George White RecruitU Founder on College Recruiting Truths

In this episode of the PREP Athletics Podcast, Cory Heitz sits down with George White, former Division I player at Harvard, longtime college coach across D3, D2, D1, and the NBA/G-League, and founder of RecruitU. George brings unmatched perspective from both coaching and recruiting sides of the game, helping families cut through the noise and focus on finding the right fit for their student-athletes.

He shares why hope is not a strategy in recruiting, how families should approach early commitments in today’s transfer portal era, and what really separates G-League players from NBA players. George also breaks down the House lawsuit, NIL, and revenue sharing, and explains how these changes affect today’s recruits. Families will especially value his advice on crafting emails to coaches, using social media effectively, and even evaluating the financial stability of colleges — an overlooked but crucial factor.

If you’re a parent or player trying to navigate the recruiting maze, this conversation offers honest, practical guidance from someone who has seen it all at every level of basketball.

💡 Key Topics

📌 College recruiting truths: why “hope is not a strategy”
 📌 Early commitments vs. waiting: navigating the new recruiting landscape
 📌 NIL, revenue sharing, and their real impact on basketball recruits
 📌 How to email college coaches effectively + social media strategies
 📌 The importance of evaluating financial stability of schools
 📌 The “parallel path” approach for academics and athletics

🏀 About George White

George White is a former Harvard basketball player and longtime coach at the D3, D2, D1, and NBA/G-League levels. He is the founder of RecruitU, a service that helps families navigate the recruiting process by matching athletes with schools that fit their athletic, academic, and personal goals. George brings decades of experience and a holistic, realistic approach to college recruiting.

🔗 Connect with George White

Website | www.recruituapp.com
Email | marketing@recruituapp.com
Twitter | x.com/RecruitUapp1
Instagram | www.instagram.com/ugetrecruited/
LinkedIn | www.linkedin.com/company/recruiting-sports-network/

🔗 Connect with Cory:

Website | https://www.prepathletics.com
Twitter | https://twitter.com/PREP_Athletics
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/prep.athletics/
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/PrepAthletics
Email | coryheitz@gmail.com
Phone | 859-317-1166

🔖 Subscribe to the PREP Athletics Podcast:

iTunes | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/prep-athletics-podcast/id1546265809?uo=4
Spotify | https://open.spotify.com/show/6CAKbXFiIOhoHinzsReYbJ
Amazon | https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/3c37179d-3371-47f9-9d97-fd569e8802a7/prep-athletics-basketball-podcast #AmazonMusic

Chapters

• 2:44 Growing up in Philadelphia, early love of basketball, high school experience, and recruiting path
• 3:48 Decision-making process: why George chose Harvard over Yale and Princeton
• 5:55 Coaching at every level: key differences between D3, D2, D1, and NBA/G-League
• 7:23 Why talented G-League players don’t make the NBA, and what separates NBA players
• 9:08 Example of the Lopez twins: skill specialization, athletic improvement, and long NBA careers
• 10:41 Starting RecruitU: expert-driven approach to matching players with schools
• 14:53 Why “hope is not a strategy” in recruiting + proactive outreach
• 15:01 How RecruitU contacts coaches on behalf of players + structuring emails effectively
• 17:24 How families can reach out to George and RecruitU
• 18:38 Breaking down the House lawsuit, NIL, and revenue sharing
• 21:12 How schools decide on revenue allocation and what sports benefit most
• 24:20 Cooper Flagg example: differences between NIL, collectives, and revenue share
• 30:58 Using offers strategically to gain leverage with other schools
• 33:19 Importance of listening to experts like prep school coaches and RecruitU advisors
• 34:53 “Parallel path” planning: creating academic-only college lists in case sports don’t work out
• 43:55 Why families must consider a college’s financial stability when choosing schools
• 49:22 George’s final advice: be realistic, be proactive, and consider all pathways (including JUCO)
• 52:14 Why JUCO is now a valid option even for high-academic kids

Transcript

Cory Heitz (00:00)
Welcome to this week's episode of the Prep Athletics Podcast. I'm proud to have on former D1 player and coach George White. Now, George White runs a company called RecruitU and he helps players find the right fitting college through his whole method he goes through by finding out about how good you are in the court, in the classroom, what your interests are. And he takes all the colleges out there and specializes in making a list for you that is the right fit for you. And then they work with you to reach out to these programs.

On this episode, we talk about him playing at Harvard, right? After growing up in the Philadelphia area and he's coached at the D3, D2, D1, NBA, G-League, all of those different levels. So we talk about what it's like, the differences between each, what keeps a ⁓ G-League player from making it to the NBA. We talk about the house class action lawsuit because he's really good on NIL and the current rules, revenue sharing.

Um, making early decisions, the pros and cons of that, finding an expert, reaching out to college coaches via email and how to do that, how to do your social media. So much good information. reach out to George every couple of months because he keeps his finger on the pulse of what's going on in his zeitgeist of the college recruiting and placing more placement world. And it fits pretty good into what we do with the prep schools as well. So it's good to have him on and all his expertise.

