Go Big Recruiting

Go Big Recruiting, LLC is a Reading, Pennsylvania company that operates an online system connecting high school student-athletes with college coaches. The service was built around a simple premise: prospective recruits need a reliable way to get their highlight video and academic information in front of the coaching staffs at schools they are interested in, and they need to know whether anyone actually looked at it. The platform delivers an athlete's profile directly to selected programs and then notifies the athlete, by email and text message, the moment a coach opens it.

The company was founded by Ross Tucker, an All-Ivy offensive lineman at Princeton who went on to a long NFL playing career and now works as an NFL analyst for CBS Sports, together with J. Brian Kropp, an entrepreneur whose background is in online video and internet technology ventures. Their stated goal was to remove the guesswork from the early stages of recruiting, particularly for athletes who do not attend high-profile programs or play in regions that college staffs visit frequently.

Two other figures with deep Pennsylvania football roots are part of the leadership. Jasen Esposito, a standout at Kutztown University who later played for the New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills and has spent more than two decades as a high school football coach, serves as Vice President. Steve Gaunt, a former high school head coach and a coach at the college and indoor football levels, works as Sales Manager. Between them, the group brings perspective from the playing field, the sideline and the recruiting office.

How the Service Works

The process begins with a free athlete profile. An athlete, or more often an athlete and a parent working together, enters contact information, academic details such as grade point average and test scores, and athletic measurables and statistics. A highlight reel or full-game video hosted on a platform like YouTube or HUDL is attached by URL, which means athletes can use film they have already produced rather than starting from scratch.

Building the profile costs nothing. Payment only comes into play when the athlete decides to send the profile to specific colleges. The school list is assembled using filters for division level and conference, which helps families target programs realistically rather than sending material at random. Pricing is structured per college on a sliding scale, so the cost per school drops significantly as more schools are added to a submission.

Once a profile is sent, delivery to the coaching staff is guaranteed. The feature that distinguishes the system is the confirmation loop: when a coach opens the profile, the athlete and parent both receive an email and a text, and a checkmark appears on the Profile Views page inside the account. Families can see which programs engaged with the material and which did not, which is useful information when deciding where to focus camp visits, unofficial visits and follow-up communication.

Programs and Tools

• Profile and Video Submission: Guaranteed delivery of an athlete's profile and film to a chosen list of college coaches, with notification when each profile is opened. Division and conference filters assist with building a balanced list of reach, target and realistic schools.
• Go Big Premium: A subscription that works in the opposite direction. College coaches search the Go Big database for prospects who meet their criteria, and Premium reveals the name, division and conference of every program that requested an athlete's full profile and video, along with the exact date of the request. Subscriptions can be canceled at any time through account preferences, and completing a profile or sending to a larger group of schools earns free access.
• Go Big Pro Video Evaluation: A one-time written assessment produced by a former Division I coach who worked at the athlete's position. The evaluation addresses strengths, weaknesses, the division level the athlete realistically projects to, and specific areas to improve before the next season or camp cycle. Turnaround typically runs between ten and twenty business days. The intent is to help families spend camp money where it is likely to matter, since individual camps can carry substantial daily costs.
• Recruiting Alerts: Email and text notifications sent to both the athlete and a parent whenever a coach views the basic athletic and academic information stored in the database. Each alert includes a one-click option to send the full profile back to that program, or to mark a school as Not Interested, which permanently ends communication from that staff.
• Recruiting 101 Education Library: A free collection of sport-specific guides covering recruiting timelines organized by grade level, positional guidelines, instructions for filming skill and highlight video, scholarship questions, NCAA eligibility requirements, visit rules and the recruiting calendar. Guides are available for football, baseball, softball, men's and women's basketball, men's lacrosse, and men's and women's volleyball.
• Free Athlete Profile: The entry point to the system, with no cost to create and no obligation to send. Completing a profile unlocks a trial period of Premium access.

NCAA Compliance and Positioning

Go Big describes itself not as a traditional recruiting service but as an online post office for video and information submission. That distinction matters under NCAA rules. The company operates in compliance with NCAA Division I Bylaws 13.14.3.1 and 13.14.3.2, which govern scouting and recruiting services. Rather than brokering relationships or promising placement, the platform transmits material the athlete creates and reports back on whether coaches engaged with it. More than eighty colleges recommend the service to prospects who contact them, which reflects its utility on the coaching side as well: staffs receive organized, searchable submissions instead of unsorted emails and mailed discs.

Who Uses It

The user base skews toward football, which reflects the founders' backgrounds, but the platform and its educational materials extend across baseball, softball, basketball, lacrosse and volleyball for both men's and women's programs. Athletes at every division level use the system, including those targeting Division II, Division III and NAIA programs where recruiting budgets are smaller and coaches rely more heavily on film submitted to them.

For families in Berks County and the surrounding region, the company's presence in Reading means the leadership understands the Pennsylvania high school landscape, its coaching networks and the college programs within driving distance. The service itself is used nationally, since the entire process runs through the online platform rather than in-person meetings.

Practical Notes

Accounts are managed by the athlete and parent together, with notifications routed to both. There is no requirement to purchase anything in order to build a profile, store video links or read the educational guides. Subscription features can be canceled through the account preferences area. Evaluations and submissions are handled on a per-item basis rather than through long-term contracts, which allows families to use the parts of the system that fit their situation and timeline.