By: Chad Wilson – Editor GridironStuds Blog
Twitter: @GridironStuds
The title of this blog entry is a little intimidating. Start telling someone they better do something and their antennas go up. Well I had to get your attention somehow, this is important.
Hudl has revolutionized the highlight video industry for high school football players. Prior to their existence, high school football players needed to obtain the dvd copies of their games, seek out a local film editor, negotiate a price for development and wait several days or weeks for their highlights to be made and distributed to YouTube. Hudl eliminated all of those steps by allowing the players to login online and view their game film under their team account. From their team account, players could tag their highlights and create their own library of their best plays to then distribute as a highlight video. Genius indeed and ultra efficient.
However, all is not well. Your Hudl highlight video is not REALLY yours until you make it that. At first, the highlight video belongs to Hudl and your high school football team. This means that while it’s on Hudl, you are at the mercy of Hudl and the high school. Why does that matter? I have been hit recently with a rash of stories about players who transferred schools or experienced a coaching change and can no longer view or have access to their highlight video. What’s that mean? That means good luck getting recruited if college coaches can not see what you can do on the playing field.
Some bitter high school football coaches have held a player’s highlight video hostage in retaliation for the move by the player. This is a sad practice indeed but it’s life. Not everyone is going to behave in a manner that is appropriate. Other potential recruits have had their highlight videos disappear when their school has experienced a coaching change.
In life, things happen, this is the major force behind the billion dollar industry known as insurance. For the high school football player, your insurance in terms of your highlight video is getting it from Hudl, owning it and also getting it onto YouTube. Hudl allows you to order your highlight video using a credit or debit card. You can either choose the option to download the highlight video to your computer or have a DVD of your highlight video shipped to you via mail. Either way, it is in your best interest to have that highlight video in your possession one way or another. It is also a very good idea to have your highlight video on YouTube, a service that is frequented by a billion people per day. That’s right a billion people. Somewhere in there are many of the people you would like to have see your highlight video like college coaches, fans and media personnel.
If you do not own a YouTube account and would like to have your highlight video placed on YouTube, GridironStuds.com can provide that service for you. If you do not own the highlight video, we can download it for you and put it up on our YouTube channel that has over 600 subscribers and has had over 2 million views in it’s history. We can also get a copy of the highlight video to you so that you can own it. I don’t care how long you play the game of football, at some point, you will want to view your high school football exploits on video. Own your highlight video.
If you would like GridironStuds.com to retrieve your highlight video from Hudl and put it up on our YouTube account, send email to cwilson@gridironstuds.com. There is a cost for this service but owning your highlight video and / or being able to see it whenever you want to now or at some point in the future is priceless.
About the Author
Chad Wilson is a recruiting expert and owner of GridironStuds.com a website devoted to promoting the talents of youth and high school football players. Wilson is a former college football player for the University of Miami (92-94) and Long Beach St. (’90-’91) and played briefly for the Seattle Seahawks (’95). He is also a high school football coach and father of three kids, two of which are college student athletes and another well on his way. Email: cwilson@gridironstuds.com.
Related articles across the web
Chad Wilson is a college football recruiting expert and creator of the GridironStudsApp which allows high school football players to gain exposure to college football coaches and fans. Wilson is a former college football player for the University of Miami (92-94) and Long Beach St. (’90-’91) and played briefly for the Seattle Seahawks (’95). He is also a former youth and high school football coach for over 15 years most recently for 5-A State of Florida Champs American Heritage. He runs All Eyes DB Camp a defensive back training company located in South Florida IG: @alleyesdbcamp. Wilson’s oldest son Quincy plays in the NFL for the New York Giants and his younger son plays cornerback for the Arizona Cardinals.