If you like the Prep Athletics podcast, be sure to subscribe on all of the major podcasting platforms to include YouTube, where we put bonus content. If you've got any questions on Prep School, go to prepathletics.com. It's our website. Everything's on there. Everything's free on there to help guide you on how the Prep School process works. Just sign up for the newsletter if you want to keep up to date with what's going on each month. And if you've got any questions, reach out to me. We'll get back to you and we'd love to help you. So with that being said, enjoy this week's episode of the Prep Athletics podcast.

with recruit use, George White.

Cory Heitz (02:15)
George, welcome to the podcast. How's it going today?

George White (02:18)
Good Cory, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here and like enjoy speaking with you. It's so knowledgeable about this ⁓ college landscape and especially as it relates to recruiting. So looking forward to it.

Cory Heitz (02:32)
Absolutely. And that's what

we had you on as well because you've got your finger in the pulse what's going on. before we get into what your expertise is, let's go back and tell me where you grew up and what got you in the basketball.

George White (02:44)
⁓ I grew up in Philadelphia, which as you know is a basketball hotbed. Started playing basketball at a very young age, at six years old. was love at first sight. ⁓ Really was very motivated to ⁓ play, play against the highest competition and improve and in my view not kind of get caught behind anyone else from a competitive standpoint. So was fortunate to play also at a very strong high school program, Holyrood's prep. ⁓

get great coaching. And then I was always seeking the best competition through that. That was pre-AAU. I was able to get recruiting attention and was recruited at the Division I level here locally, St. Joe's. But then, you know, I did pretty well academically and was recruited by all the IDs in addition to that. So that's kind of been my playing background and then went on to

not only work in business but then transition into college coaching also at all levels of college.

Cory Heitz (03:48)
Yeah, now back up there, you picked Harvard to play at. What was your decision making process with you, your family, and your coach on choosing Harvard? Like, what stood out to you? Because you're helping kids all the time with college decisions. I want to know how you chose that one.

George White (04:03)
Yeah, I mean, in hindsight, I probably should have hired myself because I didn't necessarily go through our entire process. Probably part of it. But I knew that I wanted to try to combine the best opportunity to play. Like, I was really realistic. Like, I knew I wasn't going to get paid a whole lot of money to play basketball after college. But I knew I wanted to get playing time. That was really important to me. So I was focused on kind of the right level that matched mine, which...

It's kind what we do in our company. ⁓ But also the best academic situation, again, because I felt like career-wise, again, I wasn't going to be playing in the NBA in all likelihood, so I needed to make sure I set myself up ⁓ to be successful down the road. ⁓ Harvard was a little bit, it was way outside my initial targets. I grew up in a very kind of

middle class neighborhood. So it wasn't like anyone even thought of going to an Ivy League school, you know, in kind of my environment. But once they started recruiting me, I became interested. My final three for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, and Princeton was a little bit too close to home. I wanted to get away and have that experience. And then, you know, Harvard, Yale, I love Yale, love the campus, love the people.

probably fit in there better socially. But I just was intrigued by Harvard and the name and the reputation. And in that sense, it was a little bit of a roll of dice, which was true because it was a huge culture shock for me. But for all those reasons, it's really why I chose Harvard.

Cory Heitz (05:55)
Love it. Love it. And now you're in that amazing alumni network and now you guys are in the news, which we won't get into nationally right now, but what a great institution. Now, what also makes you unique, George, is, and we're going to get to your company here in a second, but you've coached at the D3, D2, D1, NBA's levels. Like you have got a background, like not many coaches out there. Tell me the glaring differences between those levels and how it's helped you.

Get where you are today.

George White (06:27)
Yeah, I mean the NBA level is you can't even compare it. there's guys, I mean coached at the NBA level with the Nuggets and then also coached in the D-League back then which is now called the G-League. And the level of athleticism and skills and size is just such a leap from even high division one. ⁓

There were guys I coached in the G-league. I was like, why are these guys not good enough to play in the NBA? they just, they didn't do something. NBA guys, they're either just world-class talents, or they do something really, really well, ⁓ rebounding, and they find their niche, defending. These guys, just bothered my mind they weren't good enough to play in the NBA. However, you

Cory Heitz (07:23)
But tell me what that is, George. Sorry to interrupt

you, but tell me what that is. Like if you saw guys in the G-League that had that talent, was it something in their personal life? Was it something they weren't professional, didn't show up on time? Like what was the factor or is it just timing?

George White (07:38)
Yeah, I mean, some guys did get a cup of coffee and what set them apart is they really were focused and, you know, pros about their approach and all that. Other guys, you know, quite honestly, they just weren't good enough. They were just a disconnect athletically or skills wise. Now, we were very lucky with this team that we coached. We actually won the championship that year and it was a real pleasure because the guys, despite the fact they're all competing to get a

spot in the NBA, it was a very unselfish group. A couple guys had NBA experience, they kind of floated up and down during our season, but they all were very dedicated for the most part to their game, ⁓ good teammates, mature. Like I said, we're really lucky with this group. There just was a talent gap where they just didn't have that one niche talent that they did really well, or they didn't focus on it. ⁓

So that was really the disconnect. And it just, like I said, it was, you know, I couldn't understand that these guys were so talented, so good. Why were they not good enough to be in the NBA? And that, after spending more time on both sides, I kind of realized that was the issue.

Cory Heitz (08:56)
Do you know it's easier to get struck by lightning twice than to make it to the NBA?

