Life as a College Coach and Recruiter in 2030
A dystopian short story we should all hope doesn't age well...
Your alarm goes off just like it used to in 2024, except for the fact that today your AI health coach app recognized that you needed 38 minutes of extra sleep. It adjusted your smart watch alarm to go off at 7:08am instead of your usual 6:30 start to the day, but even with the extra time you still feel a little gassed from the busy day you had yesterday.
It was a great day, too: You logged one of the biggest wins of your coaching career - so big in fact it rewarded you with the 17th largest payout this year across all Fanduel college betting contests. And because of the 2028 ruling that college coaches could now bet on their own games, just like the right your athletes had won the year before in the landmark 2027 College Athlete Betting Rights ruling, you now have $1,450 extra credits loaded into your virtual digital coin wallet - probably just enough for you to treat yourself and your assistant coaches to a nice celebration dinner at McApplebees after practice today.
After you shower, take your nutrient capsules along with your cup of coffee, and take your robot dog out for a quick walk, you climb into your athletic department issued Tesla and start to get some work done on your way to campus. As you swipe your way through your morning messages, you notice one from your top recruit with a foreboding subject line: “Your NIL offer”.
This was the one you’ve been dreading. Ever since your college had transitioned out of the now defunct NCAA, it’s been hard to effectively brand yourself and the stay up with NPSC schools (National Power Super Conference) and everything that conference brings to the table for the best of the best college prospects. And now, one of your best prospects was going to once again hit you with the objection that you’ve heard a hundred times before: “You’ve got to give me more than just $200,000 to come to school there, Coach.”
Granted, you knew this one was going to be tough - in fact, Fanduel was only giving you a 14% chance of landing this recruit to your women’s lacrosse program, based on what AI was analyzing from your prospects sentiments on his social media posts from the past two weeks. Still, you had hopes…committing to your program was only going to be this prospect’s fourth college in his career so far, so you had a good chance of keeping him on your roster for at least 12 months. And with that, you’d be adding another experienced leader in your program and take a huge step towards at least qualifying for the 2031 Amazon Prime Outlander Conference Tournament. But just like you remember it was six or seven years ago, the decision was coming down to money. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
It was hard not to think back to the good old days in 2028, just two years earlier, being able to come up with an easy $200k for a good quality transfer would be easy. But now with the changes in NIL rules, six figure deals were really all you had to offer - a truth hammered home by your athletic department’s legal and accounting team that said as much during your weekly meeting with them as you reviewed budgetary spending for your incoming recruiting class.
“Coach, it isn’t just the offer, either”, the message said. “It’s also the your eSports team. The truth is, my dad is a huge Columbia State fan because obviously their eSport’s team and what they did at nationals and everything, and it would just mean the world to him if at least one of the colleges I played for these last two years would be there.” ESports had become a huge thorn in your side. You thought football was bad back in the 2010’s, as they expanded and signed big money television contracts and demanded more and more athletic department budget resources, but that had all changed now…with only 24 NPSC schools left, along with a smattering of smaller school programs, eSports rules the day in college sports. The last championship boasted an ESPN viewership of 214,000,000+ viewers, netting a solid $576,000,000 in revenue, according to the NACE. Football’s demise was sudden, but long expected, culminating after Congress outlawed the sport due to injury risks in 2026 despite widespread protest. But since then, esports had filled the void nicely as the fastest growing sport in college athletics.
“But really the big thing is the fact that Columbia State has such great career opportunities that I can plug right into, because they’re a Zimbot school now.” She had a point that was hard to argue with. CSU was sending so many kids into good careers in Thailand and Indonesia, it was hard to compete with them. Even your virtual assistant, based in Jakarta, went to a Zimbot school overseas and praised it’s virtual education platform, tie-ins with Tesla, VinFast and Apple, and the automatic internship guarantee they could offer prospects.
You need a break - so you decide to head over to the student union to grab a snack. As you walk by the now shuttered English and Sociology department buildings, you’re thankful that at least you can a meal specifically designed for your immediate nutritional needs - which brings back memories of you and your grandfather watching old episodes of Star Trek, and feeling like you finally had arrived in the future that show teased you with.
“Hey Coach, great job on the big win last night!”, you hear a familiar voice yell out behind you. Bella was one of the familiar voices you looked forward to hearing every day…and quietly, you kind of admired her simple life happily serving food and greeting kids on campuses (when they weren’t immersed in their own world, that is). “Thanks, Bella, it was a great one, for sure.”
