Is a Digital Signing Day in college football’s near future?

If you saw my National Championship game blog, then you might note my incredible courage to approach the subject of college athletics again.  But this opportunity is too good to pass up.

Wednesday, Feb. 4, was National Signing Day for up-and-coming college athletes. It is an exciting day that inevitably leads to several questions.  Is one of these athletes the next Heisman Trophy winner?  Who will take his or her program to the next level?  Who will win the hearts and loyalty of fans?

So what does that signing process look like?  Coaches and athletic directors hover over fax machines as early as 4 a.m. awaiting the ”beep” and successful transmission from the highest rated recruits.  It’s not always very state-of-the-art – and I have to thank Sports Illustrated for pointing that out. But it could be. In the near future, teams may transition to signed and scanned PDFs and electronic signatures.

The Sports Illustrated story paints an emotional picture. Examples include teams faxed the wrong letter, leaving coaching staffs heartbroken.  It is understandable. This is a big deal.  When this process finally goes digital and the fax machines are put away, it won’t eliminate all the mistakes. But it will likely remove most of them.

Athletic directors should take note. When you do put a digital process in place, don’t look at only receiving the signing document from the student. That is just one of a series of critical documents the student athlete may submit on his or her journey with your institution.

Advising and athletics must exchange a lot of information that will contribute to the student’s success.  Granted, on an athlete’s journey, the signing document is the first.  But that doesn’t make it any more important than his or her application, financial aid forms, transcripts, advising summaries or myriad other documents around campus that support the whole student journey.

ECM can be the key to the Digital Student Record. To learn more about improving your digital campus, click here