If your daughter is trying to get recruited, I'm about to tell you something that will almost immediately get them taken off of a college coach's radar. And if you are a coach of an athlete, you're gonna wanna send this to them. Athletes, if you're listening, here we go. This has nothing to do with an athlete's skill level, and everything to do with how they respond when things aren't going their way in a competition. So when the ref makes a bad call, when they make a mistake, when their team is down, when their teammates make a mistake, all of those are situations that college coaches are recruiting for as well. And before I get into how you should respond in those situations, and a way that you can make sure that you do it every single time, I am Coach Bre. I f- I haven't met you, I am a mental performance coach for girl athletes. I'm also a 14-year head volleyball coach, won four state championships as a coach, sent a lot of, um, athletes out of my program into the college level to go play on, and that wasn't all due to me. That was absolutely due to them and the skills that they had developed, not just physically, but also mentally, and how they carried themselves on the court, because college coaches were recruiting for that, not just their talent. In fact, I was just talking to a college coach last week who was talking to me about some athletes that were on her radar for recruiting, and she was looking for a certain type of outside hitter, um, we're talking volleyball here, and she was like,"And when I went to go watch these players compete and watch them play, the reason why I actually took one of them off of my list had nothing to do with her fit when it came to talent and skill inside our program. It had everything to do with her court presence when things weren't going her way, when her team was down, when she was struggling personally, how she responded." Meaning, when she was making a couple mistakes in a row, what she was doing, instead of being aggressive and trying again, keep your head up, she was actually doing the opposite. She was playing it safe. Um, she was turning her back on her teammates a little bit. She was getting visibly frustrated with herself. Those are the things that college coaches are also recruiting and looking for. I'm going to go over five things that college coaches are looking for that go beyond just the physical skill and the talent. The first one being her response when things aren't going their way. How does your athlete respond after they make mistakes? It's not the obvious stuff. We all know that, like, screaming at the refs, throwing equipment around, rolling your eyes, like, being rude to your teammates, like- Obviously, that stuff is not cool and college coaches are gonna pick up on that right away, but I'm not, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the subtle things. What happens when your athlete makes a mistake and she's kind of in a little bit of a slump and in, in a bit of a spiral? What does her body language look, look like? Does, do her shoulders drop? Does she, after make- making a mistake, does she try, um, to risk it again and be aggressive, or does she pull back and instead is just playing it safe, playing it cautious, playing it tight? Does she start to blame other people? Um, what, like what, what does she do after a mistake? And that is something that college coaches are looking for because in athletics, we all know things are not gonna go your athlete's way all the time. In fact, it doesn't go their way most of the time, and so college coaches are looking for how do they respond? And the best athletes have a reset system for how they respond. We call ours in our program, in our mental training program, um, the snapback routine. So it's a combination of a breath, a reset word, a reset signal, and those are the things that college coaches are looking for. Do they have a way to reset themselves quickly, faster than their sport requires? What I mean by that is if your daughter plays volleyball, um, athletes that are listening, if you play a sport like volleyball, you got 15 seconds to get back in the present moment. If you play basketball, you've got almost no time. You have to be able to bounce back fast, and likely your coaches are saying things like,"Shake it off, next play," oh, you know,"Be a goldfish," whatever. And those are all great things, but if you don't actually have a way to do that, then it's gonna be really hard to do. So al- all athletes that are trying to play at the next level, you're trying to play in college, trying to get recruited, make sure you have some sort of really simple reset system. Like I said, ours is called the snapback routine, breath, reset word, reset signal, so that college coaches can actually see you responding to those situations where things aren't going your way, and they're gonna pick up on that, and they're gonna be like,"Okay, yes, they're the type of player that can be tough in those moments and actually respond and play well even when the score is not in their favor, even when their teammates are making a mistake, even when there's a bad call by a ref." All of those are situations that college coaches are looking at when they are recruiting you. Now, if you wanna learn exactly how to do this, I, this is exactly what I'm breaking down in my free training for sports parents, and athletes that are listening, you're welcome to come to this as well. I am teaching the top mental training skills that all athletes need if they wanna play at the next level, the snapback routine, a failure recovery system being one of them. So go ahead and head to the link in the show notes where I have registration open for that training. I will be going over exactly what you can be learning and implementing so that when you're playing in front of college coaches, you actually have a way to be mentally strong so that they can actually see that, hey, you are mentally strong enough to be able to handle playing at the next level. Okay, that's number one. How do you respond when things aren't going your way, especially when you make mistakes? Number two, your body language. This one is- Pretty obvious. Um, but I'm, again, I'm not talking about the obvious one, uh, situations where, you know, you're mad, and you're turning your back on your team and, and all of that. Like, most athletes know that that's not okay. But what I'm also, w- what I also wanna talk about is what, what does your body language look like on the bench? What does your body language look like when you walk out onto the court? What does your body language look like when the score is not in your favor? Um, all of those are situations that college coaches are also noticing and picking up on, because I will say, college coaches, they understand talent and skill. They know what they're looking for. They know what they need for their team, so they can spot that, and they can recruit for that really easily. What they're looking for are those other things, those intangibles, the mental skills, because if you can't do this stuff right in high school and in the college setting, you're probably not gonna do it well when the pressure is even greater in the college setting. So you have to be mentally tough. You have to have good body language. You have to know how to respond when the pressure is on and things don't go your way, and body language and posture is part of that. So head up, shoulders back. It doesn't mean that you have to be smiling all the time and be happy all the time, but you do have to look people in the eye. You have to be a good teammate and show that you are supportive even when things aren't going well. Okay? Um, number three, along with that, how you treat your teammates. How does your daughter treat her teammates? And this is kind of a sneaky