High School Athlete
High School Freshman Year Guide for Student-Athletes
Your freshman year action plan — setting the academic foundation, developing athletically, and starting the recruiting mindset early.
Freshman Year Sets the Tone
Your freshman year of high school is the foundation everything else is built on. Your GPA, your relationships with coaches, your academic habits, and your athletic development all start here. The athletes who take freshman year seriously have a significant advantage by the time recruiting begins in earnest.
Academics: Make Grades Your First Priority
Your GPA from freshman year is permanent. It factors into your cumulative GPA that college coaches and admissions offices will evaluate. Take the most challenging courses your schedule allows. Develop the study habits — consistent reviewing, asking questions, time management — that will carry you through four years of high school and four years of college.
Athletics: Focus on Development, Not Rankings
Freshman year is not the time to obsess over recruiting rankings or offers. It is the time to develop your fundamentals, understand your coaches' systems, and build your athletic work ethic. The physical and technical development you do in ninth grade forms the athletic foundation that will matter in tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade recruiting.
Strength and Conditioning: Start Now
If your school has a strength and conditioning program, participate fully. If it does not, find a way to train consistently outside of practice — even bodyweight training done consistently will give you an advantage. Building physical strength and athletic habits in freshman year compounds over time.
Explore the Recruiting Landscape
You do not need to contact coaches in ninth grade — but you should start learning what college athletics looks like. Watch games at programs that interest you. Research what division levels exist and what they require. Talk to older athletes about their recruiting experience. The more you understand the process before you enter it, the better positioned you will be.
Character and Leadership
Be a great teammate. Be coachable. Stay out of trouble. The character habits you build in ninth grade — how you handle failure, how you treat teammates, how you respond to coaching — are what coaches will ask your high school coaches about when they evaluate you. Be the athlete and person worth recruiting.