USA TODAY High School Sports has a weekly column on the recruiting process. This isn’t about where just the top five-star athletes are headed but rather a guide to the process and the pitfalls for student-athletes nationwide from Playced.com. This week’s article is written by Ross Hawley, the president of the company. Playced.com is an industry leader in college recruiting.  Their technology-based recruiting service identifies the right colleges for potential recruits to pursue and provides a recruiting system that is second to none for student-athletes of all talent levels and ages.

So, you want to be a college athlete? You’re serious about becoming a recruit? Well, if that’s the case, then you’re going to need a player resume that you can easily get in the hands of a college coach. Your player resume should include the academic/athletic stats and facts a college coach needs to easily decide whether you belong in his/her program, or not. To build an effective player resume, here are the four sections you need to include:

1. Player Info: Your player info is all the basic information a coach will need to make an initial assessment on you. Be sure to include your name, your height/weight, the position(s) you play, when you graduate, the school you attend/your club team name and your contact info. It would also be extremely wise of you to link some video or game film. Doing so will give you a much better chance of getting productive feedback and ultimately getting evaluated.
2. Athletic Info:Your athletic information isn’t quite as cut-and-dry as your player info section.  That’s because every college coach evaluates players a little differently and the important metrics and statistics are different for every position, in every sport.  For example, a defensive lineman is evaluated completely differently than a quarterback and a point guard is graded differently than a power forward. Be sure to include the statistics or metrics that are relevant to your sport and position.  If you don’t know what those are, ask Google and figure it out! You can also ask your coach for help and look at the recruiting questionnaires that are readily available on the websites of your favorite college programs. Additionally, you should absolutely include a link to your game schedule in this section.
3. Academic Info: The information in the academic section of your player resume should include your core course GPA, desired major (if you have one) and your SAT and/or ACT score. You should also include your NCAA ID Number that you are issued upon registering with the NCAA Eligibility Center. By clearly summarizing your academic information, it allows coaches to quickly determine if you’re academically a fit for their institution.  Keep in mind, if you’re unable to gain admittance into a school, how good of an athlete you are won’t even be considered.
4. Coach Info: The last section of your player resume should include your current coach’s contact information.  Your coach will serve as a reference to any college coach looking to recruit you. This is critical, because your current coach’s opinion about you can be a difference-maker in your scholarship search. And, make no mistake about it, your coach will talk to any college coach recruiting you!

You’ve got to make it easy for a college coach to make an informed, initial decision on you, based on what they see on your player resume. And, quickly. There’s a fine line between not enough information and writing an autobiography of your playing career. Keep it simple. Make it one page and make it impactful enough to get you to the next stage of the recruiting process: the interview.