8 Things Every Parent Can do to Help with Recruiting

Follow these easy steps to make your son and/or daughter a more recruitable athlete…

 

  1. Do NOT overstep your bounds. If I have said it once, I have said it a hundred times….the coach will be recruiting your son and/or daughter, NOT you.
  2. Be very supportive of your son and/or daughter. I know they are going through their teenage years and this one can be tough, but remember, you were once a teenager (even if they don’t acknowledge) and times can be tough.
  3. Make sure your son and/or daughter will actually have a chance to go to college. There are tons of hoops to jump through nowadays, and you want to make sure your child has them all covered.
  4. Create a nice, clean highlight tape that is available on YouTube. Remember, you do NOT have to be an award winning director to create a great video.
  5. Review possible questions that a coach might ask your son and/or daughter. Role play if you will. Make sure your child speaks clearly, slowly and is looking you in the eyes.
  6. Do research on schools and try as hard as you can to take some trips to the schools on NON sports days. Sure, every school looks amazing on game day, but that is not reality. It will only look like that about six weekends per year. Go to the campus on a Tuesday, see what is really like. Go during different seasons so you can truthfully understand the different weather the area might have.
  7. Be sure your son is getting the right type of exposure from the right people. Just because someone tells you something, doesn’t mean it is true. Ask around, ask other parents. Do your homework.
  8. Allow your kid to be on social media, but make sure they know you are monitoring them. Nothing personal to the athletes, but they are young and they are dumb (sorry, it’s true and the reason I know it’s true is because every single adult was also, you guessed it, young AND dumb once as well) and they will make mistakes. The only difference is that when an adult used to be young and dumb, only the people that saw them do something ignorant knew about it. Now, with the onslaught of social media, the world can know about it in less than a second. Even saying that, there are so many benefits to social media for them to be off of it (one of the first questions a coach will ask me, “is the kid on Facebook? Have him friend me so I can contact him”).

 

 

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 32162805_1690368751039248_6661371560290418688_o.jpg

Rubio Long Snapping is, by far, the biggest and best resource for Long Snappers in the country. Rubio has been featured in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the USA Today, Deadspin and countless other publications.

Offering the best instruction and most exposure in the world, Rubio Long Snapping can help you to become the best snapper you can be!

In just 15 years, Chris Rubio, President and Owner of Rubio Long Snapping, has become the #1 Long Snapping instructor in the country and the go-to man when a college coach needs a Long Snapper. Colleges from across the country rely on “Rubio’s” word day in and day out on who the best Long Snappers are in the country. Rubio Long Snapping has assisted in over 1,000 Long Snappers earning full scholarships and preferred walk-on opportunities to major colleges and universities just for Long Snapping and many into the NFL as well.

 

 

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Making Sure You Are Ready for College

I recently posted a blog about being a freshman that spoke about how to handle yourself in the first year of college. After speaking to college coaches and national sports writers, I felt that I better write a new blog about actually making sure you are ready to graduate high school first, in order to be that freshman.

GO SPEAK TO YOUR COUNSELOR 

One of the biggest issues high school students have is believing they can get into a specific college simply because they are graduating from high school. There is nothing that can be farther from the truth. You actually can graduate from high school, even with honors, and still not get into specific schools. You MUST make sure your counselor knows which particular schools you are interested in so you are able to plan to take the specific classes that each school requires. If they (your counselor) brushes you off and gives you a “trust me, you are definitely on course to graduate” type of answer, you need to insist they double check that you have the right classes for the school(s) you are shooting for after high school.

For instance, some schools require four years of English or extra Fine Arts classes. Nothing against electives, but imagine if you missed out on getting into a college simply because you forgot to take an art, cooking or ceramics class? Don’t roll your eyes, I have seen it happen…several times. 

TAKE BOTH THE ACT & SAT TESTS
If you are planning on going to college, you know of the SAT and ACT tests. Some regions of the country lean more towards one test over the other. The best advice I can give is to take them both and take them both twice.

Let’s face it, the first time you do anything, you are caught a little off-guard and are not really sure of what you are doing. The first time you take the ACT & SAT is simply to become familiar with it and know what to expect the second time. If you end up doing very well the first time, that’s great! Now, just think how much better you will be able to do the second time.

The reason for taking them both (even though, as I stated, one may be more common in your region of the country) is simple: you may do better on one over the other. True, they are both similar in nature but, for some reason, I have seen many athletes do average on one and dominate the other. For example, I had one athlete that scored approximately 1,900 out of 2,400 on the SAT. Very respectable score but nothing to write home about in the long run. He proceeded to take the ACT and scored an amazing 35 out of 36! People at NASA score in that zone 🙂 Had he not taken both tests, he would never had known how high a score he could have achieved to impress the colleges and make his entry, as an athlete, that much easier.

