In today’s newsletter we’ll tackle the challenge of getting a college coach to DM you back on X.
The Problem
X is the dating app of college recruiting. If you don’t know how to create DM’s that get opened, you won’t be able to develop relationships with college coaches and your recruiting will stall out.
Too Short or Too Long?
I see players make one of two mistakes - either their messages are too short, or too long.
Most people don’t even send me DM’s. They just send me links to their hudl.
This is automatically ignored. It’s spammy. Usually, it’s just players firing these off.
Or, I will receive 3-4 paragraphs explaining to me why my college (that I don’t coach at by the way, I am just a HS coach) is perfect for them, all their accolades and granular stats that I don’t care about.
Usually, it’s a parent posing as their child on X sending these (a topic for another day)
Instead of sending spam or sending War And Peace, there’s a better way:
Try This
First, understand how your DM looks in a coach’s inbox.
X actually does not send new DMs to your inbox, it goes to a holding inbox called Message Requests.
In Message Requests you only see a single, one line preview of text.
This single line is your only chance to get a coach to read your entire message.
That single line should have all your vital info in it:
{Position} {Class Year} {Ht/Wt} {GPA/SAT/ACT} {Accolades} {Email} {Hudl}
OT ‘27 6’5 280 3.4 GPA 1300 SAT All State [email protected] hud link
I know you might be busy, but if possible I’d love to play for you.
All my info is in my profile.
Thanks so much.
This won’t work every time.
There is no single strategy that will make a college coach reply to you, but it will definitely increase the odds of your message being read and replied to.
Summing it all up:
Put all the vital information on the very first line of an initial DM to a college coach.
Message Request inbox settings on X only show this first line, so make sure it has everything you need.
Do not send links, and do not send paragraphs of text. No one is excited to read a book on a DM.
Brendan
Want to dive deeper?
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