George White (09:03)
I'm sorry, I didn't hear what said.

Cory Heitz (09:04)
I said, it's easier to get struck by lightning twice than to make it to the NBA. That's...

George White (09:08)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, when I coached at Stanford,

you we had the Lopez twins and they're still playing. So. They were so. Talented their size and athleticism and. You know that they're a good example because you know, Brooke is so skilled offensively. ⁓ Which is really what has has made him. Such a great NBA player for such a long time. Robin, on the other hand.

He does a couple things really, really well. He defends, he's athletic, and he rebounds. And I mean, they're twins, but if you look at them play, you wouldn't really think they were related because their games are so different. The one thing that Brook has done though is he's made himself much more athletic. His movement is such a significant improvement over...

where he was not just at Stanford but in his early MBA career. those are actually good examples of why guys do make it in the MBA. They're very skilled, they're very specialized, and they continue to work and get better.

Cory Heitz (10:24)
I love it. So you took this background of coaching at all these different levels of playing at the D1 level yourself, and you started a business, which is how you and I got connected about 10 years ago. Tell those listening to the podcast, what your business is and how you help basketball players.

George White (10:41)
It's our business that recruit you is really focused on utilizing experts. So we use college level coaches in each situation with our athletes ⁓ to identify not just level of play, but areas in which they can prove, but also kind of market themselves. Kind of getting back to the Robin Lopez example. So when we work with ⁓ players, we, you we do a very deep dive. So we'll watch four or five full game.

videos of them. So not based on highlights. ⁓ But when we help them with their profile, ⁓ we kind of give them what their selling points are, or if they can enhance certain skills, what their selling points might be to really position themselves. Like this recruiting thing, which you're probably talking about, gotten so challenging for high school and prep school kids, that you really need to try to distinguish yourself. So if you position yourself as

I'll use Robin for example, as a poor man's Robin Lopez, if you're a post player, but can also rebound and defend the perimeter. That's really what we try to indicate to them that they should sell themselves because when they tell a coach that, the coach is going to remember that. So you have to be memorable ⁓ when you're ⁓ positioning yourself to be recruited. The other thing that we do,

which I think is unique, is we take a very holistic approach to it. So when we work with athletes, our focus is not getting them recruited by 50 or 100 or power conference schools. It's really focusing on identifying the schools that are best fit for them, which is not only related to level of play, but we look at their academics. We do analysis of their academic transcript, the level of classes they're taking.

the rest AT, ACT scores. And then we do a pretty extensive, what I call interview with them, where we have a series of questions basically to help identify what their interests are in terms of college. Which ranges from location of school, size of school, to really keys like career interest, academic major interest. And then we mesh all that due diligence.

formed on the sports side and the academic and the interest side to identify a relatively short list of schools that are best fit for them. So the value of that, as you know, is it gets them very targeted. So I say this all the time, athletes and their parents typically hope to get recruited. they'll play in an AAU tournament and kind of hope that coaches are going to show up. That's happening less and less these days.

College coaches are going to less AU events than ever before. But even if they do, it's very random. kind of, you know, it's like, for example, walking into a bar and the first three people that walk in, you're gonna ask one to marry you, right? It's just very random. Which, I don't know if that, if you did that, God bless you, but it's not necessarily the recipe for success. So again, our thing is to help them.

really reach out to coaches and be proactive. That's kind of our next level of what we do. Because typically the schools we identify are not just a fit for the athlete, but also typically 60, 70 % of time for that college coach. So we work with them to develop a strategy. So hope is not a strategy. Hoping that someone's gonna show up to recruit you is not a strategy. So we really focus on getting them very strategic about it.

⁓ very proactive. You really have to recruit the recruiters these days, kind of wait or hope for them to recruit you. And that's really how we go about what we do. It's very expert driven, due diligence driven, process driven, fortunately for us and our athletes, we've had a very strong track record.

Cory Heitz (14:53)
Love it. Now, when a family hires you and you do get it all narrowed down, the next step from there, do the families reach out to those schools or are you doing that for them?

George White (15:01)
⁓ yeah, so our next level kind of service is we do reach out on their behalf, which has high value, as you know, because like we're in the coaching network. So we typically get a very quick response from a college coach when we reach out to him or her. That's really hard to do. It's hard to do for anyone, particularly a parent or an athlete. And even if it's not a fit, least we know so we can help our athletes.

not waste time chasing even a school that might be a good fit. However, like it's all hands on deck. So we are very focused on having them reach out. We help them structure their email, how that should appear. Like it shouldn't be a Wikipedia, you know, whole section. And we help them make it very tailored, but really with the key points they need to get ⁓ in front of a coach. And then we also ⁓ encourage them to enlist their

high school coach, the AU coach, because again, college coaches for recruiting purposes are definitely predisposed to respond to coaches just to keep the relationships strong. And again, all this is not a one-time thing. We're always encouraging them to continue their outreach, do things like attend the on-campus prospect camps at those colleges. Again,

You're getting yourself right in front of those coaches, not hoping they're gonna show up. But again, it has to be strategic. We have to work with them to determine which of these ideal schools are gonna fit for them, which ones are probably gonna recruit them. ⁓ So we're always trying to pair down this list, but again, be strategic about it and make sure they're not wasting time and money.

in chasing this thing because the reality is even if they start our process as a sophomore, ⁓ they don't have a whole lot of time like between your AU season, your high school season, you know the June alive period when you're playing with your high school team, there's not a whole lot of like weekends available to visit schools, to attend the prospect camps. You have to kind of start this process relatively early ⁓ for your own education but also to get that exposure.

to those target schools.

