A True Win-Win-Win for Student-Athletes and their Families, Coaches, and Recruiters
By Todd Hveem, Houston Chronicle Correspondent; Edited by Neil Stratton
Like many people, Doug McGown and John Owen are high school sports fans who love kids and want to help them.
Unlike many people, they have the skills to be able to take their affinity for sports, and kids in general, to the next level. They are both experienced educators with backgrounds in design, programming, and coaching. Their backgrounds help them know the inside of the student-athlete world as well as the coaching world.
Their friendship, and their desire to help student-athletes, resulted in the formation of Doogie Company (www.doogiecompany.com) in 2006. Through Doogie Co., McGown and Owen are out to change the world of high school recruiting.
The duo’s Houston-based company seeks to do for high school students what many Web services, along with many well-intentioned high school coaches and parents, fail to do: match scholarship opportunities with capable student-athletes.
“There are literally dozens of competitors out there, but they are usually only it in for themselves,” said Owen, 37. “That, unfortunately, leaves a sour taste in the mouths of coaches. They get bombarded by guys out there who take advantage of players by charging them lots of money and making hollow promises. It’s really pretty sad.”
“Our whole goal is to establish ourselves as guys who are really looking out for the kids, schools, coaches and programs,” said Owen. “We want it to be a win-win-win for the players, high schools and college recruiters.’’
The company has achieved that by building an online portal where college coaches can go to view thousands of listings for players across the spectrum, from football to volleyball to baseball to soccer and every sport in-between, all at no charge. It makes for an effective start to the recruiting process and required viewing for coaches across the nation.
“We had the opportunity to talk with some other NCAA coaches while they were in for a recruiting visit to one of our client high schools, and basically found out what it was they wanted and we put it together,’’ said McGown, 50. “They liked it, it worked and we decided to develop it.”
“I feel that the Web site has everything that it needs to get information on students,” said Kendal Briles, who coaches inside receivers at Baylor. “The Web site is also very user-friendly.”
Once Owen and McGown knew they had a platform coaches could use, they started taking it to student-athletes. McGown, who has 27 years in volleyball and a Class 4A state championship to his credit while at Friendswood, began introducing the site (www.doogiepage.com/playerprofile) to his players. The results were immediate.
“From the start, my players started seeing the value in it,” said McGown. “It didn’t take them long to actively start using doogiePage Player Profiles to look for scholarships.”
The instant success didn’t come as a complete surprise to Owen and McGown. After all, they had done their homework.
“We researched dozens of companies doing online player profiles,” Owen said. “We took what they were doing well and what they weren’t doing so great and tried to learn from that.’’
Part of what Owen and McGown saw as a weakness was the fact that most services incorporate ‘push’ technology, i.e., students were having to build a page, then ‘push’ the link out to coaches who may or may not have interest. Often, it resulted in an unwanted email that wound up in a school’s spam filter.
Where the doogiePage Player Profile Portal differs is that coaches across the nation – the company boasts 270+ registered users from 170+ schools – are already viewing profiles regularly. That means there’s a built-in audience for any student-athlete who uses the service.
“I really enjoy the site,” said Bobby April, the new special teams and linebackers coach at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, La. “(It) makes it easy to do an initial look at prospects.”
With college coaches becoming fans and excitement growing among beta users, McGown and Owen knew they had a product that could be effective. The next step was making it financially viable.
“We were absolutely infuriated by some of these services,” McGown said. “Our closest competitors go right after the parents. They charge between $750 - $1,200 per year. Then, they charge an additional $300 - $400 to do a video. We felt that was really excessive. We felt it was exploiting the student-athletes.”
A doogiePage Player Profile costs $12-$24 per player for the entire year if the school district purchases the license, or $5 per month if the athlete buys a student license, Owen said.
“I think our pricing philosophy speaks for itself,” Owen said. “Obviously, we are in business to make money, but first and foremost, we want to help kids. We just couldn’t make price a barrier to entry.
There was no way we could make the impact we wanted to make, and help kids on a grand scale, unless we maintained minimal costs. The kids, and their parents, responded to that.”
McGown and Owen could see the potential of the portal immediately, and though parents and student-athletes shared their enthusiasm, they knew that high school coaches would have to see it, too.
“These coaches are already giving up their lives to serve student-athletes,” Owen said. “When they’re in-season, nearly every waking minute is taken up by a practice, or a game, or some other essential responsibility associated with the job. We knew the last piece in the puzzle was the coach, and we had to make sure we weren’t adding to his burden.”
They were fortunate enough to have a coach with their focus on helping kids in close proximity. Corby Meekins, who coaches Westfield High School’s football team in Spring, Texas, was eager to find a service that could bring his players the exposure they need.
“We were fortunate enough that he really gave doogiePages a look, and we’ve worked with him to make it exactly the kind of product he needed, with a quick learning curve,” McGown said. “Coaches don’t have time to learn a complicated program or an exotic methodology, and we realized that. Ease of use was essential.
“Obviously, Coach Meekins is a man who takes his job seriously, and his success speaks for itself. We had to give him something that we knew, and he knew, wouldn’t waste his time. We gave him that tool, and Westfield has had great success with it.”
Partly due to their use of doogiePage Player Profiles, 14 Mustangs earned college football scholarships during the 2010 spring signing period.
“I have been using doogiePages the last three years,” Meekins said. “I realized four years ago that is the way it is moving. Everything is speeded up. Everybody needs instant information and I wanted to be ahead of the ballgame a little bit.
“I started using their product three years ago and have had good success. There are places out there who need football players. The key is you have to get (the information) to them.’’
“Corby really works to get his kids exposure,” McGown said. “He already had the desire to help them. The key was getting him the best avenue to the specific schools that also had a need.
“There are a lot of Web products out there, but are the kids getting the exposure they need? We don’t think so, not with what is out there. But with the doogiePage Player Profile Portal, we think the kids actually have the best shot at exposure – and the best shot at a scholarship.”