Things to avoid in Highlight video productions

I too was guilty of a lot of the no-no's when I was making Garrett's youth football highlights. Lucky I had someone with inside knowledge of what coaches want to see and what they don't like to see or hear tell me the proper way to do it. I know of a few people that are either just starting the recruiting process or are trying to garner interest in their student-athlete. I'm not by any means trying to tell anyone what to do. I'm just passing on some knowledge that I ran across in an article. Some of the same info was giving to me a couple years ago and it help us tremendously. Ok, here goes!

Eliminate slow motion

Believe it or not, there is not a college coach who wants to watch a prospect in slow motion. Moreover, by incorporating slow motion or a pause right before a prospect puts on a move or does something spectacular it is actually diminishing the gravity of the feat, not enhancing it. Highlights are always at their best without enhancements and as they occurred.
If coaches want to see something again they know where the rewind button is!

It's football, not a music video

Theatrics, graphics and, most importantly, music will be muted on every laptop, desktop and personal device owned by a coach or school. Coaches are watching to evaluate, not be entertained. The less distractions, the better.
I was told this is definitely a BIG NO-NO!
No coach wants to hear a profanity laced rap song just because you think "it goes hard!" The same applies to R&B, Rock and Roll, Country, Instrumental, etc etc. Just leave the music out! Not everyone likes Lil' Boosie or knows who he is!!!

KEEP THEM SHORT!

No coach worth anything will sit thru 10-15 minutes of a clips of your athlete doing the same things over and over again! Select the best 10-20 plays on the athlete and roll with that. Keep it below 5 minutes in length. Pick plays where the athlete shows dominance against top competition. Coaches are looking for different skills at each position. The highlight should be a teaser to make them what to know more about the athlete. They will resort to game film to accomplish that.

And don't lie about how big, fast, or tall the athlete is in the intro at the start of the highlight. When or if he goes to camps he will be weighed, measured, and timed! If you measure him at 5'10" and at camp he measures 5'9" it's OK. The problems start when you said he was 5'10" and he measures at 5'7"!!! Or that he runs a 4.4/40, but there the best he can manage is a 4.8!

I know after making these changes you may feel your video is boring. If that is the case, make 2! Make the vanilla one as described above for recruiting purposes, and do what you want to the 2nd one! Publish the vanilla version for recruiting but keep the 2nd private for friends and family! DO NOT publish the 2nd one! If you do reporters and stalkers will find it! It will get spread around and coaches will eventually see it. And tell your athlete to be EXTREMELY careful about what they post on socially media sites! Again...Reporters and Stalkers will see it and spread it!