Former Torrey Pines soccer player launches Productive Recruit for student athletes

After advancing from the soccer fields at Torrey Pines High School to become a team captain at the University of Michigan, Colin McAtee developed software to help student athletes through their recruiting processes.

McAtee said he started working on the idea, originally with a focus specifically on soccer players, in 2018. As he continued developing the final product during quarantine, he realized that student athletes in all sports could use a service that streamlines the recruiting process.

One way Productive Recruit helps student athletes is by aggregating contact information for college coaches, allowing them to more easily keep track of the coaches and schools that they’re in contact with.

“A lot of the current offerings are more service-based, where you pay a good chunk of money for a personal consultant,” said McAtee, who graduated from Torrey Pines in 2011, became a software engineer and now lives in Chicago. “This is more a do-it-yourself tool where you can utilize the data and the tools on the platform, such as finding coach contact info or college info to help you streamline the process on your own.”

Athletes and teams that are interested in Productive Recruiting can choose from the different plans that are offered, ranging from $29 per month for student athletes who want more control over the recruiting process to $249 per month for clubs that want to help their student athletes through recruitment, according to Productive Recruit’s website.

Student athletes can use Productive Recruit to filter through colleges they’re interested in playing for based on criteria such as the size of the student body, academic offerings, and whether the school is public or private.

McAtee added that his partners have given him feedback on the features that Productive Recruit should have, such as a checklist of items that student athletes can easily follow to stay on top of the recruiting process.

“As far as positive feedback, it’s been a lot of they really like that all the coach information is there and updated on a biweekly cadence,” he said. “That’s the thing, a lot of the kids going through the process don’t have a lot of time to spend on it because they’re training and everything else, so it’s nice when they don’t have to go out to all these different sources to get data. People really like that it’s just one place to get everything done.”

For more information, visit productiverecruit.com.