Coaches look you up. Assume that every coach who is interested in you will search for your name, and read what comes up. That's not paranoia. That's the world you're in. You don't need a big following. You need a clean, honest footprint.
Coach recommendation
Your profile is a character reference. Coaches are betting years of their program on a teenager. They want to know how you treat teammates, officials and opponents, and what you do when nobody's watching. Posts tell them.
Set up one clean profile
Pick the platforms your family is comfortable with. Many football players use X and Instagram. You don't need all of them.
Checklist
- A clear profile photo (in uniform or a clean head-and-shoulders shot).
- Name, graduation year, position, height, weight, school, city and state in your bio.
- Your GPA, if you're proud of it.
- A link to your film.
- A parent or guardian's email for contact, not a private phone number.
- Public, so coaches can find you. If you keep a separate private account for friends, keep it clean anyway, because screenshots exist.
What to post
- Game highlights, with credit to teammates.
- Training and strength work.
- Academic wins, honor roll and community service.
- Camp and visit moments, with thanks to the coaches.
- Teammates' successes. It shows you're a team guy.
What to leave out
- Anything you wouldn't want your grandmother, your principal and a college head coach to read together.
- Complaining about coaches, officials, teammates or recruiting.
- Posting about recruiting "offers" in a boastful way or tagging dozens of coaches.
- Personal information about yourself or others, such as addresses, phone numbers, schedules.
Clean-up checklist
Checklist
- Scroll back through your old posts, likes and tags. Delete what doesn't fit.
- Check what others have tagged you in, and remove tags where you can.
- Check your username and display name. Make it simple and professional.
- Ask a parent to do a fresh-eyes pass.
Personal strategy
Tagging coaches. Some families tag many college programs publicly; others prefer direct, private emails. Public tagging can look like spam, and some coaches ignore it. A short, personal email with film is usually a better use of your time. Decide as a family.
Heads up
Parents: keep an eye on private messages. If an adult you don't know asks for personal information, money, or promises something in exchange, don't reply, and read Guide 12.
Official rule
The NCAA's guide advises you to "conduct yourself in a positive manner in class, practices and games, at home, in your community and online." Source: NCAA Guide, recruiting best practices.
Your next step
Next up: Guide 5: Finding Your Level. The Coach's Recruiting Game Plan kit includes a social media audit checklist.
Sources checked
Official pages used for this guide, and the date we checked each one. Rules change, so confirm before you act.