Recruiting video basics for youth basketball parents
• 6 min read
Recruiting film is not a highlight reel with a different name. It is a short argument that an athlete can play at a level, backed by evidence a coach can verify in a couple of minutes.
One link, not five attachments
Coaches open links, not zip files. A single URL that loads instantly on a phone, with the reel first and full games available below it, gets watched. Anything requiring a download or a login does not.
Three to four minutes, best plays first
Lead with the strongest three clips. Coaches decide early whether to keep watching, and chronological order wastes that attention. Include defence — the most common gap in youth reels is that they are entirely offence.
- Jersey number and colour identified in the first frames.
- Clips start a beat before the action so the read is visible.
- Include at least a few full possessions, not just finishes.
Attach the boring evidence
Alongside the film: graduation year, position, height, current team, and season stats with the games they came from. A reel without verifiable context is treated as marketing; a reel with a season box score behind it is treated as data.
Keep full games available
Serious interest always ends with a request for unedited game footage. Having full games sitting behind the same link removes a week of back-and-forth and shows the athlete in the parts of the game the reel edited out.
Update it during the season, not after
A reel rebuilt every February is always describing last year's player. Because PROSCORE keeps coach-logged stats and evaluations attached to the athlete as the season goes, the record a coach opens reflects the most recent games — and you add saved highlights to it as they happen.