Rubio Long Snapper Scotty Thompson
made sure he was all set in high school
and earned a full scholarship to NC State

GET CLEARED BY THE NCAA
When you have fully decided that you are headed to college after high school, you want to make sure you register with the NCAA. Once you are registered (not the easiest process but it will pay off in the end) and have shown you are taking the right classes, you will be cleared by the NCAA. Being “cleared” basically means you are now eligible to play sports at the NCAA level (college). It does NOT mean that you necessarily will be admitted to the college of your choice, but it does mean you are eligible to play IF you do get in.

This is huge for coaches and recruiters as it shows that you are ready to go and they won’t have to jump through a ton of hopes in order to get you to play. Think of it as being pre-qualified to buy a car or home.

To cut questions off at the pass, YES, even if you are 100% sure you are attending a JC (Junior College), you should take the ACT, SAT and get cleared by the NCAA in high school. The reason is, if you are cleared, you will be able to leave your JC early without having to stay and complete your A.A. degree. You would be able to enroll at a four year college for Spring Ball instead of having to wait until the Fall to start with the team. This can be huge for recruiting purposes and you don’t want to miss out on any opportunities that may come up for you.

Be sure to spread this blog out to as many high school athletes as possible so they don’t have to miss out on an opportunity and wonder what if?

 

 

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 32162805_1690368751039248_6661371560290418688_o.jpg

Rubio Long Snapping is, by far, the biggest and best resource for Long Snappers in the country. Rubio has been featured in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the USA Today, Deadspin and countless other publications.

Offering the best instruction and most exposure in the world, Rubio Long Snapping can help you to become the best snapper you can be!

In just 15 years, Chris Rubio, President and Owner of Rubio Long Snapping, has become the #1 Long Snapping instructor in the country and the go-to man when a college coach needs a Long Snapper. Colleges from across the country rely on “Rubio’s” word day in and day out on who the best Long Snappers are in the country. Rubio Long Snapping has assisted in over 1,000 Long Snappers earning full scholarships and preferred walk-on opportunities to major colleges and universities just for Long Snapping and many into the NFL as well.

 

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How to get Exposure as a High School Athlete

One of the most common questions I receive is “Rubio, how can I get exposure to the college coaches?” Great question that is easily answered once and for all here….

1. Get yourself to a reputable camp that actually has connections to the colleges. 

It is very easy to make a nice looking website and claim things on the website. The problem is that many sites are simply smoke and mirrors with tons of claims and no actual facts. Do your homework, talk to coaches to see who they recommend, check testimonial pages and speak to others that have attended the camp to see if it is worth your time and, more importantly, your hard earned dollar. You should go to a camp because you know it will be good and worth it, not because it might be good and worth it. 

2.  Make sure your high school coach knows that you are serious about your position and getting to the next level.

Once you have decided that you will stop at nothing to make it to college, you must let your coach know. Tell them that you are going to camps, you work on your position year round and are wiling to do what ever it takes to make your dream a reality. This will impress the coach (as long as you are truly doing what you are saying) and make your name stick in his head when the colleges come knocking on his door. Please note: take your coach’s advice on recruiting to a certain extent. This becomes an issue if a coach pushes someone too high. To clarify, unless your coach is VERY familiar with your particular position, take Long Snapper for instance, don’t rely on his word too much. What this means is that quite often a high school coach will tell a player “You are the best Long Snapper I have ever coached! You are definitely going to college for snapping!” This is fantastic if the coach has actually coached several college Long Snappers. If he hasn’t, you just might be the best of the worst and yet another reason you need to attend quality camps (see #1).

3. Always be in the right place at the right time. 

Let’s say you have a top tier running back on your team and college coaches are always on campus to see if he passes the eye ball test at practice. You have essentially hit the jackpot. ANYTIME a college coach is at your practice, you need to MAKE SURE you just happen to showcase your talent in front of them. If you are a Long Snapper, you should just happen to be snapping 15 yard bullets so they can see you. If you are a lineman, you should be working on your stance and steps. Make them notice you. This is your chance, do not let it pass you by simply because you were shy. You don’t want any opportunity to pass you by. 

4. Create a YouTube channel.

First of all, I like the YouTube channels over other film sharing services for a couple reasons. A) You don’t need an account to view a YouTube channel and B) YouTube is such a large company there is rarely issues with their server(s). The last thing you want is to send your coach a link and either he can’t access it, it is broken or takes way too long to load. With YouTube, you are relatively safe in these matters.

