Hudl UP As student athletes approach college, they take to social media to connect with potential coaches

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BY PATRICK STEVENSON AND BEN COWER

Student looks over senior Shane Washko’s highlights through the Hudl app

Seven Percent. A small percentage, sure. But, simultaneously, it’s a number that strikes fear into the minds of student athletes all across the country.

Seven percent. According to the website Scholarship Stats, that’s the amount of high school athletes who actually go on to play a college sport. You’d think such a low percentage would be discouraging, but challenging like this are par for the course for student-athletes. Overcoming seemingly lofty odds is but a normal occurrence, with the everyday trials and tribulations in a teenager’s athletic life serving as preparation for tougher challenges in their future.

It’s all a process. A process that, sadly, a mere seven percent of student athletes are able to complete successfully enough to move onto the next level.

Some might say the determining recruitment factor is athletic talent. Others may say it’s money. But, for senior football player Dayton Fairchild, the thing that separates the fortunate seven percent from other athletes is how they utilize social media. “It all starts with making a good Twitter account so coaches can follow you and keep up with your film,” Fairchild said. “Also, Hudl, that’s where you can show them your film, and if they like it they’ll have you up for a visit. You’ll stay in contact with them throughout the season.”

Antwoin Stokes, another senior football player, added more praise for Hudl.

“Hudl’s a great thing for football, you can have all your tapes and good plays that you make and you can send that to coaches.”

With an abundance of new technology at the fingertips of coaches and schools, this era of recruiting has become more accessible than ever. To bolster their recruiting résumés, they’ll use websites like Hudl to post highlights from their games. They’ll also utilize other sites like Twitter and Instagram to display offers from other schools.

“I’ll post film I recorded and send it out to these coaches. It shows that you’re a hard worker and that’s what they want on their football team,” Fairchild said.

Megan Stevenson, a senior player on the basketball team, detailed her thoughts on student-athletes and social media usage. “Social media has helped to just get your highlights out there; it’s an easier way to contact coaches and be like ‘here’s my highlights from my game’ and they’ll watch it,” Stevenson said. “It’s just an easier way for them to stay updated on your game.”

For many seniors, keeping their social media accounts looking sharp and updated has

added to the long list of to-do’s during their last year of high school. While still juggling college applications, extracurriculars and leadership positions, athletes have to manage their recruiting profiles. Just like college applications, managing these recruitment profiles can only be done it a certain time frame.

While all these new innovations have made recruiting easier for coaches and interested schools, it can also take a psychological toll on student-athletes. To sustain motivation through the exhausting application process, players like Stokes and Fairchild try to focus on the rewarding and fun aspects of it all.

“It’s definitely stressful, but sometimes it’s actually fun because you get to see a football game or meet the coaches, meet the players get the feel of the environment,” Stokes said.

Social media has helped to just get your highlights out there.

Megan Stevenson

That’s just the beginning of the stress. Once athletes take tours of colleges that are recruiting them, their biggest decision still looms. Even this decision has added stress. Athletes have to take into account what their parents want, but most importantly what they want.

“You start to get worried about, like, you don’t know where you’re going to go in a couple of months,” Fairchild said.

College sports are also, undeniably, a major business. On average, according to Business Insider, colleges will annually rake in nearly 30 million dollars thanks to their football programs. Last year, The Daily Progress reported that the University of Virginia “generated more than $106 million” because of college sports.

It’s a profitable business. And, just like any business, they expect their workers behave both on and off the field in order to sustain profitability as well as maintain a positive public image.

The last thing colleges want are to be roped into highly publicized scandals over a student-athlete’s negative past social media comments — a problem that has emerged as an actuality over the past few years all throughout the sports world.

Some include the uncovering of racist tweets by MLB pitcher Josh Hader and NFL quarterback Kylar Murray and homophobic tweets by MLB pitcher Sean Newcomb and NFL quarterback Josh Allen. Colleges want nothing to do with past comments surfacing while a student is attending their university. “They’ll ask for your Instagram page and see if you’re doing anything bad on there,” Fairchild said.

As a result, student-athlete hopefuls are forced to tread lightly on social media, as the internet never forgets. And colleges certainly don’t either. When an athlete is being recruited, they’re put under a microscope. A treacherous landscape — combined with an already slim chance of getting recruited — has made the dream of becoming a college athlete a difficult one to achieve for most.

Although a tough journey may lie ahead for student-athlete hopefuls during the recruitment process, senior Antwoin Stokes lives by a simple yet fitting quote when it comes to paving your own path to success in college athletics.

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the heart in the dog.”