Messages from college coaches

What it is

A college coach (a "scout") who finds one of your players can write to you, the player's team coach. Those conversations are in your Scouts inbox. This is separate from the athlete's own conversations: parents are not copied, so you decide what to pass along.

How to use it

1. Open Scouts from the menu (on mobile, from your roster). You see each college coach who wrote to you, who the message is about, the latest message and a dot if there is something new.
2. Open a conversation to read it. You see their name, school and title, a short profile, and the player they are writing about.
3. Write a reply and send. There is no approval step.
4. If you do not want to hear from them, choose Block. They are not told; the conversation just becomes unavailable to them.
5. If something is wrong, choose Report. Your report goes to our team to review, and it also blocks them.

You also get a notification, and an email for the first unread message, when a college coach writes.

Rules and limits

• This inbox only exists while college-coach messaging is switched on. Right now it is off, so there are no conversations and the Scouts page and menu item are hidden on the web until it is turned on.
• A college coach can only start a conversation with you about a player with a public page who is on a team you coach.
• A college coach's messages cannot contain links, email addresses, phone numbers or social handles, and after 3 messages in a row without an answer they have to wait for your reply. Your replies have no such filter, but must be 2,000 characters or fewer.
• You can send up to 60 replies an hour and file up to 20 reports an hour.
• The college coach sees only your name and team name. Your email is not shared.
• If the college coach's account is suspended, the conversation is read-only for you.

Edge cases

• A blocked or reported conversation disappears from your list. There is no unblock option in the app.
• Opening a conversation marks it read.