Creating a YouTube channel for yourself is very easy to do, save you tons of time in the long run and always will give you a base to send coaches to see you and your improvement. To make your own YouTube channel simply…

  • Go to YouTube. com 
  • Click create a YouTube account. If you already have a gmail account, you can simply use that. If you are starting fresh with this process it literally takes one minute.
  • Once your account is created, there is blueish profile silhouette of a person in the upper right hand corner…click on it.
  • A drop down menu will appear….click on MY CHANNEL and then press OK, I’M READY TO CONTINUE
  • You will now see a very basic version of what your page will look like. You can fluff this up anyway you want and I would recommend a solid action shot of you in uniform to show how great you are in your sport right off the bat.
  • At the top, just to the left of your name, click on UPLOAD and let the games begin!

You should upload practice and game footage once a week during season and approximately once per month in the off-season. If you are below average at first, that is ok and, don’t erase those videos in the end. Leave them, it shows how much you have improved over time. 

5. Associate yourself with a reputable recruiting service. 

Similar to #1, there are tons of services out there that create flashy websites and claim tons of things when, in actuality, they just take your money and do nothing for you. You want to find a service that can be a one stop shop for you. They should be able to  do research for you about coaches and ways to contact them, send out mass email blasts for you, create a page for you, create a video for you, and have it all go to the right people. If you are true D1 athlete, that is the direction they should send your information. If you are more of a D2-D3 athlete, the majority of your blasts should be sent in that direction. You don’t want to waste your’s or the coach’s time by sending them info if you are not at their level. (Please note: I have encountered many of these companies and one of the best I have seen is NCSA).

6. Create a Twitter account and Facebook page to keep in contact.
 

Most already have one, if not both, of the above mentioned social media monsters and they should. The NCAA has not banned college coaches from using them yet, so it is a loop hole that should be utilized. When you begin to make contact with coaches/recruiting coordinators, let them see your personality, keep your pages clean (yes, parents feel free to monitor them as well) and be sure to send them links to your newly created YouTube channel. 

 

Follow these six steps and you should get all of the exposure you could ever imagine. Now, the ball is in your court to put all of the exposure you will be getting to good use.

_________________________________________________________________

Chris-Rubio-2Rubio Long Snapping is, by far, the biggest and best resource for Long Snappers in the country. Offering the best instruction and most exposure in the world. Rubio Long Snapping can help you to become the best snapper you can be!

In just 12 years, Chris Rubio, President and Owner of Rubio Long Snapping, has become the #1 Long Snapping instructor in the country and the go-to man when a college coach needs a Long Snapper. Colleges from across the country rely on “Rubio’s” word day in and day out on who the best Long Snappers are in the country. Rubio Long Snapping has assisted in over 300 Long Snappers earning FULL SCHOLARSHIPS to major colleges and universities just for Long Snapping and many into the NFL as well.

Rubio_Card_frontMAGNET

 

 

 

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How to be Recruited as a Long Snapper

In the past, I wrote a blog about What Makes a Long Snapper Great which had to do with the physical aspects of an athlete. This blog is going to have to deal with the actual recruiting of a Long Snapper once you have mastered all that the other information within the previous blog. Much of this will sound familiar if you have been to my camps, but now you can have the info to print out. I am even going to put the information in order of importance. Let’s begin…
 
1. Academics
I put this one at the top simply because without proper grades, it won’t matter how great of a Long Snapper you are…you will not be going to college. Couple key points to this one:
  • Try to maintain (a minimum, if you can go higher, do it!) a standard 3.0 and 1000 (out of 1600) on the SAT or 24 on the ACT. That is a pretty solid middle ground. My theory is that if you are GPA is higher, your test scores can be lower. This shows you are a hard-worker and, most likely, a poor test taker. If you GPA is lower, your test scores better be higher. This shows you are smart, but most likely lazy. Think of the GPA/Scores like a teeter-totter, when one side goes up the other comes down. 
  • Go into your counselor today and make sure you will be eligible for the schools you are interested in attending after high school. They will tell you, hopefully, that you are on pace to graduate. Let them know you want to know specifically for the following schools (this is where you list the schools you are interested in). Do not leave until you find out exactly what you want to know. I have witnessed many a Long Snapper lose an opportunity to play at the next level because they didn’t realize they had to take a fourth year of math or English or take an extra fine arts class. 
  • Take both the ACT and the SAT, and take them both at least twice. The first time for each is a trial run. Just use it to get the feel of the whole procedure. Why take them both? I call it the McGarry Rule. Michael McGarry is one of my Long Snappers from TX who scored a 1800/2400 on the SAT (not bad, but I am not writing home about it) but then took the ACT and crushed it with a 35! FYI: 36 is perfect and people at NASA struggle to get his score. If McGarry had not taken both tests, he would not have achieved that score that puts him in a whole separate category of recruits: academically, it is almost a given he can get in.

2. Body

A college is always going to want to recruit a Long Snapper that can handle the constant pounding of major college football. If your body is not ideal, the rest of “you” (other aspects I am and will mention) better be stupendous. They will not want to recruit a fragile player or someone that is injured more often than not. Think about it, would you buy a car that is always broken down? Didn’t think so. If you don’t pass the eyeball test, they will already be negative towards you in regards to your Long Snapping before you even snap one ball. 
 
