Highlight Tapes

As social media and high-quality videography become a bigger part of lacrosse, many people are wondering how important it is.

While the Instagram "sizzle reels" are cool for players, peers, and family memories, we do not think these are necessary from a recruiting or exposure standpoint.

That being said, there is a lot of value in creating a high-quality and effective highlight tape. Many coaches will watch these to get a feel for a player's ability and determine if they want to keep recruiting that player.  Below we have put together a few tips based on our experiences and conversations with college coaches as guidelines when creating a highlight tape:

1. Length: Keep the highlight tape between 3 to 5 minutes. This duration ensures that it is concise and holds the viewer's attention.
   
   
2. Mix of plays: Include a mix of your best plays and plays that are important to your position and goals. Highlight your hustle, ability to cause turnovers, good slides, and effective riding of the ball. Show a variety of skills that demonstrate your versatility.
   
   
3. Include opponent information: "Goal vs Team X". Adding captions to clips provides credibility and context for your performance against different opponents. Be careful about calling out committed players, some coaches might take that the wrong way. Instead, if you have a dominant performance against a standout commit, maybe you can share a full game link.
   
   
4. Avoid field level view: Ensure the video captures enough of the field that a coach can get a feel for what is happening around you in the play. While field-level film clips might be cool for highlights, a coach cannot really use these for recruiting purposes. Again, this could be great separately for your own, separate sizzle reel/memories, but we'd keep the field level game clips to 1-2 intro clips for your "recruiting tape". 
   
   
5. Avoid replays and slow motion: Avoid using replays for specific clips or excessive slow-motion effects. Keep the pace of the highlight tape fluid and avoid unnecessary pauses. Call outs are great to highlight you, just keep the video flowing.
    
6. Focus on successful outcomes: While it's important to demonstrate your skills, prioritize plays that result in successful outcomes. Avoid including too many plays that don't lead to a positive result, such as a great feed that is not finished. It might leave coaches wondering, "where's the production?"
   
   
7. Start strong: Place your most impactful and noteworthy plays at the beginning of the highlight tape. This creates a strong first impression and grabs the viewer's attention. A coach might only watch 30-90 seconds.
   
   
8. Showcase versatility: Paint a picture of your versatility on the field. Include clips that demonstrate various aspects of your game, such as offensive and defensive plays, leadership, teamwork, and any improvements you've made compared to previous years.
   
   
9. Reflect on improvement: When reviewing your highlight tape from this year compared to previous years, assess whether you have improved, added new skills, or changed your approach to the game. Use this as a measuring stick for your progress and improvement. If you see a huge change, maybe there's a story you or one of your advocates can tell.
   
   
10. Is there anything we missed or you have questions about? We'd love to hear! Shoot us a note.

Remember, the goal of a highlight tape is to capture the attention of coaches and showcase your skills effectively. Keep the tape concise, engaging, and focused on your strengths. Good luck with your highlight tape!

- Coach Dunn

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