How To Recruit Juniors To Your Club

By Dan Seemiller
USA Men’s Coach; Head Coach, South Bend TTC

I have been working as the head coach of the South Bend Junior program for 3-1/2 years now.  We currently have 14 full-time juniors and 20 part-time junior players.  One of my main jobs is to promote and recruit junior participation.

The first 18 months to two years, we had little progress in finding new players.  We did exhibitions, tournaments, put listings in the paper all with little results.  I visited Boys Clubs and many schools; still, very little interest.  Then I tried what I call my “flyer program.”  I remembered that when you run tournaments, exhibitions or clinics, you have to send out hundreds if not thousands of information sheets to receive a good response.  This is what I’ve done over the past two years in recruiting junior players, and the results have been successful.

·        I pass out flyers in schools and request that they insert one in every student’s weekly packet.  I prefer grades 3-8.  Each school will need 300-500 flyers per school.

·        These flyers advertise a free 6-week course in table tennis.  The day of the week doesn’t seem to matter.  I have tried Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and Mondays from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.  They both worked.

·        Private and Religious schools have had slightly higher turn-outs.  Public schools have lower turnouts, but have more potential students.

·        For Public schools you must have approval from the administrative office (Board of Education).  This is not time consuming but you usually need an appointment, so call first and explain that you are a non-profit table tennis center and you are offering free table tennis clinics to students.  There will be a person at the board of education who approves flyers that are to be distributed at schools – you will need to see this person.

·        Private and Religious schools usually do not need this type of approval.  You can just present the flyers to the school secretary.  They are very receptive to handing out this material if the course is free.

·        Another way is to pass out flyers advertising a junior table tennis tournament with several age classes; for example: U-10, U-13, U-16.  In my experience these tournaments tend to draw more accomplished players to the club, i.e. youngsters who have a table at home and already have some skills.  Both the clinic and the tournament flyers work.  The key is to pass out at least 3,000 per event.  The more you distribute the better the turn-out.

·        Flyers should be counted out in groups of 25 with a paper clip.

·        The first time I did the clinic flyer I distributed 2,500 flyer, and 18 juniors ages 7-14 signed up.  The last evening of the 6-week clinic we had a pot luck dinner for students and parents with awards for the students (a USATT Certificate and a $5 participation trophy) at the end of the evening.  Eight of the 18 participants signed up at $40 per month for two weekly lessons.  It is best to sign-up the students on the final day of the clinic.  You can also send a letter explaining the program, times and cost during that week.

·        The key to this program is to make sure the schools include the information in the student’s weekly take-home packet.  The second part is to distribute high nimbers of flyers.  I usually did 2,500 at a time.  The only reason I didn’t pass out more is I was worried about TOO MANY responses.

·        Make sure you talk to the parents.  Introduce yourself, talk about the program, let them know they are welcome.

  Other ways to attract young players:

·        Exhibitions (time consuming)

·        Post notices at schools, store bulletin boards, newspapers (usually small returns)

·        Run sanctioned tournaments and novice events