3. Snapping 
I am not going to go into detail (there is a ton of information) on this one here, simply because I already did it within this Long Snapping blog. 

4. Camps – Long Snapping 

It is very difficult to be recruited without attending a Long Snapping camp (one with actual credibility…ALWAYS check testimonials and ask OTHER people) and doing well. Of course, I am partial to my own since I know they are proven and I have heard countless horror stories from parents about others. Don’t get me wrong, getting recruited without camps can be done, but it is extremely tricky since the coaches are going to want to know you are worthy of playing at the next level from someone that they know and can trust.  Your high school coach may say you are the best he has ever seen, but if he has never actually come across another college level snapper, his word carries no weight.

The same goes with camps. College coaches know which camps are telling the truth and which aren’t regarding the talent level of a Long Snapper. They understand there are tons of camps out there and most don’t have a clue about what it really takes at the next level. Couple things to contemplate….

  • If you are the best Long Snapper at a camp where there are just a couple Long Snappers, does that really prove anything? 
  • Do some research. Does the camp you are going to possibly attend have any sustenance or is it all smoke and mirrors? Does it look good from the outside but has no “guts” to it?
  • Contact the Long Snapping instructor yourself and get a feel of them. If you do not feel comfortable with them, you might want to move on. 
  • Contact some Long Snappers and/or their parents through Facebook and ask them the difference or why the chose to attend a certain camp. 
  • Be wary of camps that claim to have invite only camps but actually invite all. Kind of loses the aura of being invited. Not too exclusive if every Long Snapper is invited.
  • I would ask the instructor to give me numbers of parents I could contact to discuss. They should be willing to give you numbers (or at least have those parents contact you) to discuss the camps. 
5. Camps – College
Once you have been to one of the respected above camps, you will begin to get invited to Specialists Camps on a college campus. There are pretty darn important the summer before your senior year and they are a very good experience for all. Here is what you can expect from these….
  • Very little instruction (unless I am there). They are usually run by the full staff and they don’t have a ton of ideas on what to do for specialists. They know x’s and o’s but are not too familiar with the intricacies of being a Long Snapper. I have heard countless stories of my Long Snappers attending a college camp to literally snap for over 7 hours since the people in charge didn’t understand the position and/or how to coach it.
  • A massive tryout. The coaches will get a roster before the camp and they will know who the top recruits coming are. They will focus on those guys. Can you crack that code of being one of Long Snappers they really observe? Absolutely, but you better be an absolute stud.
  • A feeling of what the campus and the staff are like. I am a big fan of a Long Snapper trying to get to one or two before their junior year simply to get used to them (kinda like the ACT/SATs).


6. Personality (Yours and Your Family)

This one can be adjusted on the scale of importance depending the staff at the college. Some will rank it higher (possibly at the top) and some will keep it here. More personable staffs will put this one way up and will really want to get to know all of you well before your arrival on campus. Non-personal staffs won’t care too much.

  • Usually when a staff is getting to the point of locking you down to their school, they will make a trip to your school and speak with a couple people. These people are more often than not, but not limited to, your coach, your counselor and a random teacher. The college will want to know what type of person you are off the field. If they are there, it is obvious you can snap so now they want to see if you are worth “renting” for the next four to five years. They will not recruit a mental case or someone who is a trouble maker. There is no need since they can just go to the next Long Snapper on the list that isn’t a problem.
  • The college will also want to know about your home situation. What’s it like? Siblings? Mamma’s boy? Traveler? Overbearing parents? Remember parents/guardians, the school is recruiting your son…NOT you.
  • Being that you are a Long Snapper, you will be the last chosen by a college. Recruiting can take a long, long, long time for a Long Snapper. It can go right up until August of your senior year (yes, two months after you graduate). Be persistent with the coaches but NOT annoying. Make some calls. Be proactive. If you want it, go get it. YOU go get it, not your parents.

I know this is A LOT of information but it is exactly what goes into each and every recruitment of a Long Snapper. Trust me, I have been a part of many🙂

 

_________________________________________________________________

Rubio Long Snapping is, by far, the biggest and best resource for Long Snappers in the country. Offering the best instruction and most exposure in the world. Rubio Long Snapping can help you to become the best snapper you can be!

In just 12 years, Chris Rubio, President and Owner of Rubio Long Snapping, has become the #1 Long Snapping instructor in the country and the go-to man when a college coach needs a Long Snapper. Colleges from across the country rely on “Rubio’s” word day in and day out on who the best Long Snappers are in the country. Rubio Long Snapping has assisted in over 1,000 Long Snappers earning FULL SCHOLARSHIPS and PWO’s to major colleges and universities just for Long Snapping and many into the NFL as well.

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