April 24, 2017

Elite Volley Agent Swags

I have just joined Elite Volley as an agent/recruiter!


We work in four main areas.

1. Helping International Student-Athletes get scholarships to play volleyball at top NCAA universities.


There are plenty of recruiting agencies overseas that tap into foreign players and their dreams of playing college volleyball in the USA. The difference with Elite Volley is that it is completely FREE for the athletes to post their profiles and be contacted by the universities.

They will never have to pay for this Elite Volley service throughout the entire recruiting process. We are literally only here to help create opportunities for the athlete!


2. Representing Elite Professional Athletes and placing them in volleyball clubs worldwide.


The founder and owner, Ryan Jay Owens, and I connected over our bad experiences with agents and agencies that left us wanting when we first started our international volleyball careers. We are both passionate about open communication, accessible support, and having a quality long-term relationship with our athletes.

We want volleyball players to understand all of their options, and Ryan has done a great job producing a Pro Volley 101 video series where interested athletes can learn about what their futures could hold.

I met Ryan originally when he partnered with Susan Salzbrenner of Fit Across Cultures to host the Athlete Blab in 2016. Susan's book Play Abroad 101 is also an incredibly helpful and insightful resource in educating athletes on what it's really like to transition to professional sports life overseas.

3. Offering NCAA universities and coaches access to our international recruits database.


We actively recruit the national team rosters from the U16 to U19 levels and are proud of the recruiting list we have compiled so far and continue to build. We currently have athletes from (countries listed alphabetically): Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Macedonia, Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Turkey.

While continuing to grow our base of athletes from these countries, we are also focusing new efforts in Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Slovakia, and trying to reach as many more countries as we can in the process!


4. Promoting international clubs as they post their openings (both for players and coaches) to our professional volleyball database.


Instead of merely contacting agencies or hoping the right player will find the club's email address, clubs can now post into our database exactly what they need and can offer to a potential athlete. This network database will eventually extend to players who are looking to post their profiles to be contacted by clubs. Think of it as an always evolving volleyball jobs forum!


I am very excited to be a part of the Elite Volley team and looking forward to helping more and more athletes achieve their dreams of playing volleyball abroad!

Here's the thing: you can help, too!!!

We are always looking for athlete mentors, international connections, and how we can get the volleyball opportunities message out to as many athletes as we can!

There are three simple ways you can help us right away.

1. Share this blog post (via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, or email) and tag all of your volleyball, sport, and international friends and family, asking them to share with their network as well.

2. Comment below or email me directly that you would like to be involved as an athlete, coach, club, college, or mentor!

3. Shoot me an email, text, or direct message on Instagram or Twitter asking for a media-type photo that you can post and share on your social media network.

You can also now connect with me on LinkedIn, and you can see what we're up to at Elite Volley on Instagram and Facebook!

If you want to learn more about how this all happened, and the Agent Swags video that inspired it all, check out my previous post, New Work, New Season, New Vision.