Many recruiting and email applications will tell coaches when recruits are opening their emails, what links they are clicking, how many times they opened the email, if the email bounced or the user unsubcribed, along with some other bells and whistles. We often get asked how this stuff works when people use Front Rush or some of the other recruiting management products on the market, so we decided to explain the magician’s trick and walk you through the magic of email tracking.

So how does it work? Well, when an email goes out, the recruiting application adds a hidden image inside the email. This hidden image is commonly known as a “web beacon” and it does exactly that. When the email is received, and opened the beacon sends signals to the recruiting application, letting it know when the email was openened, [...]

Another $200 tablet came out recently, this one by Google: The Google Nexus 7.

We decided to review it since we hear a lot of coaches being rejected by their respective university for the $499 iPad. Since this one is a lot less, the question we wanted to answer was “is it worth the investment, or better to save up for the more popular iPad?

Well first and foremost, the device does not have cellular access so if that is a requirement, you can scratch this off of your list. If that is not a requirement, then read further.

The device is seven inches as opposed to the iPad’s 9.7 inches. Many have argued about this and it really comes down to feel. Walking around with the Nexus and consuming content seems very natural (arguably more natural then the larger iPad). This [...]

From time to time, we will get a question from a Coach asking how to “retract an email” that was already sent.

In other words, they sent an email and realized there was a typo, or it was sent to the wrong person, or it was sent too early. We will then explain that this is impossible because there is no central “email” location that handles all the email in the world. Instead, once an email is sent an email is sent*.

We typically get a counter argument like “My Microsoft Outlook allows me to recall an email” or “My Gmail allows me to pull back a sent email”. Because of this, we decided to set the record straight and explain what “recalling an email” really means and to assertively state not to rely on this “functionality” offered by some other email [...]

July 9th – Lambertville, NJ

My Online Camp and Front Rush have teamed up to streamline the way college coaches get camper data into their recruiting software. Currently active on each MOC’s camper profile is the ‘Add to Front Rush’ button. Coaches that use both My Online Camp and Front Rush can easily convert campers that they would like to start recruiting with one simple click. Gone are the days of having to export/import or manually enter data into your recruiting software. Simply find, click and repeat.

“My Online Camp is trusted by over 1,200 camps, many of them being Front Rush clients, so if we can make our coaches lives easier, we are all about it” said Front Rush co-founder Brad Downs.

“My Online Camp is very excited to partner with Front Rush,” noted Don Myers, co-founder at My Online Camp. [...]

The future of recruiting – especially in Division II and Division III – is going to be much more integrated with admissions.

Here’s why:

Current recruiting applications and packages allow for coaches of the same staff to be on the same page by providing a solution that has all of the recruit data in a single place. These applications replaced the old model where coaches would have their own excel sheet or binder and would be limited in sharing information with other coaches on staff. The problem that we see today is not that coaches aren’t “on the same page”, but that they are completely separated from admissions even though the goals of the admissions department very close parallel the goals of athletics, at least from a recruiting perspective.

There is a tremendous overlap with the number of prospects being recruited by coaches [...]

LAMBERTVILLE- Hoop Group, the worldwide leader in basketball instruction; and Front Rush, the leader in recruiting software, are teaming up to improve the way college basketball coaches recruit. Hoop Group will be exclusively using Front Rush’s new Coach Packet product at all recruiting tournaments and showcases this Summer. Coach Packet takes the information of every athlete competing in the tournament or event and puts it online so attending coaches can access it on any mobile device. Coaches will be able to quick search by any field, make notes, get real time updates, export to excel or send data directly to their Front Rush account. No more bulky binders or manually entering recruit information and notes.

“Coach Packet is clearly ahead of the curve. Before long, their technology will be the standard for how all event rosters are delivered to college coaches,” [...]

One of the best sources of knowledge for the usability of Front Rush comes from our coaches. A shining example of this, is the process implemented by Cornell Field Hockey in order to transition from their current recruiting software to Front Rush. Although this transfer may seem like a daunting task, you can utilize Front Rush along with your Recruits, Roster, Alumni, and Contacts in order to make it much easier.

First, you can send all your current contact data to the Front Rush Support team at support@frontrush.com. The Front Rush data team can import all of this current data into your Front Rush account in a few simple steps that can eliminate any data entry on your end. As long as the data is in a .csv file or any other database system similar to Excel the Front Rush Data [...]

June 4, 2012 – Over the weekend, Front Rush was proud to support St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center while they put on the first Zumba for Zephyr event. St. Hubert’s is a nonprofit organization, located in Madison, New Jersey, that is dedicated to the humane treatment of companion animals. St. Hubert’s provides many community services including animal rescue, pet adoption, public education, and dog training.

The Zumba for Zephyr event gave participants the opportunity to experience the high-octane aerobics/dance fitness Zumba, while helping to showcase some outstanding animals that are up for adoption and all proceeds went to the St. Hubert’s Rocket Fund. This fund is used to provide emergency medical care for homeless cats and dogs, which can be a weekly expense for the shelter.

The event was an overwhelming success. The participants worked up a [...]

Coaches often ask how long their recruiting questionnaires should be?

The easy answer to this question is it depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

If you are a program that is trying to have as many athletes visit your website and fill out the form; a shorter more concise questionnaire would be more beneficial. It could even go as far as to only collect first name, last name, and email address. Once you make this initial contact you could solicit further information from the recruits you would like to pursue.

You may be saying, “But I only have one questionnaire, how would I get the rest of the information I want into Front Rush?”

One way to resolve this issue is to include all the fields you would like to have recruits fill out but only make first [...]

For a long time, when giving presentations, we used the whole projector+laptop+cords set-up.

Even internally when going over our own “playbook”, our conference room here at the Front Rush headquarters is outfitted with the same type of set-up. I’ve never been a big fan of projectors because they never seem to fit the screen right, they take forever to load up, you’ve got a bunch of wires, and you have to replace bulbs. Not to mention, unless you can afford the HD version, the image quality is really poor.

Well, like many times before, we found a solution in Apple.

Apple offers a hockey puck sized device for $99 bucks called “Apple TV” (http://www.apple.com/appletv/). Apple TV connects directly to your television and then you connect your iPhone, iPad, Laptop, etc to it wirelessly. All you have to do is be on the same [...]