Six Ways for a Youth Athlete to Get Noticed (2024)

In the United States 70 million athletes play competitive sports, striving towards variety of goals. For many, the road to a varsity roster spot, college offer or even possibly a professional contract starts at the youth level. In the current athletic climate, middle school is the place where the skills of many athletes start to be noticed by people at the next level; high school, college, and sometimes, albeit rarely, professional coaches and scouts.

For years we've been following and reporting on the best youth athletes in the country, many of whom are on the precipice of big-time college athletics. Their talents were all recognized at a young age. Here are some of the factors that they have in common that should be considered to get an athlete noticed along with links to stories about relevant stories about athletes we've covered.

1.Attend Camps.Exposure is the name of the game. Giving yourself every opportunity to get noticed increases your chances of being seen by the right people, primarily high school and college scouts. There are camps exclusively for middle school athletes, and others that have middle school through high school divisions.It's at these camps you need to bring your "A" game, as it will be attended by the most serious and most talent athletes. In fact, you may find the better middle school athletes playing up with the high school players at the latter camps. And needless to say, if a college gives and invitation to a youth athlete to compete at one of their camps they should seriously consider attending.

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2.Train outside of standard practice.The old saying goes that you get out is what you put in. Of the countless elite athletes we’ve interviewed over the past seven years, another common denominator is the commitment to extra training. Whether its speed drills or light weight lifting during the off­season or specialty training for your particular sports, dedicating some extra time can go a long way.

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3.Play on a competitive travel team.There are a couple of reasons why this is important. Travel teams often have the best competition. The athletes that you play with and against will be of a higher caliber than your local leagues, which strengthens everyone’s game. With regards to recruiting, high school and college scouts only have so much time to identify youth athletes. To economize their time they often attend club team tournaments and events to identify as many players at a time as they can. If you’re on a travel team, your chances of getting noticed increase dramatically.

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4.Promote yourself.These days,social media is a self­promotion power tool in the sports world.The best way to get noticed is to be pro­active with promotion. Post highlight tapes, tweet your stats, take photos on Instagram. And don’t forget to send all your videos, stats and stories to our editors here at Youth1.com. There’s a reason we use #getnoticed, because we know that’s half the battle.

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5.Keep a clean off-field profile.As important as getting noticed is, it’s equally important that you’re not noticed for the wrong reasons. Scouts will talk to teachers, coaches and friends and they’ll patrol your social media accounts to make sure that not only is an athlete of high caliber on the field, but of high character off of it. Using profane language on social media is a big red flag for college programs (several students every year lose their offers over misbehaving on social media) and getting in trouble in school or with the law makes any athlete less appealing no matter how many points you can score. Being of high character can only improve your life, so start now.

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6.Reclassification.This topic has become one of great debates in the youth sports world recently.When an athlete reclassifies, he effectively move his high school graduation date back one year. In middleschool this means re­taking 7​or 8​grade. The decision to reclassify is one that needs careful consideration by the athlete and his support nework, parents, school administrators, etc., and it is certainly not​a strategy that we are promoting. Certainly, maintaining stability in an adolescent’s life should be top priority, but the athletic advantages of reclassification are clear; one year of extra size, strength, speed and training go a long way for middle school athletes. Athletes at every current level, from to five star high school recruits to blue chip college prospects have reclassified.

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