Cory Heitz (17:24)
I love it. See, if I'm a college coach and you send me an email from recruit you, I'm stopping and looking at it because you are not going to waste my time with a kid that wouldn't make sense for my program. So think that makes total sense. We're going to put this in the show notes, but if people want to learn more and reach out to you about your services, George, what's the best place they should go?

George White (17:44)
Yeah, so we have obviously a website, recruitUapp.com where can contact us. You can use a couple of email addresses. There's one, marketing at recruityouapp.com and then you can contact me directly. I'm gwhite3 at recruityouapp.com. So that's really the best way to connect with me. I mean, you can also do it through our various social media platforms. So recruit U is R-E-C.

RUITU, the letter U, in all those contact areas. have, you know, all the, we're on all the socials, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, so, yeah, if you need to reach me, just use one of platforms, but emails and the website are the best ways to do that.

Cory Heitz (18:38)
Yeah. And that'll all be in the show notes. If you want to reach out to George and his team and just tell them you heard about him from our podcast and that'll be great for him. And now the reason I want to have George on too, like I mentioned in the intro is that George has his finger on the pulse of what's going on out there within the recruiting landscape, the college landscape, legal issues coming up, NIL. And the first thing I want to ask you, George, is about the house class action lawsuit that happened. And I don't know if a lot of people know about this. I didn't know about this.

But explain what that is and how that's going to affect future kids trying to get into college programs.

George White (19:14)
Yeah, I'll try to be brief. Like I told you before, I could talk for two hours about this. think I'm like one of the 50 most diverse people in the country because of what I have to say on top of this. But basically the house class action suit was a lawsuit brought by former NCAA athletes basically to recruit income that they felt they had rights to. Income that was generated through their skills or image.

Cory Heitz (19:17)
Let's be brief. Give the Cliff Notes version of this.

George White (19:44)
use of that a promotion of that over the years there was a hundreds you know like a billion dollar settlement the suit went on for years but I mean somebody let it drag out but anyway the suit settled a couple months ago so they're paying cash players and part of this settlement they also agreed to pay athletes going forward now in my view it's not a great deal for most athletes

other than football and basketball. But part of the commitment that colleges are making, or can make, I should say, they don't have to step up for it, is they can share revenue with athletes. So the one thing that's a little bit unclear because they get mixed together is there's basically two pools of revenue. One is revenue share, the other is NIL. They're two separate sources of compensation.

for athletes. The revenue share amount at Division I is a little over 20 million that they can share with all athletes across the board. The reality is 75 to 80 % is going to football or football players. The remainder is going to men's women's basketball for the most part and maybe some other sport like women's volleyball.

Cory Heitz (21:08)
Can I stop you there? Is that each school makes the decision on how much they want to allocate towards eSport?

George White (21:12)
Yeah, each school

can decide, first of they can decide what their number is. They don't have to commit to a full $20 million. As a matter of fact, lot of schools aren't committing to revenue share at all, individual one. But they can commit to 20.4 million, they can commit to 15, they can commit to 10. But it's all a decision on the individual school. And then how they break that up is also determined by them.

Although to stay competitive, as I said, the sport, unfortunately, unless you're a football player that drives a bus, the bulk of it is likely to push to football.

Cory Heitz (21:41)
And where's

And where's that money coming from? Is that coming from the NCAA?

George White (21:59)
⁓ Well, it's coming from the revenue that the schools receive. So it's coming from TV contracts, ticket sales, ⁓ sales of t-shirts, ⁓ from selling beer in the stadium. A lot of schools, however, don't have the revenue to cover it. So they're kind of robbing Peter to take Paul to get it. They're letting go of staff.

coming back on sports. And so it's like I said, it's not a great deal for most athletes because of these kind of unintended consequences or I would say unforeseen and somebody isn't really too visionary and how they view the future of how things are going to play out. But yeah, it's based on each school's discretion. Now, some schools do actually have an advantage in this. Typically, you wouldn't

Think of non football schools competing Having a competitive advantage so like the Atlantic 10 the Big East they don't really have division 1 football so they can actually designate a lower revenue share number I mean not the 20.4 million they can designate 10 12 15 million and push more of it to basketball than say a big 10 school can because a big 10

or SEC school has to push money into football and it's compromising basketball. So you're actually going to see that the Big East and Atlantic 10, for example, who've committed to revenue share are actually going to, it's actually going to help their competitiveness, especially in the Big East.

Cory Heitz (23:45)
All right, kind of an example here. So let's use Cooper Flagg as an example because he's a player who one knows and he's going to be a freshman next year. So if he's looking to get the best offer possible, a power five school that has football is going to have less to offer them. But if you looked at a big 10 school or big East school, like a Georgetown or Creighton, they could offer more out of the revenue sharing. And then separately is whatever the collective wants to give them.

And then there's also NIL deals like advertising is agent can get. So a player like Cooper flag, they have three, am I right on this? They have three different pots they can pull from.

