How Many Times to Email a Coach

keep-calm-and-send-mailIf you have committed to emailing college coaches, it can be frustrating when you don’t receive an email back. Coaches are busy people and it is normal to not receive a response with your first email. If getting a coaches attention was as easy as sending a single email, the recruiting process wouldn’t take much time at all. The process is hard and takes perseverance, you need to be prepared to email 50+ schools several times before you can expect to generate serious interest.

There is a fine line between emailing a coach enough to get attention and wasting your time with a program who isn’t interested. The following advice is based on years of working with athletes who have emailed coaches on their own and gone on to play college sports. The following advice is assuming you have researched schools and are writing emails that coaches want to open. This advice is designed to help you know when to keep emailing and when to move on to another school.

Email a Coach 2-3 Times When First Sending Emails

When you are first sending your emails to coaches send 2-3 emails over 7-10 days. Try following this pattern:

  • Day 1 – Email, complete the recruit questionnaire (if available) and follow up with a phone call
  • Day 3 – Email again acknowledging the first email (don’t send the exact same email from the first day).
  • Day 8 – Email again and follow up with a call. Acknowledge your previous efforts to reach out and let the coach know this will be your final email until you have something new to share.

If you are attempting to reach coaches during holiday breaks or the middle of the season, you can expect to wait longer for a response. I suggest waiting until after the holidays or busy parts of the season.

Following Up With Coaches Who Didn’t Respond to Your Initial Emails

If you haven’t heard from a coach after your initial effort to contact them, you can continue to update them every 2-4 months. You want to send them updates on things like where you are playing, new highlight videos or updated academic performance. This can seem like you are wasting your time because you are emailing a coach that you aren’t even sure is reading your messages; that is okay. The reason you are sending emails is you are exactly sure what is happening and you want to assume you still have a chance.

  • If the coach you have been emailing finds themselves at a new program they will be scrambling for recruits. While you might have not been the right fit at their old program, you are at their new one.
  • If a program has several of the recruits they thought were going to commit back out, they are going to need to find recruits quick. You will be top of mind if you have been emailing.
  • While a coach might not think you are right for their program, they can and do recommend recruits to other programs. This doesn’t happen often, but you are looking for any advantage you can get.

When to Stop Emailing Coaches

There comes a time when you should stop sending emails to a particular program.

If a coach has specifically told you don’t qualify athletically or academically for their program, there is no need to continue to update them. The only exception to this rule is if you make drastic changes athletically or academically; if this does happen, you can try reconnecting.

If a coach has responded as said they are no longer recruiting for your class or position, there is no need to follow up. Keep in mind, some programs are finished recruiting for a particular recruiting class years in advance.

If you can see that a program has signed a full class of recruits for the year you are interested in (this is more common at large programs) there is no need to email coaches. An example of this would be going to website like rivals and seeing that Oregon has signed a full class; there is no need to email them. If you are interested in these types of programs, you should be contacting them a year in advance at least.

Emailing College Coaches Home Page

Determining your academic eligibility

Auburn University Sports Recruiting.

Bentley University Sports Recruiting.


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