Highlight Tape Dos and Don'ts

First off, is it still called a highlight tape? Tapes have long since gone the way of the pegged Bugle Boy jeans. I question whether the kids putting these highlight packages together have ever owned a tape themselves. But just as sporting a pair of Bugle Boys to school today would be considered a fashion faux pas, there are a number of highlight "tape" faux pas that seem to consistently creep into these YouTube videos. Like Asian stink bugs, they're not hurting anybody but they're irritating nonetheless.

To what extent these videos play into the recruiting process probably depends a lot on where you play, what blue chip camps you've attended, and what club you're affiliated with. If you're on the proverbial bubble of the recruitment radar, a nice highlight package may be just what the doctor ordered. Just make sure that your doctor, or video editor as the case may be, didn't get a mail order M.D.

Let's review what's right with these tapes and diagnose what ails the first unfortunate highlight tape that YouTube served up. Ladies and gentlemen, Ryan Walker.



1) Do be sure to include actual highlights. Now this may seem obvious, but in the excitement of scouring your Itunes library for the latest Kanye West jump-off, this can easily be overlooked. Don't fall victim to this, all too common, mistake. Highlights are supposed to elicit some kind of sublime emotional response. Throwing your quick stick EMO goal and open net scores in a video compilation because they are the only ones on your resume does not a highlight reel make.

2) Do focus on your attributes. A nice power cradle and a flourescent visor on your CPX probably doesn't cut it. You gotta bring a little something more to the table. Maybe a nice goal or two if you're offensive minded and a few take aways if you're a defenseman. Whatever your best attributes are, sell them. If you're not a scorer, then show us your feeding skills. There's a market for guys who can find the open man. 4.47 forty time...check. Buck forty-five...not so much. Missing the cage (consistently)...not so much.

3) Your attributes deserve your focus and so does your camera lens. While you're at it, throw a little zoom into the mix. Do try to borrow a decent video camera to capture some footage. Seriously, some of these things look like they were recorded with a Blackberry in the hands of a 7 year old child. Again, this may seem obvious, but I defy you to peruse the highlight packages on YouTube and tell me I'm wrong to address this.

4) Be sure to actually appear in your highlights. Say what? Yeah, that's right. From a coaches perspective, if a tree falls in the woods and he's not there, it didn't score a goal. Just like at 2:35 when a goal was scored by the mystery player off camera. Could have been Gaddifi for all we know. How about at 2:52 when the turf was prominently highlighted, but our player wasn't. I think our editor fell asleep at the switch. Maybe that speaks to the excitement level of our case study.

I fully understand that we don't all have access to our very own Stevie Janowski to cut money highlight reels, but the bottom line is that it's not that difficult and I've laid out what some I consider to be a pretty comprehensive outline for success. If you still have questions, I recommend watching the video below and using it as a template.