Parents involvement in the recruiting process

nsrtopscout,

That was the best article I have ever read about the involvement of parents. Every thing you said was right on! The article was printed in the NFCA Fastpitch Delivery this month for all that subcribe.

 

Parents' Role

Thanks, Spart30. Education is one of our biggest challenges and missions. I hope the article helps parents to understand the impact, positive or negative, they can have on their kids' chances of receiving offers.

 

The Article

Parents - Be a Window, Not a Door

Odd as it might sound, when a college coach decides to offer a scholarship to a prospect the final call can boil down to which parents have behaved most appropriately and the ones a coach can get along with best. To college coaches, a bad parent is like a player’s bum knee – it could flair up and cause a problem at anytime.

There is an old saying, “You make a better door than window,” which refers to someone blocking your view. Sadly, some parents tend to be better doors than windows when their child is being recruited to play a college sport, but taking that posture can be devastating to a kid’s chances of being pursued by college coaches.

Parents, come to grips with this truth: there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of prospects wanting to play in college who are eerily similar to your own kid. They are the same size, speed and have comparable grades and goals. They play with intensity, work hard in practice, get along with their teammates, come home at curfew (most of the time) and are good citizens. They are easy to coach, respectful of their elders, leaders to their peers, do volunteer work and they attend services on Sundays. They obey their parents, seldom require disciplining and consistently make good decisions. Keeping all that in mind, be clear on this – it only takes one immovable object, say a problematic parent, for a college coach to go on to the next prospect. One day a college coach is calling. The next day – poof! Gone!

The simple rule of thumb for parents is this: college coaches are recruiting your kid, not you, so stand aside and let the coaches do their thing – recruit. Get out of the way. Buzz off. Chill. Go huntin’. Take a Yoga class. Meditate. Hike. Bowl. Shop. Fish. Knit. Do whatever else you want to, but allow coaches to get to know your child and build a rapport, or not, as the situation develops. Just let it happen.

Meanwhile, avoid yelling at officials during a game, not allowing a coach to talk to your kid over the phone because you feel the need to explain “how things work in this family,” or openly complaining about the coach's strategies after a game. If you are going to lose it over every bad call or if you need to control everything that moves during the recruiting process, you are setting your kid up for a rough ride that will most likely result in coaches walking away instead of making scholarship offers. And, one thing you can count on, word spreads quickly in the college coaching community about uncontrollable, obnoxious parents. But, here’s the thing – when you get tagged by coaches, your kid is the one who ultimately suffers.

Well-intended but overly protective parents send a clear message to college coaches, which is, “You will have to deal with me the next four years. If anything goes wrong, you can count on me to be this difficult and obstinate. If my kid’s not playing, you are going to be getting regular phone calls. When my kid is unhappy, you will be explaining things to me.” Here’s a secret worth telling: a coach does not have to deal with a parent’s disruptive attitude to sign a good athlete when there are bunches of other prospects to choose from whose parents are easy to deal with and do not act as if being rude is a desirable character trait.

Two years ago a softball coach from a private college talked to me following a particularly poor season. He said the problem was not the kids on the team. The problem was one parent who thought her kid should be playing all the time and could do no wrong. Consequently, she let it be known by complaining to the administration, the athletic director, the other parents and, most destructively, to her own child. She called the coach every week wanting to know how her kid was doing and if she was starting the next game. Regardless of how the coach, AD or administrators responded, the overbearing parent’s calls persisted. Her behavior was a needless distraction and made the season miserable for everybody. The next year, the player’s athletic scholarship was rescinded forcing her to transfer for financial reasons. She has not played another inning of college ball since.

The moral to this story? If you are lucky enough for a college coach to show interest in your kid, know that you are being observed and evaluated, too. Do yourself and your kid a big favor – let college coaches see your child instead of being obstructed, or distracted, by you. Your kid will only be recruited once in her lifetime, so let her enjoy it to the fullest. Be a window, not a door.