Coach Woods shares on "How to get recruited"

Staff writer Lyn Adams caught up with Coach Woods this summer and got some great insights on what it takes for an aspiring high school player to get recruited by a prestigious ACC school like Wake Forest University.

We have seen so many kids and their parents get into certain tracks that they think are the place to get seen by coaches like Coach Woods. Often players will trade a positive experience with a good showcase team (travel team) and jump from one place to another always seeking to play in the "right" league or circuit, or even in the "right" club that has a long history of seeing its former players get recruited into college. Sadly, many great players (and their parents) are often looking outwardly at how to improve the team that they are playing on or how to get into "better" circuits, but they forget that is not really what getting recruited is all about.

We asked Coach Woods his thoughts on the "right" team or the "right" circuit for a player to be in to be recruited by Wake Forest. Woods responded, "If they can play, we are going to find them. It does not matter what team they are on. But, they do need to play in a situation where they play good minutes, and they need to be playing against tough teams, teams with other recruitable players."

In our region, we see certain travel clubs that are connected to certain circuits. Often these clubs promote that the benefit of playing in their club is that you get access to a particular circuit. For example, Team Carolina sends their top teams to play Adidas events, Carolina Flames send their top team to play in Nike's EYBL, Carolina Elite sends their teams to the Under Armour national events. Does that really provide a competitive opportunity to the players on those teams to get their chance at college recruitment. Coach Woods would contend that, "it does not matter where they play, if they are really ball players they will get on our recruiting list."

We asked Coach Woods, what would you tell a young high school player they need to work on to be recruited by Wake Forest? He shared, " Beyond being a good fit for the school and the program, they need to be able to put the ball in the basket. They need to be able to defend. They need to not turn the ball over. And, they need t keep getting better every day. It's just that simple."

We thought so much of Coach Wood's profound responses to our questions, that we would share for all young players that are working hard to get to the top of the game. Thanks coach for your time!