George White (24:20)
Yes and no. there's a movement afoot to kind of dissolve or roll in collectives to the university funding like Tennessee just did that. ⁓ think collectives have survived this. ⁓ They basically had a target on their backs. The colleges want to control all the money that comes in. So the fact that collectives are related but aren't length.

colleges don't like that. ⁓ They don't like their donors going to a separate entity to donate money. So they're trying to reel this back in on the collective side. It's a little bit of a wild west shifting sands, know, terrain and all that. ⁓ They've survived like the schools. ⁓ Again, I don't want to get into weeds on this, but they've survived. There's movement, there has been movement to push them out, but.

Cory Heitz (24:51)
Yeah.

George White (25:19)
It just was a challenge to enable that to continue. However, ⁓ the schools are still willing that money into more kind of NIL type ⁓ income for athletes. But for the Cooper flag example, so yeah, he has collected, but his big ⁓ compensation was really on NIL side. ⁓ If he were to be recruited now, certainly a biggie school.

might be able to pay him more in revenue share than say Duke would, but Duke might be able to compensate on that for helping him generate more revenue share on the NIL side. So for example, Tennessee just signed a big equipment deal with Adidas and part of that money is like,

anything like this, obviously lot equipment involved, but there's also cash involved. That cash is going into a nonprofit and Tennessee is going to try to push back to athletes. So a lot of colleges are setting up almost like an agency within their ⁓ departments to generate NIL opportunities for their athletes. So it's a little difficult to make like a definitive call and like if

or a flag were coming out to be recruited today because he might be able to compensate for his, like if the Big East was able to pay him, you know, two million in revenue share where Duke can only pay one because of their limitations through the football, but Duke might be able to overcome that, excuse me, on the NIL side. But if you're talking like the, like a, you know, made like a, I'll call it a,

three and half star recruit, they actually could do better, a three and a half, four star recruit, probably at a Big East school than a power conference school because they're probably not gonna get that big N IL hit that Cooper would have gotten.

Cory Heitz (27:34)
Yeah, such interesting stuff on that. Let's, let's move to another topic here, ⁓ about early commitments, right? So a lot of my clients that do a post-grad year, they want to play out the year in front of scouts and coaches and see what kind of offers they get. But sometimes they get offers right when they get there, right? In September, maybe from activity that happened this summer and they're getting told, Hey, we want you to commit now. You have an opinion on early commitments. What's your advice to families that ask you about this kind of situation?

George White (28:04)
Yeah,

I mean, I think just to kind of define all I can say, I think in what I communicate to you before, I was kind of talking more about committing not in your senior year, but say your freshman, sophomore year. Like there's a girl that I coach who is probably a top 25 eighth grader, which I think is a little bit ridiculous to be ranking on an eighth grade. And she's already getting recruited by North Carolina.

of Florida State's camp, know, to name it, all the top women's programs. But, ⁓ so I'm not a big proponent of committing that early, even as a sophomore, because the problem is, number one, things change so much. ⁓ And in all likelihood, coach that's recruiting them as a sophomore may not be there when they're a senior. So that's number one to...

my points to allow to play out. When we talk about them getting into the senior year, I think my decision model has changed in that regard because as I mentioned, it's harder and harder for high school kids these days in recruiting. So if they're a senior and they get offered by a school that is one of their ideal matching schools,

I would be an advocate of accepting the offer ⁓ versus waiting it out because it's just so competitive. And especially if you're a high academic kid, high academic schools are getting all their priority guys these days from division one to division three because guys are getting bumped down and schools, as you probably know, like two years ago, if you looked at

ESPN top 100 again, I'm not a big fan of these ratings, but ⁓ probably today, you know, we're sitting in August ⁓ prior to their senior year, probably 60 of them would have committed to a Division I school. Today, I think that number is five to 10. So colleges are kind of holding out because they're waiting, you they're focused on recruiting transfers. So if you do get an offer,

early in senior year from a school that's a fit, I'm a big proponent of taking that and I'm involved with our clients now in that decision making process. ⁓ if it's not a fit, then you have to, I mean you're rolling the dice for sure. That's when you really have to, in my mind, leverage that offer. Like if you're receiving an offer from Belmont and say you want to play

Cory Heitz (30:47)
Yeah.

George White (30:58)
little bit next level at Richmond and Richmond is kind of keeping you warm. What you need to do is go to Chris Mooney at Richmond and say, Coach Mooney, like, where are you with me? Like, is this real? Are you going to offer me? I've got this offer from Belmont, really good academic school, great basketball program. And I can't sit on this. Like, I need to know where you are. And not just saying that to Richmond, but any other Davidson or whatever other schools is also involved with you.

And if they're not committal, then again, I would be proponent to move on the Bellmine offer. Because again, can't assume, I mean, the spring you're going to get squeezed out because of the transfer issue, I think. Or you're taking a big risk of getting squeezed out.

Cory Heitz (31:47)
Yeah. And I like what you're saying, right? This is an expert opinion because you've been doing this a while and there are how many thousands of kids that have been getting advice that put their name in the portal that aren't going to get picked up by anyone and their basketball career is finished. Right. Based on bad advice. So you being an advocate for these players, prep school coaches, being advocate for these players, it's vital, especially in this day and age of the transfer portal, because it is about relationships that coaches have with guys like prep school coaches, guys like yourself.

