It started as a service for swimmers looking to contact college coaches. Now it's the largest online college recruiting service and athletic scholarship network in the nation.
Founded by Ryan Spoon, Trinity '03, beRecruited.com recently exceeded two million athlete-coach connections and reached 135,000 registered users.
In January 2000, the goal of then-freshman Spoon, a breaststroker on the swimming team, was to make recruitment more efficient for high school athletes.
Teaming up with friend Russell Cook, Pratt '04, the result was beRecruited.com.
Prior to the creation of the Web site, the recruitment process was tedious for student athletes who had to look up the contact information of individual coaches, Spoon said.
"I had gone through the process myself and realized that it was massively inefficient," he said. "This was before Facebook and MySpace. There was no place to create online profiles."
BeRecruited provides users with a place to find college and coach information. Registration is free, and additional features cost $20.
With Cook heading up the technical aspects, the site has been able to get 90 percent of NCAA swim coaches and a number of students on board with the project. In 2003, Spoon identified a similar community in lacrosse, and found that the site could provide the same service for other sports just as effectively.
The idea rates highly with some Duke athletes.
"I think it's especially beneficial for coaches that they have a database to look at instead of hunting down individual recruits," said sophomore swimmer Murillo Adrados.
Sophomore rower Janet Bartholdson agreed that the site makes recruiting more efficient.
"I remember stressing over my athletic resume that I sent out to colleges, as well as a lot of e-mails and phone calls to various programs," she said. "It seems like it would have saved me a lot of time."
Although the site makes it easier for coaches and athletes to contact one another, Bartholdson said athletes still need to make a large effort to be noticed.
"I also believe that you have to take strong initiative and be persistent to be taken seriously by the coaches and programs you want," she said.
After graduation, Cook revamped the company to include 16 other sports that offered a large number of scholarships and yielded many college team positions.
He said, however, the company needed to reach a certain level of brand recognition and influence before it could incorporate high-profile sports such as basketball and football.
Although the site currently serves 18 sports, some, such as fencing and cross-country skiing, are not included.
Sophomore fencer Eliot Cohen said the site would be more effective if it continued to expand to other sports.
"Fencing is one of the original Olympic sports," he noted.
Cook said the site may include other sports within the next two years.
Currently, one of beRecruited.com's big projects is to work with speed and agility training camps to provide accurate, verified athlete information for coaches.
"Student-athlete information at this time is self-reported. We want to be able to verify those stats, times and speeds for coaches," Cook said.
The company is also working to add video clips of individual athletes.
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