A: A few answers to this question…
Best time of day: Between 11am-2pm (local time) on their office phone. College coaches may not be in their office the whole time, but most coaches will be in their office at some point during this window—eating lunch, returning phone calls, responding to emails and getting ready for practice or workouts.
Best time of year: Coaches have the most extra time in the offseason, during nonevaluation periods for their sports. During the season coaches are extremely busy with their current team, gameplanning and keeping up with players they are already recruiting. It’s still fine to send them your film and resume, but if you don’t get much feedback, try again a few weeks after the season when they have more time to focus on finding new, great players. Also, during major evaluation periods (check the NCAA recruiting calendars for your sport) they may be out of town for weeks at a time visiting schools or AAU events, so they may be tougher to reach during these periods.
Best time in your career: Coaches can’t contact you until some point in your junior year (depends on the sport, check with the NCAA). They are, however, evaluating freshmen and sophomores, even before they are able to legally contact them. For most of you, it’s best for you to focus on improving you position-specific skills and speed at this time in your career. If you have varsity film and are a contributing varsity player, it’s good to be proactive and start reaching out to local/state coaches as you enter your junior year. If you don’t have varsity experience until your junior year, it’s perfectly fine to send your film/resume after your junior season has wrapped. If you have few or no interested coaches approaching you, you need to get ready to put in the legwork entering your senior season and begin sending out your varsity, junior year film and resume.
