When a coach asks “What should I know about you?” or “Tell me what me about yourself.”, what should you say? I was asked this question and completely froze because I had no idea how to respond. Please help! I want to be prepared next time.

Ugh, this question. I’ve frozen too when I’ve been asked this and in that nanosecond before I start bullshitting my way through answering it I question why such a simple question has to be so annoyingly difficult. It gets easier though once you’ve actually thought about it and have it in your head what you want to say.

Some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten on how to answer this question came from a coach that I was riding along with one day during Harvard’s summer camp. She said that you should always aim to keep your answer around two minutes long, give or take, because anything less typically isn’t enough and anything more is too much. Since you’re talking to a college coach they’re going to care about two main things – academics and rowing – so those should be the two things you focus on. Ideally you should sit down and think about your accomplishments and essentially put together an outline or a script of how you want to answer this question.

From there you can practice it (with a friend, sibling, parent, your friendly neighborhood blogger, etc.) and get feedback on how it sounds. Obviously you don’t want it to sound rehearsed or like you’re reading from a script so practicing it in a conversational tone with the standard ebbs and flows is important. Actually speaking the words is important too because what you read and say in your head rarely ever comes out the same when you say it out loud.

Here’s an example (this isn’t based on anything/anyone in particular, it’s just what I came up with on the spot):

“I’ve been a member of the _____ team for the last three years and this past year was elected captain, which was the first time in ___ years that a junior was nominated for that position. This spring I rowed 6-seat in the lightweight 8+ that won the Southwest Regionals and placed 2nd in the A final at Youth Nationals. Those were the highest finishes our light 8+ has had at those regattas in ___ years so it was exciting to be a part of that. I also competed at CRASH-Bs in February and finished with a time of ____ which put me in the top 10 for the junior women’s lightweight category. At school I’ll be taking four AP classes this fall in addition to acting as vice-president of the ____ club, which I also helped form last year. My goal is to major in _____, which is one of the reasons why I’m taking AP _____ and _____. I really liked what I read about the program when I was researching schools, particularly about the ___________, so that’s one of the main reasons why I chose to apply here. I was also really impressed with how well the team did at Eastern Sprints and NCAAs this year and how the freshman crews have consistently been in the mix for medals the last couple of years. I’d really like to be able to say that I helped my team win an Eastern Sprints or NCAA title as a freshman so it’s definitely a goal to get a seat in the 1F by the time spring rolls around. I definitely think I’m capable of that too, especially given how much work I’ve put in over the years to get to where I’m at now.”

The key is to highlight your accomplishments and goals while staying concise and to the point. Try to avoid straying into “this is my life story” because that kinda just shows that you haven’t really thought about the question or prepared an answer for it. The only time I’ve mentioned something “biographical” is if it’s something that the two of us have in common, usually in the form of something relating to my hometown or where I went to school. I always try to do a bit of research on the coach(es) before I talk to them and, for example, if I see that they went to Marietta College or coached there at some point then I’ll mention that that’s where I’m originally from and that I rowed out of the boathouse beside MC’s. It’s a great icebreaker and an easy way to transition into whatever I was planning to say.

I was looking at the NCAA rules for recruiting and I was confused by one of them and was hoping you could explain it to me. I am a rising senior so it is now acceptable for the coaches to call me, but I was reading the rules and it said that they could only call you once a week. I had a coach call me but I didn’t have my phone so he left a message. Does that count as the one call for the week? (BTW I tried calling back but he didn’t answer so I left a message.)

So I spent awhile Googling this and, unsurprisingly, found very little useful information. I even went through the NCAA D1 manual (a 432 page convoluted monstrosity…) and couldn’t find anything. The one thing I did find though is from an article posted on AthleticScholarships.net back in 2013 about phone call violations reported to the NCAA by Iowa State. Here’s the full article if you want to read it but the part most relevant to your situation says “calls where you do not reach a recruit, which could be a voicemail or someone else picking up the phone, do not count against the numerical limits on phone calls”. Also “The NCAA requires that voicemails, failures to reach the recruit, and dropped calls be supported with “contemporaneous documentation.” That means that in the moment or shortly thereafter, the coach must record why the call should not count.

The thing you’ve gotta realize about the NCAA is that they’ve got coaches on very, very short leashes. I’m pretty sure if they could hand out three year post-season bans simply for not sending them a Christmas card, they would. So while leaving a voicemail might not count against the “one call per week” limit, some coaches might not want to risk it and would instead just wait until the following week to call you again. This is usually why they schedule a specific day/time to talk with you so you can be sure to have your phone nearby. If I understand the rules correctly though, since he couldn’t reach you the first time he called and you called back and left a voicemail, technically he can return that call within the same week since the original call he made doesn’t count. (…hopefully that makes sense.)

My suggestion would be to ask him the next time you talk for clarification on all of this just so that you know what’s permissible and what isn’t. Before coaches can contact prospective student-athletes they’re required by the NCAA to take a recruiting certification exam that tests their knowledge on all the rules, so assuming that he’s done that he would definitely be able to fill you in on how things work. Knowing the rules, even though they don’t necessarily apply to you, could also come in handy should something come up in the future.

You could also call the compliance department (located within the athletic department, for those that didn’t know that…) and ask them for clarification since there’s not really anything explicitly stated online (at least not anywhere that is endorsed by the NCAA) what the protocol is here. Their sole job is to make sure the athletes (and coaches) understand the rules and comply with them so if there’s anyone besides the coach who would know the answer to your question, it’d be these guys.