There is a lot packed into these emails, much of it high-level thinking. While there are some flaws, there’s plenty to be learned and absorbed.

The athlete, a junior quarterback, writes a difficult email (that many, less mature, athletes would simply avoid) in an honest and heartfelt way. The coach’s response is exemplary, first-class, the kind you’d hope for from the adult coaching your child. 

Coach Brown,

I don’t really have an easy way to say this. However, after deep prayerful consideration and a lot of soul searching, I have decided that (another school) is going to be my top choice. While I haven’t heard officially from either school, I pride myself on being a person of integrity and I wanted to let you know as soon as I made my choice so that you had time to get a QB as soon as possible.

Up until the last day or two, I was 100% set on your school. It has kind of been a whirlwind, but for some reason there was something off in my reaction yesterday when I got off the phone with you. My reaction made me realize that something was not right in the back of my mind. I guess I felt stressed because even though you have been completely transparent and amazing, I realized that I don’t want to go into another situation where I would be competing for a position. While it might seem strange to others, and even though I feel confident about having the skills to win the position, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that that was having a much bigger impact on me than I realized. I think that is only based upon my experiences in the past few years and it kind of stuck with me. The other, bigger reason, is that even though my parents kept asking if I would be okay with the distance, it sort of hit me about my level of support network that I have up here in Pennsylvania/ New Jersey. My immediate family and extended family are extremely tight. The more I prayed on it and thought on it I realized that being an hour or so away is much better for me than being five hours away. The impact of not being able to see my family, coaches and friends for an extended period of time did not worry me as much until the past couple of days. What I can’t figure out is why it didn’t truly hit me until after I got off the phone with you. I guess my gut was telling me something that I wasn’t ready to process until now.
I truly apologize from the bottom of my heart for making your job more difficult. Recruiting is a really rough process for all parties involved – especially when everyone has to base everything on waiting for admissions. (Your school) is extremely impressive from top to bottom. While I know I would thrive in either place, I think for me and my mindset, I will be better off closer to my family. Again, I am sorry for making the decision so late and I truly apologize. I will 100% be following you guys and praying for your entire school for the coming years. My family and I have the utmost respect for you and while I am sad that I will not be coached by you, I do feel at peace with my decision. It has been such a pleasure to have met you and have come in contact with such an amazing school. Being able to even talk to you as little as I have, has made an amazing impact on me and my entire family. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. I am truly forever grateful.

Sincerely,

Peter

Hello Peter,

Thanks for the email. If you think school (the other school) is best for your academics, then you should go there. What you should not allow to happen is the presence of other players at your position making you decide to go to that school.

First, you will always have players at your position. In college, every year, the college coach is going to try to bring in someone to beat you out. You have to be mentally tough enough and confident enough in yourself to fight through competition. If your confidence is battered by what happened at your previous school, then this can be the place you rebuild that belief in yourself. The competition will only make you better. You cannot run from competition–you need to embrace it. This is part of growing up. Second, I have made it very clear what I think of your skill set vs. the guys who are here. While I could never tell a player a starting position is his, I will always be honest about my appraisal, which I have been with you. I cannot have it get out that I guaranteed you would beat out the guys who are here. I can say with confidence that I think you will. Even with that, I have to be careful to be respectful of the guys who are in our program right now. If they heard I was “trashing” them, I would lose all credibility with those players.

I encourage you to rethink through this process. I cannot speak to what you experienced at your previous school, but I have been very clear with you every step of the way where we were and how we would handle you. (My school) has the full package for you. All the boys are far from home and bond together in a very supportive brotherhood. I think you would love it and thrive here. Don’t let the fact that we have a couple guys at your position scare you away from the school you were sold on for so long. I fear you have a case of “buyer’s remorse.” It is only natural to get a little case of cold feet when making a commitment like this. You were sold on (my school) for a long time based on very good reasons and sound judgement. You are now changing your mind to (the other school) at the last second for reasons much less sound. Please take another night and think this over.

