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| by Nexus Sports team |   



Since its "pilot" launch back in 2016, Nexus Sports has received support from several collegial football programs from all three divisions across Quebec. One of the first programs to participate in the development of the network was that of the College Lionel Groulx Nordiques. In 2017, we sat down with head coach Éric Marier to discuss his experience with our network after our initial year of operation. Let's review our evolution and his predictions at the time.

Nexus Sports’ mission is to provide increased visibility to student-athletes in all CEGEP programs. "The service helps us find a" hidden "player or gem in a program that otherwise would not have much visibility because of its small size or geographic location," said coach Marier back in 2017.

In 2017, the RSEQ Football adopted a series of regulations surrounding collegial recruitment. Thus, the calendar year was divided into 7 periods dictating the authorized and prohibited actions for each of them. "With the new rules in place, Nexus Sports is giving us a way to study student-athletes and refine our recruitment efforts. Having access to a profile that tells us what orientation the student wishes to follow in cegep helps our program and the student too. If he wants to pursue an academic career in police studies, for example, we won’t make him waste his time responding to our requests, " he said at the time.

It is a known fact that student-athletes must first choose their academic program. However, there are other factors to consider and these should be addressed in the profiles of student-athletes, as stated by Coach Marier in 2017. "We would like to know if the students want to live the experience of studying in the city or in the suburbs. Are they willing to relocate? Do they want to play division 1 ball here?”, he pointed out at the time.

Coach Marier is categorical: his priority is to know what the student-athletes’ wishes and expectations as soon as possible so that his team can meet and respect them. "What are you –a student-athlete - looking for as a college experience? We, at Lionel Groulx, establish a list of criteria - a profile - and we aim to recruit people match that profile and who will be successful at our school. "

When asked in 2017 what he foresaw the recruiting process would look like in 5 to 10 years, here's what he had to say: "Once again, with the new recruiting rules, Nexus Sports will become a cornerstone because this tool allows us to prioritize our recruitment efforts from a qualitative - rather than a quantitative - point of view.


Four years later, those preditions stay the course.