Every career oriented individual knows that a crucial component of landing a dream job is having a strong resume that sets them apart from the competition. This is why there are thousands of books and numerous companies that are solely dedicated to helping people create a resume that best highlights their experience and skills. But what about career oriented athletes who’s dream job is to one day play a pro sport? Who helps them with their resume? They may not have the same type of experience and skills as someone who wears a suit to work everyday but they definitely have experience and skills that need to be demonstrated to potential employers such as college and pro teams.
In the basketball world court vision and a silky smooth jumper are the corporate world’s equivalent of being a member of the honors society and graduating summa cum laude from an Ivy League school. Both sets of attributes and accomplishments create great potential for the individual who possesses them. But up until recently there hasn’t been an effective outlet for aspiring athletes to demonstrate their “sports resume” to coaches and recruits. However, a startup company called Ballers Bridge is trying to change this problem and offer a place for aspiring basketball players to seek help in furthering their careers.
Ballers Bridge is not your ordinary recruiting site. It is a social recruiting platform where players create a profile to share with coaches, recruiters and fans. Ballers Bridge Co-Founder Gerald Cannon explains, “Our vision for Ballers Bridge isn’t to be a run of the mill recruiting site. More is needed than just a basic model that connects players to coaches and vice versa. There are plenty of outlets who have content focused on the top 150 players in the country. Ballers Bridge focuses on the players who fall below this level. We give all players the power to generate a buzz about themselves regardless of location or circumstance.”
The players who are ranked as a top 150 basketball prospect in the country have no problem with getting their skills noticed and being recruited by big time NCAA basketball programs. It’s the players that have potential but fall through the cracks due to lack of access to information and general savvy about the recruiting processes that are the ones that can benefit from having a profile on Ballers Bridge.
With the free Ballers Bridge profile players receive authentic social branding, the ability to be matched to a college that fits them athletically as well as academically, and be part of a basketball community that gives them a chance to improve skills by working with top basketball influencers.
The profile on Ballers Bridge is very much intertwined with the player’s online social presence. Ballers bridge tracks and displays the number of fans a player has in addition to the amount of times a player’s profile has been viewed. This is a valuable indication for recruiters and teams to better understand the presence the player has within their respective basketball community. Also, as Gerald explains, young players these days are used to having a social media presence: “We want to keep them engaged and feed off of their instincts and that was important for us in making the site, was making sure that the players are socially active and getting themselves out there.”
It’s also easier to approach young basketball players about the idea of creating a profile on Ballers Bridge if it is similar to other social profiles that they may already have. “When we’re actually out with the kids whether it be a camp or a clinic it’s just about actually talking to the kids, parents and coaches and telling them about the process of getting noticed and how a profile can help them. And a lot of them just don’t know how tough it can be to get noticed and if you don’t have the right connections then it won’t be easy to be found out.”
Additionally, the players that come on the Ballers Bridge platform do not need to have any technical skills. “We want to make it as simple as possible. It’s important for us to know that these are high school kids that come on to this site and we want it to be easy for them to come on and not have a difficult profile to fill out. We wanted to keep it as simple as what they currently use such as Facebook and Twitter in the sense of setting up an online profile.”
While Ballers Bridge does a great job at getting high school athletes the opportunity go to a college that they might not have had the chance to attend otherwise, it also is flexible in its format so that it can assist college and AAU players as well.
Overall, Gerald himself understands the difficulties of making the leap to the next level whether it’s from high school to college or college to pro. Gerald played professionally overseas and he knows first hand the challenges of having a consistent method to get his skills noticed no matter what teams and leagues that he might play for.
Gerald’s basketball experiences were ultimately the inspiration for Ballers Bridge. After his playing career was over he got a job with the Cleveland Cavaliers where he became co-workers with Armand Brown who had an all important background in media and business. Armand would eventually become the Chief Marketing Officer of Ballers Bridge due to his work with the Cavs.
Gerald explains how his basketball experience and job at the Cavs helped make Ballers Bridge possible: “The main idea came from trying to play high school basketball and moving to college and then moving from college to play internationally. Armand and I both worked together at the Cleveland Cavaliers after I had finished playing. It was just a monumental time for basketball with Lebron James and ‘the decision’ and everything that was going on Cleveland and we were kind of just sitting in the middle of it. I had talked to Armand all the time about different things I had gone through playing basketball and thought that we could correct some of those issues of players that were falling in to similar paths.”
Once Gerald and Armand realized that they could actually make their vision for Ballers Bridge in to a reality by working together and combining their basketball backgrounds they quit their jobs with the Cavs and set out to find a developer that could come in and build the social platform that they wanted. It took a year but they found the right developer and they were able to take part in a social incubator accelerator program in Atlanta. This program gave them the confidence and means necessary to take a shot at entering the big leagues and sign up for the Stanford StartX accelerator program. This would turn out to be the game-changer that they needed to make Ballers Bridge happen.
When Gerald and Armand found out that they were fortunate enough to be accepted in to the StartX incubator they packed their bags and headed to the Bay Area. “We didn’t know anything about Northern California but we had a feeling that this was where we needed to be. When we were accepted in to the program we immediately dropped everything. I’m from Atlanta, Armand’s from Charlotte and we left home and just said, let’s try to make this happen.”
Fast forward to today after months of hard work and going through the StartX program, Ballers Bridge is thriving. Ballers Bridge will be working with a group of talented young basketball players in Las Vegas for the next few days for the Adidas 64, Las Vegas Live, Fab 48, and Swoosh World Championship tournaments. There will be dozens of aspiring basketball players who will simply need that extra push from Ballers Bridge to make it to the next level.
Check out this video with Gerald explaining why he could have used Ballers Bridge when he was playing and why the current one million high school basketball players in the U.S. will be able to benefit from it today: