How to make a lacrosse recruiting highlight video
By Aaron Siebold, former D1 player at Hofstra
Updated
Under three minutes. Your best play first. Name, grad year, position and number on the front, and a spotlight on you in every clip. That’s most of it.
The rest is how you film it, which clips you pick, and the email it goes out with. I cut highlight tapes for players, so this is how I’d do each part.
What a coach is looking at
Four things. Get these right and the rest is polish.
The first fifteen seconds. A coach has a stack of these and a feed scrolls past in a second. Either way, if your best play isn't at the front there is no back. Most tapes open with a warm-up rip against nobody.
What you did without the ball. Everyone sends goals. Coaches are looking for whether you slid on time, whether your feet were right, and what you did on the two possessions before the highlight.
Who you did it against. Ten goals against a weak program says less than two against a good one. If the opponent is worth naming, the tape should name them.
Whether they can find you. Spotlight on every clip, jersey number on the front card, grad year and contact in the first frame and the description. Tapes get dropped for less.
How long, and in what order
Keep it under three minutes. A coach opens these between meetings, a lot of the time on a phone.
Open on a front card: name, grad year, position, jersey number, your teams, and an email or phone number. Leave it up for three or four seconds. Then your best play. Not your first goal of the season. Your best one.
Put your five or six strongest plays at the front. After that, mix it up. Ten dodges in a row look like one play ten times. A dodge, then a ground ball, then a slide, then a clear shows a coach you do more than one thing.
Start each clip two or three seconds before the play and cut it right after. The coach needs to see how it started: the slide, the pick, the defender you beat. No long intro and no slow-motion replays.
Which clips, by position
Attack. Dodges where you beat your man to the cage, feeds that turn into goals, and finishes from more than one spot. Add a ride or two. A coach wants to see what you do when you lose the ball.
Midfield. Dodges from up top, transition both ways, ground balls. If you play defense, show it. A middie with only offense on tape looks like a middie who only plays offense.
Defense. Feet on the ball, slides that get there on time, checks that cause turnovers, ground balls and clears. A possession where your man never got a shot off is a highlight, even with no takeaway at the end.
Long-stick middie. Wing play on faceoffs, ground balls, and what you do in transition once you've got it.
Faceoff. Wins, and the two seconds after: the exit, the ground ball, the push up the field. Show the same move working more than once.
Goalie. Saves high, low and off-hip, with the shooter in the frame so a coach can see it was a real shot. Then outlets and clears. Those count too.
How to film a game
Get high, at midfield. The top row of the bleachers works. From up there you see the whole play, who slid and where the space was. From the fence you mostly see backs.
Hold the phone sideways, and shoot wide. Follow the ball, not your kid. If the camera is tight on one player, a coach can’t see the slide coming or the man your kid just beat, and that’s the part they’re watching.
Put the phone on a tripod or a monopod. An hour handheld gets shaky, and shaky film is hard to watch on a small screen. Keep it rolling through the whole possession. Stop and start and you miss the play before the play.
Phone settings: 1080p at 60 frames a second is plenty, and it takes far less space than 4K. Lock focus and exposure before the whistle (on an iPhone, press and hold on the screen) so the picture doesn’t keep adjusting. Don’t pinch to zoom. Past the phone’s own lenses it goes soft. Clear storage the night before and bring a battery pack.
Make sure they can find you
Spotlight yourself before every clip: a circle or an arrow on you for a second, then let the play run. Numbers change between club and school, and a coach shouldn’t have to guess which kid in white is you.
Put it on YouTube and send the link. Don’t attach the file. Title it with your name, class, position and the word highlights, like “Alex Rivera, Class of 2029, Attack, Highlights”, and put the same details plus your email in the description.
What to put in the email
Keep it short. Subject line: grad year, position, name, “highlights”. Then, in this order:
- Who you are: name, grad year, position, high school and club team, jersey numbers.
- One honest line on why that school.
- The link to the tape.
- Where they can see you play next: the event, the dates, your number there.
- Your GPA.
- Your club or high school coach’s name and contact, and yours.
Send it from the player’s email, not a parent’s. If the staff page says which assistant recruits your position or your area, write to them and copy the head coach. One email per school. A coach can tell a mass email when they see one.
When it matters
For Division 1 men’s lacrosse, a college coach can’t call you, message you, meet you off campus or host you on a visit before 7 a.m. on the Wednesday after Labor Day of junior year. For the class of 2029, that’s .
I’d have the tape finished before that morning, so it’s ready the day coaches can start. Then cut a new one after junior season. A year is a lot of growth at that age.
That rule is for Division 1 men. For women’s lacrosse and Divisions 2 and 3, see when college lacrosse coaches can contact you.
If you'd rather I cut it
I cut highlight tapes for players in any state. You send the film, I send the tape.
- Highlight Reel (One minute, for posting), $59. You send up to 5 minutes of film.
- Highlight Tape (To post/for recruiting), $99. You send up to 10 minutes of film.
- Highlight Tape (I go through the film), $199. You send up to 30 minutes of film.
What to send me, whichever one you pick:
Send clips, not just one game. One game is never enough for a highlight tape. Even a great one shows a coach a single afternoon against a single opponent.
Pull from games, practice and training. A dodge in practice and a rep from training count. Range is what a coach is reading for, and it does not all happen on Saturdays.
Roughly cut up beats one long file. You don't have to edit anything, and raw film is always accepted. But breaking it into rough chunks around the moments that matter gets you a noticeably better tape.
What each one includes is on the film page.