one, because, um, it can, it can be tough sometimes to be a good teammate, especially when your athlete is very competitive. If you're a competitive person, and you really wanna win, and, you know, people are making mistakes, how do you respond? Do you go quiet in big moments? Do you... You know, what do you do when somebody else makes a mistake? Are you going up to them, and you're being encouraging, or are you not? Are you chewing them out? And college coaches are very protective of their culture, and they do not wanna bring somebody in who is going to be a threat to their culture, and how you treat your teammates is, um, either a threat, or it could be an addition to the culture of, that the college coach has, has developed and established. So how you treat your teammates and how your daughter treats her teammates is also something that college coaches are absolutely looking for, and that is part of is she a culture fit? And teammate dynamics are tough. They're one of the top questions that I get inside our mental training program. You know, how do I respond when my teammate is being negative to me? Or how do I respond when m- a teammate is making mis- multiple mistakes, multiple mistakes in a row? How do I encourage them? How do I do that? And so we talk about that a lot inside our mental training program, especially with our athletes that are competing at a high level, and it's a skill. It's a skill for athletes to develop how to Interact with their teammates. And that is another skill that I'll be breaking down at our free training. So if you go to the link in the description below, that free training that I'm breaking down mental training skills that all athletes who wanna play in college need to have, um, things that college coaches are recruiting for, that's what I'll be breaking down. So head to that link in the show notes so you can register for that, especially if your athlete wants to play at the next level. Okay, number four, I talked about how to treat your teammates, but here's another sneaky one, how you treat your parents. Okay? Collegers, college coaches are watching this too. How are athletes treating their parents? Are they like,"Hey, you know, go fill my water bottle. Go do this." You know, after the game, are they blowing them off? What... You know, all of those things. Um, my college coach has mentioned it to me when I've talked to her about, like, the recruiting process, and she's like,"Yeah, if a, um, you know, if a player is just, like, disrespectful to her parents, how can I expect that player to be respectful to me?" Um, that, that was a clear indicator of what our relationship is probably going to be like. So if your, if your daughter is deflecting feedback, she's rolling her eyes at the coach or the parents and, um, all that, if her parents are needing to be managing her emotional state and all of that, like, that is a tricky situation that most coaches, most college coaches don't really wanna get themselves into. So another big one, how do you treat the people around you who are helping you? Okay? Your parents, your coaches, your teammates, like, all of those people are really important, and they're going to be with you at the next level as well, and college coaches are looking for how you treat them. Okay? All right, number five. This one is big, one of the most important. How do you perform under pressure? And this goes beyond, you know, when things aren't going your way. I've talked about it a couple of times, but how does your daughter respond when the big moments come? Okay? Anybody compete well, can compete well when they're winning, when things are going their way, when the score is looking good, and you're having a great game. But what coaches are actually looking for is pretty subtle. Does she get smaller when the moment gets bigger, right? When the, the pressure is on, does she tighten? What is her decision-making like? Okay? Does she play to win versus playing not to lose? There's a difference there. Does she risk, or does she play it safe? And the, the difference here is all around mindset. This really doesn't have anything to do with skill. Your daughter is talented. She is skilled, or sh- college coaches wouldn't be looking at her, okay? But what they're also looking for is how does she respond when you're down a set or two? Um, how does she respond when it's a, it's a big moment, and she needs to show up in that moment? Does she deflect to other people, or does she- Take on that moment and shine and step up. And is she going to be reliable mentally when the pressure is high? Can she still compete like herself even when the moment feels really big? This is trained. This is not a personality trait. This is something that can be developed, and in fact, there is a really compelling stat from the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology that says,"Mental skills are among the top factors coaches cite in recruiting decisions, alongside physical skills and coachability." Coachability itself is a mental skill as well. And so we wanna make sure that your daughter can have the skills to perform how you know she can perform, and she can showcase her skills even when the pressure is on, and that's where mental training comes in. So again, if you wanna learn these mental skills that separate the athletes that get recruited from the athletes that don't, then head to our free training. The link is in the description. I go over the top three mental training skills that all athletes who wanna play in college need to have, because they're being recruited for those as well, and if they don't have the mental toughness, if they don't know how to respond when the pressure is on, if they don't respond well when they make mistakes or, um, things aren't going their way, then those are the things that make the difference between offers and no offers. Okay? So link for that is in the description. Okay, the big picture here. I went over five things. I'm gonna circle back to all five, okay? Number one, how does your daughter respond when things aren't going her way? Right, those are That's a huge mental skill. Does she know how to reset after mistakes? Number two, what does her body language look like? How does she treat her teammates? How does she treat her coaches, okay, and her parents? I kind of lump parents and coaches together there. And how does she perform when the pressure is on? Does she tighten up or does she take control of that moment? And these aren't just recruiting skills. These are actually life skills as well. So the athlete who can reset after mistakes, that is the, the woman who has a hard day and still can be steady, okay? The athlete who supports teammates when she's struggling is the friend that shows up when it costs her something, right? The athlete who holds composure under pressure is the adult who can navigate hard seasons without falling apart. Sports are the training ground, okay? I know that, um, we want We have goals. Your athlete probably really wants to play at the next level. She wants that scholarship, and so these are the skills that will separate her, but these are also the mental architecture that she will live with throughout college, throughout her life, um, and this is where it's built, right here. So if you wanna learn exactly how to build these skills, head to our free training. The link is in the description. And athletes, parents, coaches that are listening, I know this is an episode that kind of fits into all three of those buckets. I hope that this was helpful, and these are small things that you can be working on with your athletes, and also athletes, you can be working on them- on your own so that you can get to that next level that I know you want to get to. All right, I'm Coach Bre, and I will see you in the next episode of the podcast