VarsityOne® founder Wes Starke knows this process from both sides of the table. He played professional football across five leagues before a career-ending Achilles injury ended his playing days. Then he spent 20 years on the other side — coaching, recruiting, and making the calls that determined who got a shot. He's been the athlete who needed the roadmap and the coach who held it. V1Portal is what he built so every family can access what he learned from both seats.
I played professional football across five indoor and arena football leagues while finishing my sports management degree at Shorter University and then my MBA at the UoP Business School.
After my playing career ended, I spent the next 20 years coaching — grassroots programs, high school football from 3A to 6A, and college athletes at the NAIA and D2 level. I helped 100+ families get their athletes recruited into college football programs directly. Not users on a platform — families I worked with one-on-one.
What I learned in those years — how recruiting actually works, what coaches look at, what they ignore — is the same system built into V1Portal.
I kept seeing the same thing: talented athletes getting missed. Not because they weren't good enough, but because nobody gave them real guidance.
After 20 years on the sideline, I stepped back. Not because the passion left, but because I realized I could reach more than one family at a time. When you build the right tool, you don't help one kid — you help thousands. That's why V1Portal was born.
The recruiting industry is built around the top 5% — the prospects with stars coaches already know about. Every platform, every service, every combine event caters to athletes who already have stars and offers.
V1Portal was built for the athlete who has the talent but no visibility. The linebacker at a small school in a town no recruiter visits. The defensive end whose stats are real but whose email never reaches the right coach. The athlete doing everything right but getting ignored anyway.
The V1 Score isn't an opinion. It's data: your athletic metrics, your academic profile, your film production, and your intangibles. Feed those in, get a tier-based score — FBS, FCS, D2, D3, NAIA, JUCO. From there, everything else follows: which programs match you, what you need to improve, who to contact, when to contact them.
We can't promise you a scholarship. Nobody can. What we can promise is that you'll know exactly where you stand — and exactly what to do next.
We tell you what your score actually means. If you're a D3 prospect, we say so — and we show you the best D3 programs for your profile. Honesty is the only thing that actually helps.
This isn't a tech company that decided to enter the recruiting space. V1Portal was built by someone who played the game and then spent 20 years deciding who got recruited. Not inspired by the process — responsible for it.
NCSA charges $4,000+ and serves athletes who already have attention. V1Portal serves the kids who need help most — the ones flying under the radar at programs that would love them — at a fraction of that cost.
We will never tell you V1Portal gets you recruited. It gives you the intelligence, the contacts, and the roadmap. What you do with it is on you. That's the only honest way to sell this.
V1Portal is a product of VarsityOne Group LLC — a holding company built around one belief: that athletes at every level deserve professional-grade tools and honest guidance.
VarsityOne operates multiple entities across recruiting intelligence, gear, leagues, education, and athlete development — all anchored by the same mission that started in 2003 when one athlete ran out of time.
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