Outreach · 4 min read
What a first email to a coach should actually contain
A coach opens it on a phone between sessions. Everything that is not about their program is costing you the part that is.
The first line does all the work
It should prove you looked at their program specifically — the opening at your position, a result from their season, the route their roster actually recruits. A first line that would work for any of a thousand schools tells a coach you sent it to a thousand schools.
Facts a coach can act on
Position, graduating class, current level, GPA, and a film link that opens without a login. A coach is deciding whether to spend eight minutes watching, and every sentence of adjectives is a reason not to.
Send it yourself
From the family's own inbox, to one coach at a time. A message that arrives from a recruiting platform's servers, addressed to a list, is a message that has already answered the coach's first question about how much you want to play for them specifically.
Then follow up once
Silence is usually the calendar or the inbox, not a decision. One follow-up after a couple of weeks, with something new in it — a result, new film, an updated GPA — is normal and expected. Five follow-ups with nothing new is the thing that gets you remembered for the wrong reason.
Sources
Figures attributed to Startline are counted from the data we hold and update when it does. Recruiting rules change — check anything dated against the governing body itself.
Read a first email built from a real roster
Filled from that program's own numbers, for you to edit and send.
The demo is the real product with a sample player in it — no account, no card, and nothing you do in it is charged or sent.