the exact schools and coaches they want, but it’s just as easy for a family to do it themselves.

“Serious (high school) athletes, who consider playing in college, they already have that stuff together,” Philipopoulos said. “A kid can sit at home and put together his highlight tape. He just pulls highlights right off game film. … Kids are way more savvy than adults (when it comes to recruiting videos). … It’s easy, it’s convenient and it’s right there.”

Boyd said it’s even fairly easy to up the production quality of videos using the simplest of tools — including applications built into smartphones or are easily found on most laptops. Videos can get into cuts, fade-ins and fade-outs and swipes — extra little tweaks that might help the video stand out among all the videos college coaches see.

“Any kid can string together video they find off of YouTube and use it in iMovie,” Boyd said. “We have so much video (from South City games) that I have kids coming to me asking for raw video, even though it’s on YouTube. The raw footage is just higher quality.”

Athletes need to know, however, a college coach is not looking for just a player’s highlights. Some also want to see the actual game video so they can get a better feel for the player.

“Some (coaches) will want both — the highlight film and a couple of game films,” Philipopoulos said. “You can only go with what you got. If you’re not going to have a senior season highlights film, use any showcases or camps you may have done in the past.”

“Video, coaches’ recommendations — those are going to be key.”

Added Boyd: “More and more, kids are putting together these recruiting packages and I don’t have to help them too much. I think coaches at the next level get a really good feeling about these kids (through these videos).”