⁓ but families, know, I hear this over and over again, George is where they do get an early offer their post-grad year, which they spend a lot of money on. then like, shouldn't I pay, play it out and see what happens. And you know, if you don't commit early, now what happens in the prep school world is you got to wait till after the transfer portal settles down in April, May, which is late. And that's when people really feel in the stress. So you as a family and a player have to weigh like sign early.

You know, or wait till the end. And a lot of prep school coaches are suggesting kids sign early because now you can, you know, play, play your, you know, your heart out at that level and potentially bump up if you're good enough in the portal. But it's a bird in the hand or two in the bush and people are looking for the right exact answer. And there is one is there's not one nowadays. Every situation is different. Every player is different. The game is evolving. The game's getting older. So experts like you and these prep school coaches.

Family's gotta listen to them, because you guys are only looking out for their best interests, and you guys know the landscape.

George White (33:19)
Yeah, that's why it's important to really try to identify and connect with schools that best fit for you because then ideally you're getting an offer from a best fit school and it's not necessarily a school that's sort of out of that box which creates more uncertainty. this, like am I gonna get one of my best fit schools recruiting? Like, that's really stressful and a tough decision and I'm not an advocate.

I know this is the way the world works, but I'm not an advocate of selecting a school with the mindset being, well, I'm gonna go there and just kind of stand out and then transfer elsewhere. I'm a big advocate of picking a school with a view to staying there for four years. We have kids now that basically have attended four or five schools during their college career. The problem with that is they're probably not gonna end up

graduating. Like you can't transfer all those credits, they're not all transferable. It's hard to do when you transfer once, let alone four or five times. So ⁓ again, if you position yourself with your best fits, then that decision on the early offer is much easier to make because it reduces your uncertainty. For what I think are the long term, like for me, a good outcome is graduating and getting an opportunity to pursue a career and having

Cory Heitz (34:35)
Yeah.

George White (34:45)
you know, doing that thing that you like and have that economic security to it. So.

Cory Heitz (34:53)
Yeah, but the changing market now, I mean, I just saw an article yesterday in the New York Times saying that people graduate with computer engineering degrees now because of AI are now looking to get jobs at Chipotle. That's a headline click bait type title, but it's a weird landscape when college wise. Now you mentioned something called a parallel path in college. If you don't play your sport, can you explain that?

George White (35:19)
Yeah, because of the way that recruiting stands right now, as we just talked about, that it's gotten much more challenging for high school athletes. We also work with athletes, especially those that are strong students, but really it's relevant to any student athlete to have not just an ideal matching school path.

for your sport, but also have one if you just go and don't play a sport. Because these days you can't, as I said, assume that you're gonna get recruited or recruited at the level that you prefer. ⁓ So you need a backup plan. And hopefully the recruiting thing will work out. But these days you just can't assume that. So you really have to yourself. ⁓

by having the parallel pass schools. So those parallel pass schools, in our view, are also schools that are a good fit for you, but just taking out the sports component. it might be, you might be interested in pre-med, and you're a Division III athlete, and Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon are on your list, on your recruiting list. However, you're...

your parallel path list might include a school like Pitt that has a great track record of getting their pre-med students into medical school. So like we break all this down, like we know the schools that have a strong ⁓ record of getting into medical school or business school or whatever. So like we're holistic about this. So ⁓ that is important because again, you don't wanna be sitting there in April.

and all the slots being taken at Pitt, for example, because all the other students have applied in the fall. ⁓ So that's why we kind of work with athletes who are in this situation to have, you know, recruiting schools and then the schools that would fit you if you weren't playing sports in college, which is in this environment, I think, essential.

Cory Heitz (37:40)
Yeah, I love that. I love that option. Now you mentioned you reach out to college coaches. I want to circle back and you also have your clients reach out to the coaches as well. For those folks out there listening that want to kind of get some tips on who to reach out to in a college basketball program or how to do it or what to include in the subject line or what to include. Like what's your cliff note version of what players and their parents should include in an email to college coaches.

George White (38:06)
Yeah, definitely. Cliff Notes is a good description of it. We have our athletes be very bulleted. So this includes your key information, your contact information, your high school, your stats, your coaches, and their contact information. Include a link to your highlights. We're very specific about how to put a highlight video together, ⁓ which most people, I don't think, would understand. ⁓

how to do that effectively. And then you also want to include a link to your full game videos because college coaches are going to make their recruiting decisions on full game play, which is why we use full game, you know, several full games in our evaluation. ⁓ And then you also want to a copy of your transcript, ⁓ you know, your AU team. And that's just, that's first step. So you,

You want to be concise, but also indicate when you send that email to a college coach, you don't want to be, like you want to cut and paste that stuff, but in your intro to the email, you want to show the coach that you've done your homework on the school. So I'll use a pre-med example again. If you're interested in Pitt or Carnegie Mellon, depending on the level of play you are, you want to indicate, you know, I'm interested in your school because of its strong.

success rate of getting students into medical school and I'm interested in pre-med I want to be a neurosurgeon or whatever the case may be that really catches a coach's attention and again it gets back to what I mentioned before you really have to distinguish yourself from other athletes because they you know I was on that then you just get thousands of emails from student athletes and their parents and coaches so you have to set yourself apart from that

group in some way and also show the coach that you just didn't cut and paste all the content and they're just getting a generic email. That you've done your homework, you recognize the value of their school, why you're interested in the school because especially in this environment with so many transfers, college coaches are going to be predisposed to athletes who they get a sense that they're going to have a long-term commitment to that school.

