Okay, so in the world of recruitment, interest is the first step toward being recruited. A camp or Junior Day invite can sometimes be the beginning of that interest. The important word is sometimes.
Not everybody standing at the same Junior Day is standing in the same place on the recruiting board. If the staff already knows your name, has watched your film, spoken with your high school coach and communicated with you several times, that invitation carries weight. If your first interaction with the program is a graphic showing up in a mass DM, that means something different.
Camp invites work the same way. Every year a kid receives an invitation associated with a major FBS program. The family gets excited, posts the graphic and makes travel plans. A flight, hotel, rental car, food and registration later, they can easily be $700 to $1,000 poorer.
Then they arrive and realize nobody seems to know who the athlete is outside of his name being on the registration sheet. The position coach barely speaks to him. The family leaves hoping the camp created motion. Then the conversation disappears. That does not automatically make attending the camp a mistake. It means the family confused an invitation to attend with an invitation to be evaluated.
Before spending the money, ask:
Who specifically invited me?
Has the position coach watched my film?
What does the staff want to see from me at camp?
An invitation is information. The invitation matters, but the relationship around it tells you what it really means.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
UP NEXT
We take a look at the cost side of things: Myth #6: Showcase and College Camps Are a Money Grab.