Overview

Front Range Volleyball Club is a Denver-Metro based club that prides itself on its industry best recruiting program. Since the club’s inception in 1981, it has excelled in their mission, helping more than 250 of their athletes attend college on volleyball scholarships.

In the past decade, as club volleyball has exploded, Front Range recognized the need to enhance its recruiting program to attract the best athletes and maintain their competitive advantage. In 2014 it fully embraced a technological approach and integrated with SportsRecruits.

SINCE ADOPTING THE SPORTSRECRUITS PLATFORM, FRONT RANGE HAS A 100% COLLEGE COMMITMENT RATE

[ecko_contrast]“If players are really engaged in their recruiting process, then their happiness and ability to find the school that is right for them is going to be a lot higher than if a parent or a club coach is emailing for them. That has always been a part of our recruiting philosophy. We felt that SportsRecruits was a great way to give them control over their process.”

JENNIFER YOUNGBLOODRECRUITING COORDINATOR[/ecko_contrast]

Summary

Front Range Volleyball Club (FRVC) prides itself on helping its members find the right fit at the next level academically, athletically and socially.

This case study will show how the SportsRecruits club management tool has helped Front Range Volleyball Club maintain its core mission of keeping the recruiting process player-driven, while simultaneously allowing the club to more effectively provide assistance when needed.

Gaining a Competitive Advantage

Since the inception of Front Range Volleyball in 1981, more than 250 of the organization’s athletes have gone to college on volleyball scholarships. This sustained success has been fueled by the club’s firm belief that in order to find the right fit at the next level, student-athletes must be engaged in their own recruiting process.

“College recruiting has always been a big part of the club,” said Youngblood. “One of the things we are most proud of is that we have a really high percentage of our players that by their senior year have obtained scholarships and continue on playing volleyball. For us, it’s always been a big part of it, but organization became an issue – with many student-athletes, it was a bit chaotic.”

In the past decade, club volleyball has exploded in the Denver-Metro area. While years of experience and a proven track record are a great start, Front Range also recognized the competition in the space. In order to maintain their reputation while not compromising their core values, perfecting the club’s recruiting efforts became paramount.

“With so many options, kids can choose many experiences in club volleyball,” said Front Range Recruiting Coordinator Jennifer Youngblood. “We are putting a lot of focus and energy into recruiting and keeping players in our club.”

Front Range decided to integrate with the SportsRecruits platform to accomplish these goals. The platform has streamlined the club’s recruiting efforts and provided a competitive advantage for the club over its peers.

[ecko_toggle style=”outline” state=”closed” title=”About FRVC”]Front Range Volleyball Club has served the Denver metro area since 1981, and is a nationally acclaimed junior Olympic training club. Its impact is evident in the Rocky Mountain Region, collegiate and national volleyball programs. Front Range focuses on teaching not only volleyball skills but life skills as well, aiming to foster whole athletes and whole people. In addition to the five Gold Medals in national championships, Front Range has had 25 Top Ten finishes at JOs and 8 at AAUs and has won 68 RMR Championships. Players from Front Range have amassed an equally impressive array of awards. At the national Olympic program level, five have been or are on the National Team, five have played professionally and many have played on the Junior or Youth National teams. Since the club’s inception, more than 250 of its athletes have gone to college on volleyball scholarships.[/ecko_toggle]

Part of this advantage is the improvement of how the club handles recruiting. While the term “recruiting process” often carries a negative connotation, Front Range decided to flip the script. Using SportsRecruits has allowed the club to foster a positive atmosphere around recruiting, which can often be lacking or even be a negative.

SportsRecruits has made the process completely transparent. Parents, players and club staffers are on the same page, and can attack the recruiting process in unison. This not only allows for increased engagement, but also builds loyalty throughout the program.

“Everyone is on the same page with SportsRecruits,” said Youngblood. “The parents, the kids, the coaches and me. We have tons of parents from younger age groups afterward telling us how excited they were to be able to get to that high school age group where they could get a profile and have a way to be able to get their daughter’s recruitment going.”

Player Engagement: Going Up

A pillar of the Front Range recruiting philosophy is the engagement of the student-athlete. Motivating a high school student-athlete, though, can be a challenge. Recognizing the need to drive player engagement, Front Range uses SportsRecruits as a solution to get its student-athletes excited about the recruiting process.

“In my experience, when recruiting becomes tangible, it becomes something that they get excited about,” said Youngblood. “We wanted to find a way to give our players control over their own recruiting process, and for them to be able to have a way to manage it with the help of their parents and our club. SportsRecruits does that.”

The proof is in the numbers. SportsRecruits has significantly increased player engagement in the recruiting process across the club. On one team alone, student-athletes have sent 1,494 messages and have received 2,089 profile and video views from college coaches.

ADDISON PLANT, 2017

Addison Plant is a junior setter for Front Range Volleyball. She is the embodiment of Front Range’s recruiting philosophy in action. Using SportsRecruits, Front Range has enabled Addy to proactively engage in her recruiting process in ways that wouldn’t be possible without her club or the platform. “SportsRecruits makes everything easier because it is easy to search for schools,” said Addy.

“You can see which schools view your profile, which is nice. It’s easy to speak with coaches.” With direction from Youngblood, Addy is making connections with college coaches at schools that make sense for her. She has 13 videos on the SportsRecruits platform, and she loves the instant feedback when a coach watches her play. “The really nice part about it is the ability to see which college coaches have viewed my profile and videos. It’s so easy to message them right away and see if they need someone like me.” “Overall, SportsRecruits makes the recruiting process a lot easier.” None of this would have been possible without Front Range’s commitment to building the best recruiting program in the region.

“On SportsRecruits, they can see when they get a profile or video view. They will come into the gym and say the coach from their dream school viewed their video, which is awesome. That is something we didn’t have in our recruiting, having that immediate gratification of communicating with a coach and having them communicate back.”

While the platform has driven player engagement, it has also streamlined the process for the club. It is now much more organized than it was before.

“One of the biggest reasons we integrated SportsRecruits was organization,” said Youngblood. “We felt that it was too all over the place previously. It’s no longer that way thanks to SportsRecruits.”

Maintaining Excellence

One of the biggest reasons for this continued success is the priority placed on finding the right fit for each individual student-athlete. For Front Range, this is accomplished by having the player drive the process, and providing assistance along the way.

“Many times, we have seen athletes that have someone else handling their recruitment for them, and they end up in a place where they aren’t happy,” said Youngblood. “As a result, they end up transferring or quitting volleyball altogether. That was a concern we had. We want to be able to help our players find the right fit the first time.”

SportsRecruits has been an aid in this, and the proof is in the results. While the NCAA averages 160 transfers per year, Front Range averages fewer than one per year.

“SportsRecruits is easy to use for all parties involved, and it saves everyone time. It keeps everything organized and updates in real-time,” said Youngblood. “The software is intuitive. For the student-athletes, they want to do it because it’s similar to other social media aspects they are familiar with. So it’s easy for them. It’s easy for parents. It’s easy for me as the recruiting coordinator. SportsRecruits makes everything a lot easier.”

Using SportsRecruits to spearhead its recruiting efforts, 100% of Front Range seniors committed to play volleyball in college last year. This is despite the emergence of more club teams in the area and therefore more competition for players.