As a marketing strategy offering a free combine is great, but the timing was a little poor.  AWP hosted its second free all sports combine yesterday which ran all day starting early around 8:00 AM and finishing at 5:00 PM.  Numbers for the youth combine were really good with 15, but the middle school and high school aged combine numbers were very small with 12 and 8 respectively.  Part of the reason for that was there was a big tournament that weekend in AAU basketball and also volleyball which pulled a lot of athletes as well as high school football camp and two-a-days starting up around the state.  The good thing is of all the participants in the combine, nearly half agreed to come back to discuss further training and I was able to bring one player from Elkhart (one hour and a half away) who looks to be very promising as a client.   

Testing provides the basis for all athletes when they first come to AWP and that data is collected and analyzed over time as the person continues to work with AWP.  Fortunately some of the combine participants were already AWP members and having them perform well at this event showed the non-members some of the benefits of being a part of the program which is literally having the product sell itself.  

The next all sports combine should be scheduled at a time where high school sports are on a dead time, perhaps during the moratorium week mandated by the IHSAA.  Although it is very difficult to schedule an all sports combine where no sports are participating I think that could be a good time.  The other option would be to schedule two separate free combines for major target markets AWP is trying to enhance: females and youth sports.

While spending most of June organizing calendars and contacting coaches and making sure players are going to the right camps was taxing it was worth it.  I have made some valuable contacts with coaches at the division I level.  July has been kind of scaling back a lot of my contacts, but still sending periodic texts and e-mails just to stay in touch and keep my players in the minds of the coaches.  I have been spending a lot of time training players at home (in Elkhart) and getting them ready to leave for their college of choice (2013 grads) and still networking my 2014 guys as much as possible.  I have been talking with more division 2 schools to just ensure some guys will have a place to play if the division 1 offers fall through by the time the season is over.  Protecting a student-athlete in the event that something out of their control impacts their recruiting is difficult and that unknown is hard to prepare for, but it is possible with diligence and expedient communication.

I have taken on a new responsibility in the form of trying to get players to attend the free sports combine in Fort Wayne on July 27th that I last blogged about.  It has been difficult because the brand is known, but not that well known among high school and youth kids in my area.  It is important for any future plans of further development or expansion to get the word out about the services offered by AWP.  With high school football two-a-days approaching it is vital to get the word out early because kids will begin to focus their attention on their season.  It is also just now sinking in that I will not be coaching high school football this year, but it is a decision I needed to make to better serve my family, continue my education, and advance my career.  Throughout the season I will be going to certain games looking for underclassmen who may have slipped through the cracks to see if they would want to train at AWP or at the very least play on the 7v7 team.  

All of my virtual hours have been documented in my time sheet because the information is private, but it is fair to say that a majority of my time throughout July has been dedicated to creating contacts, cold calls, building plans, and meeting with players to discuss not only their recruiting, but training in the future (during season and