Why One Illinois Dual-Sport Star Stopped Waiting for Recruiters to Find Him

Under Recruited: Torey Baskin

Torey Baskin checks every box recruiters claim they care about.

All-Area football and preseason All-Area basketball. 746 receiving yards and nine touchdowns as a senior wideout across ten games. Currently averaging 26 points per game while shooting 41 percent from three, with 4.8 assists and 2.3 steals as a senior guard. A verified 4.42 forty. A 38-inch vertical. A 3.0 GPA.

And yet, he is still uncommitted.

That is not an indictment of his talent. It is a snapshot of how broken high school recruiting visibility can be if you are not wearing the right jersey.

Torey plays at Hoffman Estates, a good, competitive program. But not one of the Chicago-area factory schools where college coaches camp out in the bleachers. No automatic buzz. No built-in spotlight. If you are not at Simeon, Whitney Young, Morgan Park, or a handful of others, production alone does not guarantee attention.

That is the gap Torey and his family ran into headfirst.

So instead of waiting, they moved.

The Reality Nobody Likes to Admit

Recruiting is not just about how good you are. It is about how easy you are to evaluate.

Coaches sort through thousands of athletes. They do not have time to hunt. If your highlights are buried, your stats lack context, or your contact info is hard to find, they move on, not because you are not good enough, but because someone else made their job easier.

Tina Baskin put it plainly. “Illinois is a basketball state and there’s so many great athletes and especially basketball players.” Her concern was not exposure for exposure’s sake. “We wanted a way to just set him apart.”

Because the spotlight is not distributed evenly.

“There are specific teams or organizations that certain players, as long as they belong to, automatically get a spotlight,” she said. Torey was missing that, not because of performance, but because of familiarity. “He’s just flying under the radar.”

That same visibility gap existed in AAU. Torey plays against the same competition as programs like Illinois Wolves, MeanStreets, Mac Irvin, and Elevate. The difference is not talent. It is recognition. His AAU team is newer, which means less built-in visibility. “If he had been playing the same exact way and played for the Wolves,” Tina said, “he would probably have a whole bunch of offers.” The gap was not production. “They don’t know him, and that’s really the only reason.”

So they applied the same fix. Make it impossible not to know him.

Building a Platform You Actually Own

Instead of another profile buried inside someone else’s ecosystem, Torey launched a full custom recruiting site at toreybaskin.com. Not a Linktree. Not a collection of links. A real platform.

The goal was simple. When a coach lands on the site, there is zero confusion.

Football coaches immediately see him as a wide receiver. Basketball coaches immediately see him as a guard. Same athlete. Two clear narratives. No friction.

Measurables are always visible because that is what filters get applied first. Stats are presented with context, including where he ranks within his conference, not just raw numbers floating in space. Film is embedded directly from Hudl and clearly labeled. Press coverage and All-Area honors are front and center.

Nothing exaggerated. Nothing dressed up. Just verified information presented the way college staffs actually consume it.

And when a coach wants to reach out, they do not have to hunt. The contact form is direct, pre-filled with Torey’s class year and position, and routed for a 24-hour response. That alone puts him ahead of most prospects.

Control Changes Everything

This is not a static site. Torey’s family can update stats, add articles, and publish new highlights themselves. No waiting on a third-party platform. No expired links. No scrambling during recruiting season.

That is ownership.

Tina said the impact was immediate. “Oh my gosh, I think it’s absolutely fantastic. Everyone that has seen it is just like, this is fantastic. Not only with the information, but how well done it is.”

She has heard it repeatedly from people who matter, former Division I players, coaches, scouts. “I can’t even find the words,” she said. “It’s everything that I expected and certainly more.”

And it goes beyond recruiting. “I also feel like, yeah, we’re highlighting him as an athlete, but also just building a brand.”

The Bigger Picture

For underrecruited athletes, especially those outside the traditional pipelines, this is where recruiting is headed.

Not hoping a clip goes viral.
Not waiting for the right gym on the right night.
Not trusting algorithms to be kind.

Infrastructure wins.

Owning your platform means controlling your narrative, your accessibility, and your first impression. It means making it easy for coaches to understand your value and even easier to reach out.

Tina summed it up simply. “We had to put it out there so that people know.” Because the feedback has been consistent. “This is a scholarship player.”

Torey Baskin is not waiting to be discovered.

He built something that makes overlooking him a lot harder.

Interested in building a recruiting platform for your athlete?
Creative Eye Multimedia designs custom athlete websites that prioritize ownership, clarity, and real recruiting visibility. Learn more at creativeeyestudios.com/athlete-recruiting