Top Unsigned Seniors

A Star since the beginning

I am sure that Alex will be picked up by the right coach/school. He will do them good as he is a hard working good fit player for any team.

 

John Smith

I saw in our newspaper today that John Smith RHP/2B - West Henderson High has signed with Newberry. John is a good pitcher and can hit it pretty good. Most of all he is a competitor.

 

Very, very good post niknat. A lot of great points.

My suggestion for the talented player that is relatively unknown is this.
If he knows the schools that he likes, I would highly recommend that he attends their baseball camp. Afterward, he will be able to discuss with the coaches his abilities and where he might fit in.

You have to do your homework before attending a camp, but for many it has become a useful tool.

 

Getting Seen

QUOTE]My suggestion for the talented player that is relatively unknown is this.
If he knows the schools that he likes, I would highly recommend that he attends their baseball camp. Afterward, he will be able to discuss with the coaches his abilities and where he might fit in.

You have to do your homework before attending a camp, but for many it has become a useful tool.[/QUOTE]

I second what Braves said, and I'll add that a lot of D2 - D3 schools will welcome you to come on their campus for a workout. If you have no one seriously looking at you yet, what's to loose by going and working out for a few schools you may have on your wish list. You get to meet the coaches or at least some of them, you get to see the campus, and you have a captive audience to display your talent.

 

niknat

niknat you are in my opinion right on in realizing that most kids need to be proactive in the recruiting process. By this I mean there are obviously a small group of kids that have coaches lined up to talk to them, but there are a lot of kids who could play college ball that don't because other kids of similar abilities expressed interest in attending the school. Let's face it if you were the Head Coach at "Need a Player U." and you have to choose between two players, the one who expresses a lot of interest is most likely the one you'd choose. Of course that's assuming all the other factors (grades, ability, etc.) are the same.

 

Would Welcome More Information

How does one learn more about this process? What proactive things should the kids be doing? I've heard alot about recruiting rules, but don't know many specifics yet. Sometimes I think kids want to be very proactive, but don't know what they should do in this process, when they should do it, and what is allowed, especially in terms of communication with a school.

Here is one example. Our son received a letter from a school regarding a camp, but was unable to attend because a coach forwarded us the letter on the day before the camp was to occur. We wanted to find out the dates of their additional winter camps and thank them for the letter. Our son called the school for this information and left a message. Is he allowed to call, are they allowed to call back? Also, are there forms of communication that are and are not allowed? Is it better/more acceptable to write, call, email or text?

We would like to help our son learn to be very proactive in this process, and have many questions. What resources have been helpful to others in sorting out rules, timelines, and opinions? Can anyone shed some light on this? Thanks!

 

Recruiting

Thanks Braves for the kind words for Alex and Mikal. I was confused myself when he wasn't being recruited. I asked around and some parents kept saying the conference wasn't strong and that might have hurt. I do know that if you could look at the stats against the out of conference teams he faced, Providence, Independence, Ardry Kell and they did throw their best pitchers you would see where he batted over 600 against those teams and it was the same with Hopewell and North Meck in conference play. Alex had the grades and the people who know him would tell you that he is a super kid, well-mannered and hard worker, because he knew i would make his life miserable(smile). We made a list of schools that he liked and we personally contacted them, letting them know that he was interested in their school. As a parent you do what you have to do if you believe in your kid. I also believe that by not playing with well known travel teams also hurt because he wasn't seen by coaches in the big travel tournaments. If you and your son believe that they can play college baseball, contact the schools, be consisitent and have faith in god that good things will happened.

 

Play Ball- this will be the best site you will ever need to go in regards to recruiting information. This is a well respected site with information being provided by everyone connected to this subject. You can spend hours there gathering information.

http://hsbaseballweb.com/

 

I wish I could have put Alex under my wing at the time, he would have gone wherever he wished (not saying that he didn't end up there), but the process would have been smoother.

As far as Mikal Hill? Watch what happens to this young man. He is with the right team and couple that with his enormous potential...well, whatever school he decides it will be a choice by him.

I cringe when I hear that.

 

Being Proactive

By being proactive I mean to contact coaches, by phone or email. Have your high school coach place calls for you also. Now depending on what time of year it is the coaches may be restricted from contacting your son. But I believe you can always initiate the contact (If that has changed someone will correct me, or as Braves said check out that website he talked about).

But first of all do some homework as to where does your son want to get an education and play ball. Narrow the list down to a list of up to maybe 5 schools. Depending on what level those schools are ask for tryouts, if not possible attend camps. But be careful of the camp letters as your name may get passed around to other coaches who attend those camps and they may or may not have a legitimate interest in your son joining their program. Don't chase a school because you got a camp letter - chase the school because you'd like to go there for an education and an opportunity to play baseball.

You can get contact info from most of the schools athletic websites and a lot of those sites have recruiting info sheets that you can fill out and submit on the internet, some others you may have to fax in to the school.

One thing that hurt one kid this past year I know about, is he never got his NCAA Clearinghouse materials taken care of. That is also discussed in the website Braves referred you to.