So it doesn't have to be pre-med, but if you indicate because of their business program, because of their education program, that's going to resonate with them that you might stay there for more than one year. But again, it's going to kind of be in their mind. Again, and also compare yourself to a player, know, a poor man's Robin Lopez or Book Lopez because of your skill set. But again, keep it brief, keep it bulleted, have all those key knowledge in there.

And then that's just step one, as I mentioned. Then you want to follow up with them with regular emails, kind of reiterating, not just that, but also ⁓ like your AAU schedule. Like, Coach, I'm playing on court four tomorrow at Spooky Nook in Pennsylvania, and whatever group event. ⁓ Just you need all this follow up. But on the other side, and I know you do this much better than I do, I need to take you.

but the social media stuff is also important because coaches are spending more and more of their time following kids on social media. So, like on your Instagram page or your YouTube page, you want to, you know, always update that with new highlights, new stats. If you had a good game, you know, push that out. Follow coaches, because if you follow a coach that's on your ideal list, there's good chance they're going to start following you because they'll see you're following them and that'll be a hook for them.

Include your contact information on your on your Instagram and other socials your email address I wouldn't put your phone number on there, but ⁓ You know how they can reach out to you, but again. It's it's like a self-promotional thing you can't be shy about this Because the landscape is just so much more challenging these days you have to continually work at it's almost like taking another class you got to spend that time on it and be proactive and continuously

reach out to them and get in front of them.

Cory Heitz (42:32)
In what order of importance, George, would you rank the social media for players to be on?

George White (42:38)
From what I'm hearing from coaches, probably Twitter would be still probably the most, or whatever, Elon Musk calls it these days, X. then, Twitter kind of gives you, I think, a little bit better platform to communicate information as well. ⁓ But then also Instagram, YouTube is a great platform because it enables you to push out longer length videos so can actually...

your full length video to a certain extent but also integrate your school platform like huddle make sure they have access to your huddle account again where they can get not just the highlights but access to the full game video I huddle is not necessarily a social media platform but it's almost become that these days and how you can use it

Cory Heitz (43:34)
Perfect. ⁓ You must, you also mentioned that players must consider the financial stability of a college and the athletic program. I don't know anyone else mentioning that. So tell me what, what people should look for, where they should look for it, what questions they should ask and what, what examples you've seen where like, this is actually taking hold.

George White (43:55)
Yeah, mean it's happening unfortunately almost ⁓ as we speak, ⁓ weekly. Schools are either going out of business or in the case of St. Francis, ⁓ who actually made the NCAA tournament this year in Division I, they are dropping to Division III because they just don't have the resources anymore to compete at Division I. ⁓ So it impacts the school as a whole, whether they...

can continue to stay in business, but also there's ramifications on the athletic side. And in some cases, they're related. The challenge that colleges face these days if they don't have a substantial endowment is that many of them are enrollment driven. And what's happening in there is what's called an enrollment cliff, where the demographics of the number of students applying to colleges

today going forward is dropping off substantially. So the numbers are just so much less and colleges that are enrollment revenue driven are really struggling with that. ⁓ So that and that can also impact the athletic side. Number one, in terms of your resources, are they cutting back on support? Are they cutting back on?

sports programs, are they cutting back on their support for your specific sport in basketball? You know, in terms of meals, travel, equipment, trainers, like that's all ⁓ wrapped into this. So when you when you look at a school, ⁓ you really have to pull my checklist up here. You really have to really dig in to this issue because it's going to affect

your experience so you don't necessarily want to be like I feel badly for these St. Francis guys because and women because they sign up for a division one experience and the schools going division three and now they're kind of in limbo they have to transfer and try to navigate that or stay at St. Francis and play in division three and like I coach division three I think it's a great level of play but it's not what these guys and women signed up for so

You have to have a hard conversation. Like my whole thing is to be very proactive on this, as I said, not just in your outreach, but in your questions to college coaches and even meet with the AD to determine like where they are from a financial standpoint. I mean, even power conference schools are faced with this. they either can't afford, for example, the full 24, 20.4 million revenue share, or they've got to cut.

in other areas to ⁓ make it work. But you also can do your own homework. If you're seeing a school that's dropping a sport or they're reducing a roster, like a men's basketball, you can carry 15 players now, no walk-ons. But if you see a school only carrying 12, then that's a sign that there's probably some financial strain. ⁓ Are they decommitting recruits ⁓ because they want to get

Cory Heitz (46:54)
you

George White (47:20)
fifteen down to twelve because they can't afford to carry fifteen anymore. The school, obviously I mentioned dropping level from D1 to D2 or D3, obviously that's a huge sign of trouble. But look at the schools as a whole, you find them, and this is happening all the time, like Carnegie Mellon which is hiding down, they just drop, you know, cut hundreds of staff for example. They're crying poverty out in Hawaii. But anyway,