I would love to get on the phone with you today. If you are not comfortable with this, I understand. My number is (   ).

Thanks,

Coach Brown

This email exchange involves a marketing email sent out by Prep School Sports Connection to all the attendees at a large sports camp. One of the recipients was an athlete whose dad is the Director of Admission at a prep school. The dad is concerned that PSSC is trying to lure students away from his school.

Mike,

We too have a relationship with similar organizations. However, we scrub our list each time to be sure we aren’t creating the perception of poaching players already at peer independent schools. Your email will do more than ruffle a few feathers if it lands in the inbox of players already at boarding schools. Do with this information what you will, but I see no good coming of this approach. I can see more than a few coaches being upset and marching into the offices of admission and compromising the work you do with so many kids.

Elliott

Elliott,
Here are my complete thoughts in response to your email.

When I first started sending these emails out, I knew some of the kids receiving them attended prep schools. Sending to them seemed ridiculous to me. A waste, if nothing else, or counterproductive, as you suggest. I’ve learned that it’s not. Like most mass marketing, 90% of the time I get no response at all to my emails. When I do get a response, it’s usually that they’re already at a prep school and to take them off the list (which I do right away). Sometimes I get something else. Here are some of the ways I’ve discovered emailing prep school families can be beneficial.

• The most common of the beneficial responses are families who tell me their kids are at prep school and want to share their experiences (mostly good) with me. They believe in prep school and what I’m doing and want to contribute information. That’s tremendously helpful to me.
• Sometimes there are prep school seniors who want a PG year and need to take it at a different school. A very small percentage for sure. Still, I get those responses.
• Every so often, I’ll also get a call from a coach asking how we can work together so he can get some of my players. He recognizes what I’m doing and wants to benefit.
• Some parents contact me because they have a younger child considering prep school. The child almost always plays a different sport and is usually a different gender. Despite the success of the older child’s prep school choice, the parents are not as comfortable finding the right spot for the younger child and want to talk about getting help
• A couple months ago I got a call from the mom of a kid at Oak Hill. She said the timing of my email was great because the coach had just sat the kid down two days ago, told him he was unlikely to play much next year and suggested he transfer. The parents, having already picked the wrong school once didn’t need to be sold on getting help the second time around. This was an underclass kid already getting legit high major recruitment. I don’t want to miss those.
• On pretty rare occasions I will get a kid, not a senior, who is unhappy and wants to switch prep schools. When it does happen, if I know the coach, calling him is often my first step. I like to think I can help the process and the more I know, the more I can help. Plus, coaches generally aren’t naïve and want to know what’s going on. Again, it helps if I know the coach. It happened once last year. I called the coach. He wasn’t surprised and said the kid and family were a huge pain in the ass. He was happy to talk, explained the situation and told me I’d be doing him a favor if I found the kid a different school. When I spoke to the parents again I was able to give them some pretty blunt direction about where I thought they might be going wrong with their thought process, and I did it without giving away that I’d talked to the coach.

Again, none of these is very common, but together they happen fairly regularly, and they add up.

You could say I’m playing for the exception rather than the rule and technically you’d be right. Why take the risk at all? It’s a fair question. The answer is, in the handful of years I’ve been sending these out, the email I received from you is the only one of that type that I can remember (and there are a lot of the usual schools on the list). Maybe I’m not paying a price after all. Perhaps I’m paying a price and just don’t know it (or don’t want to know it). Maybe schools are mad and holding it against me and just not telling me. It’s certainly possible, but I spend an awful lot of time at many of these schools, as you know, and have a lot of relationships. My sense is that they’re not holding it against me. I think most coaches recognize my emails for what they are, mass marketing that all the kids get these days, not something specifically targeting their kids, so they brush it off and move on.

Thanks again for your feedback. I do appreciate it. If you have any more, please share it.

Talk to you soon.

Mike