Why Is Having a Live University Athlete Profile a Non-Negotiable in Recruiting?
What College Coaches Actually Use to Evaluate Volleyball Athletes
Featuring insights from Allison Roberts and Susan Forbes
When it comes to volleyball recruiting, there are a lot of tools athletes can use. But according to recruiting experts, there is a clear difference between what is optional and what is essential.
A live, updated profile in University Athlete falls into the second category.
Q: Why is a University Athlete profile considered non-negotiable in the recruiting process?
Allison Roberts:
“There are a lot of things that are optional in recruiting,” Allison says. “University Athlete is not one of them.”
She is clear about how important the platform is to the volleyball recruiting ecosystem. While athletes often compare different recruiting services, she says University Athlete operates in a category of its own.
“It is not just another recruiting website,” she explains. “It is how college coaches recruit. It is how they find your information, track you, and evaluate you.”
Even in rare cases where a coach discovers an athlete in person, the process still quickly connects back to the platform.
“If a coach sees you live and is interested, the first thing they do is look you up in University Athlete,” she says. “That is where they find your contact information, your profile, and everything they need to follow up.”
At a minimum, she emphasizes that athletes need a complete and accurate profile.
“You need your contact information in there and your profile fully set up,” she says. “That is how coaches reach you and how they keep track of you throughout the process.”
Beyond basic visibility, she also highlights the value of tracking engagement.
“You can actually see when coaches are viewing your profile or evaluating you,” she says. “That becomes especially important when you are trying to understand real interest.”
Q: How do college coaches actually use University Athlete?
Susan Forbes:
Susan explains that for many coaches, University Athlete is the starting point and the reference point.
“When I am standing with a college coach at a tournament, they are not opening Instagram or digging through emails first,” she says. “They are going straight to University Athlete.”
That is where coaches keep notes, track athletes, and manage evaluations in real time.
“They are looking at who they have already seen, what notes have been recorded, and whether someone they know has already evaluated that athlete,” she explains. “It is essentially their recruiting hub.”
Susan also notes that this creates consistency across the process.
“It helps coaches stay organized in a very fast moving environment,” she says. “And it allows everyone involved to be on the same page, which is not always easy in recruiting.”
For athletes, that means visibility is not optional.
“If you are not in the system, you are not part of the workflow,” she says. “That is just the reality of how recruiting operates in volleyball.”
The Bottom Line
A University Athlete profile is not just another recruiting tool. It is the system college coaches actively use to evaluate, track, and communicate with athletes throughout the recruiting process.
Or as Allison summarizes:
“If you are playing college volleyball, this is where coaches are looking. It is not optional.”