“Yes it was, Coach, but don’t get too overconfident, the current odds of you repeating that kind of win this weekend is only 7%, and the over/under is 13 right now, so the pressure’s on, Coach!”
Thanks, Bella. Real nice.
Time to get back to work, though. You’ve got your fundraising dinner speech to finish writing, your meeting with alumni donors in three hours, the interview with your local blogger to promote this weekend’s game, and a 45 minute practice to plan out. The good news is, your Apple Watch says you’ve already burned 780 calories this morning, a 26% increase over yesterday’s total.
Most of it due to stress, of course…but still, 780 calories is 780 calories.
Later in the day, while you’re at practice, you hear the news that conference foe Schweller College will be closing it’s doors immediately due to dwindling enrollment and a lack of available reserve funds. It was battling what close to 500 other colleges were over the past decade: Not enough students, changing views of the value of a college education, and (of course) the worldwide Disease X outbreak, which tragically cost millions of lives and drastically altered the way teens and young adults experienced learning. Hearing the news about Schweller puts a damper on the day, since you were good friends with Coach Munoz there. It occurs to you that you were supposed to play them on their field in three weeks. What now? That thought is interrupted by your Smart Watch letting you know that your AI travel bot has just canceled your hotel rooms booked for the trip, adjusted the website to reflect the open date now on your schedule, and posted a message of support to Coach Munoz and his players on your SmileBig social media account.
As practice ends, you get a welcome interruption: Brooke comes up and asks if you have a second. “Sure, Brooke, how’s it going?…you did good out there today.”
“Thanks, Coach. Wish practice could be longer, I kind of felt like we were just getting the hang of what you were talking about yesterday.”
Brooke had become one of your favorite co-workers - and had even been awarded New Athlete Employee of the Month back in October, the first time a freshman on campus had won the award since the National Labor Relations Board, and two subsequent lawsuits in 2025 and 2026, defined college athletes as employees. There was even talk that she might be in line to lead talks between the newly formed student-athlete union that had organized on campus and the athletic department in-house legal team. But having her say something to you that actually was focused on what just happened on the field was refreshing, reminding you that despite her salary and her new Tesla parked behind the bleachers, she was still just a kid in many ways. A kid who was earning $150,000 more than you are, but a kid nonetheless.
“Yeah, I know,” you reply, while at the same time the athletic department micro-drone is hovering above you livestreaming your spontaneous interaction with your player, which has proven to be an effective recruiting tool lately as teenagers look for examples of personal, face to face interaction, and how to do it when they get to college. “But I guess SOMEONE thinks it’s a good idea to keep cutting practice times,” you say loudly with a glance at the hovering drone in an obvious shot at the new National Collegiate Student-Athlete Welfare and Safety Commissioner who instituted the controversial practice limits at the start of the school year.
“Well anyway, “ continues Brooke, “I just wanted to say I really appreciate all the time you put in to this - the team, all the stuff you’ve taught me, just…everything. I’ve never had a coach like you, and it really means a lot.”
You’re a little taken aback by the sudden burst of warmth, appreciation, and connection. Brooke had always been a little better at verbal communication, and even though she was just a sophomore, you could see her becoming a leader on the team. And the fact that she noticed your coaching felt good. And your intentional extra effort when it came to creating a workout that had obviously increased her lower body strength had obviously paid off…something that maybe she realized as well, and was starting to appreciate.
“Thank you, Brooke - that means a lot. That’s a big reason why I still love coaching, even though it’s changed a lot over the last few years. I really appreciate hearing that.”
“Yeah, uh, you’re great”, Brooke continued, gathering herself a little with a deep breath. “And that’s why it’s so hard to tell you that I just got work from South Carolina Tech that they’re going to be able to offer me a deal with SlimBot that’s going to pay be an extra $30,000, and I really want to take the chance to go there and take advantage of that extra money so I can finally launch my NFT project…I heard one of the girls there made like $125,000 with hers. You get why I need to do that, right?”
Your Smart Watch vibrates to alert you to an elevated heart rate spike. On the one hand, you know that after the season is done you’ll have a good shot at landing at least one of the 700 or so athletes that’ll be in the Doritos Transfer Portal, but losing Brooke hurts. A lot. Then again, with the recent proposal to allow robots to compete in college sports, maybe it’ll all get easier to recruit - and keep - a cohesive team together for more than just a few months, just like your dad talked about when he coached in the late 90’s.
Still, the news hurts.
Bella told me there’d be days like this…
Want to add to the story? Go for it in the comments - let’s see what you’ve got, Coach…