So they're cutting majors, even at Carnegie Mellon, they're cutting majors that don't have a substantial number of students in them. The facilities, when you go on your campus visit, just look at the facilities. Are they being maintained properly? You can just tell by looking at them. Is there chip paint? They're looking tattered. That's a sign that they're under stress. Are they cutting, as I said, faculty and staff? Are they merging?

or their talks and then merging with another school. Like in Pennsylvania, they just had three Western Pennsylvania state schools, division two schools merge with each other. ⁓ Clarion, Edinburgh, and I forget the third one. So this is all important to determining what your experience in this college is gonna be, both on the athletics as well as just in general. Like you don't wanna go to a school and major in art history, because that's your passion.

and then they cut your major, right? That's not what you signed up for. So, and there are good sources of this information out there, like Fortune does the evaluation of college finances, standard of pours. There's another source called the Financial Viability Index, but every student and athlete in that should be doing this homework on school.

Cory Heitz (49:10)
that's fascinating. I don't know anyone else talking about that, George, but I appreciate that insight. Is there anything we haven't touched on today that you think the listeners of this podcast need to know about?

George White (49:22)
Yeah, I just think that ⁓ it's important to be realistic these days. ⁓ In that because of this environment. In that. The number of slots for high school and prep school athletes are contracted. That you need to look at it differently. Number one, accept that reality. Don't fight it. If you think you're a divisional employer and you're not hearing.

from the Division I schools that even are on your ideal list. And that's happened. So we kind of extend our list, our ideal schools a little bit further if the kid is even a mid D1 level player because they're getting pushed down. So you can't fight that. You have to accept it and be open to playing at a lower level. Secondly, we have to...

be proactive in this, be very constant in your outreach. But then also keep yourself open to other alternatives. Parallel path being one, like you might not work out. So don't like, you know, go into your bedroom and roll up in a ball and get depressed. You have to accept this and pursue your passion, your sport in another way. But also,

No, there are other paths. So the prep school path that you're so strong in is one. There's, you know, we've talked about, you know, off the record about prep school versus academies, all that stuff. So again, that's an area where you're to have to do your homework as well, because you have to make sure it's a legitimate situation, even if it's a quote unquote prep school.

Like we talked about doing your homework on finances in college, you have to do your homework on that landscape as well. But even, I'm a proponent of junior college these days, so, and I'm not trying to be elitist or anything, but, or appear to be that way, but even if an athlete is a really strong student, but they're not getting traction on the recruiting side, and their experts are telling them, like you have,

may have the ability to play at the next level, we just need more development, maybe a little more exposure. So even a high academic kid, one of the options in certain situations that we're recommending to them is actually considered going to junior college, which never would have happened before for a high academic kid. For junior college, it's not only for high academic kids, but we're recommending that for students who may not be.

Cory Heitz (52:01)
you

George White (52:14)
higher achieving academic and I'm not saying they're not as smart but they just don't have the credentials academically. So that's got to be an option. You have to explore all those options ⁓ but in a realistic way ⁓ as well. So you've got parallel path, other options, ⁓ be real and not fight it but on the other hand you have to be really really proactive and you know the problem is ⁓

kids are getting advice from people who don't know the landscape and aren't experts. I would, my other advice sounds self-serving, but I would make sure you're getting expert advice. Even if you met a college coach at an event and he's not recruiting you, but you somehow have a little bit of relationship with him, ask him what his or her advice is because those people know.

and they're good people. College coaches sometimes get a bad rap. I'm a former college coach, so I might be indicting myself, but they'll help you out if you ask for their help. But you need the experts to really help you navigate through this, because there's so much uncertainty.

Cory Heitz (53:33)
Yeah. And I love what you say about junior college, George, that's, that's a new take I'm, I'm taking as well. ⁓ we're not going to get into the eligibility and whether it's going to count in the future or not, that's still up in the air, but there are kids now that'll do a post-grade year and don't like the options they got in prep school coaches now have some trusted junior colleges on call to send those kids to. And we've had a couple of prep athletics clients, ⁓ have taken that route to see if they can do better. And it's worked for some. ⁓ so I think that's good, but certain prep schools.

Right. Of the higher echelon don't want their kids matriculating to a junior college because it doesn't look good to their brand. Right. So that'll be a question to ask if you're talking to a practical coach is what are your thoughts on JuCo placement? If I don't get the offer I want, cause I think each coach might have a different opinion on that, but it's evolving as each year goes on. If players aren't satisfied with what they've got. So, but we've done episodes on junior college and how to pick those. Um, so look at that in the past, but George.

George White (54:07)
Right.

Cory Heitz (54:29)
I really appreciate your friendship, your guidance, your expertise on all this stuff. You know, we'd set touch base every couple of months, ⁓ to fill each other in on the latest in our respective areas of the basketball recruiting world. And I just want to say thank you for being a friend and thanks so much for coming on the day.

George White (54:44)
Yeah, I feel exactly the same, I really appreciate the opportunity. I enjoy having these discussions, but really helping kids and parents and coaches really have a strong sense of this whole process and landscape and what's happening. up until a month ago, it literally was changing weekly. And it will continue to do so. So yeah, thanks for the opportunity. And you've been a great friend as well.

Cory Heitz (55:13)
Thanks so much for tuning in guys. We'll see you next week on the Prep Athletics Podcast. Take care.