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Set Sights, Do The Work
by Dave
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Today I want to switch gears a little and talk about college softball recruiting a bit rather than discussing mechanical and practice issues, or getting into some arcane rule interpretation. In order to do that, I need to dispel some myths, correct what I see as mistaken impressions of a few friends, and throw some stuff at you second hand that I picked up as a result of discussions I had with people I believe to be in the know. My hopes are not that I will offer a thorough education of the process in its entirety. Rather, I hope to shoot enough buckshot at the wall to give you something you don't know, to correct a mistaken view or dispel a myth propagated by those who pretend to be in the know. I'm gonna stick to what I believe is the beaten path. I may repeat items I have written about in the past. OK, enough of that. Here goes.
Note that I refer to college recruiting not college scholarships. That is because college softball recruiting is about more than just scholarships. College recruiting is about playing college ball whether there is athletic money involved or not. Scholarships alone is a too limited view and I'll explain why in a moment. I will also state some obvious things about playing in college in order to explain why I am discuss recruiting generally and not merely focused on scholarships.
There are a finite number of college scholarships out there for softball players. D1 schools have up to 12 of these to offer. D2s have less but a fair number. D3s do not offer athletic scholarships. There are other scholarships available from junior colleges and schools not in the NCAA. But the total number is fixed and it is not a huge one when compared to the number of kids playing ball at fairly high levels and who aspire to play in college. Also note that if a school has 12 scholarships to give, it gives those to all four classes. So in any given year, a school with 12 has an average of 3 available, excluding obviously the renewal of existing ones.
Also, college athletic scholarships are often split into equivalency pieces. For example, one "scholarship" might actually be split into two or more partials, one kid getting 50%, another receiving 30% and still another getting 20%. Top, top players may get full rides but most others get partials of some percentage. I know of a baseball player who received something like 60% and then was able to cover another 10% with academic money. His family must pay 30% of the cost of attending that university. That's a far cry from 100% but each family knows what it can and cannot spend on education.
A very good softball player I know of received an offer of 50%. Often folks talk, and I know I have mentioned this before, about colleges spending their money first up the middle - pitcher, catcher, SS, CF. But that does not mean these four positions should expect full rides while the others should expect partials. That may, on the hole, represent the average but I know of players up the middle who got partials, sometimes small partials, and others not up the middle who received full or large percentage scholarships.
If you are not playing softball for one of the top 20 or so teams in the country, chances are very good that you will not obtain a full ride to play ball at Arizona, UCLA, Florida or one of the other perennial members of the top 25 D1 club. When I say top 20 teams, I mean Gold level national powerhouses. If you are playing for one of the teams in the next tier and are an impact player, you have a shot. but if your level has nothing to do with Gold, high level showcase ball, or some other recruiting animal that has a track record of placing their kids at the top schools on full ride, you have to either get yourself up into this upper echelon or set your sights on something else. If you are the number two shortstop on an ASA B team, in all likelihood, AZ is not going to be picking you up on their radar.
Secondly, if you are not really looking to get a full ride or any athletic scholarship money at all at a top 25 NCAA D1 school, if you are not even looking at D1 or D2, the field is fairly wide open but you need to set your sights and do quite a bit of work. If your goal is merely to play somewhere, you still need to look into this recruiting thing. I would not advise you to ignore the college recruiting world, choose your school, get accepted and then plan to walk on and make the team once you arrive. That is much harder than it would otherwise seem. And if, by chance, you do make the team, chances are not that great you'll ever get onto the field or up to the plate during actual games.
To prove the point about merely walking on vs. being recruited though offered no scholarship money, consider that someone who is asked to come to a party stands in at least a little better shoes than someone who invites themselves. If say a college coach with no money to offer but at a small school that has an impeccable academic record wants to field a reasonably competitive team, which most do. She has to find herself players at each of the nine positions who can actually play the game pretty well. She will attend the showcases and other recruiting events in order to find said players. She knows that her two best pitchers, catchers, or outfielders are graduating in 2010. She will attempt to entice the players she needs to fill those roles. If you happen to walk on at such a school and, for example, you are a catcher the year the school has two incoming freshman for that position, lets just say that the only icing of your catching hand you can plan on, if you are very lucky, is out in the bullpen or after practices. Besides, if a coach were to recruit kids while offering no scholarship money and then play some walk-on of approximately equal talent in front of a recruited kid, her other recruiting efforts would likely begin to shoot blanks as word of this began to spread.
I'm not saying that a college coach has a moral or other obligation to keep or play a recruited kid. I'm simply stating the obvious which is that people act in their own best interests and that includes a college coach with no money to offer who recruits kids to play on her softball team. I once had to listen to the complaints of a parent whose son tried to walk onto the baseball team at a D3 school. He was a good player. He had a good tryout. He estimated that he was better than all the other walk-ons (non-scholarship players). He didn't even get looked at. His father angrily told me that the results of the tryout had been pre-ordained. The coach knew who he was going to take before tryouts began. These were all freshman. How did the coach know about them before the tryout?!
So, recruiting is about playing, not merely about scholarships, not merely about D1 and 2, and not merely about going to those big name schools everybody with a TV set knows about. Recruiting is about playing just about any level of college ball. Recruiting is about a bigger world.
Next, college coaches do not cold call at high school games. I know I have told you this before but I find I need to mention it again because I heard someone recently claim I was wrong about this. I couldn't disabuse him of the notion so I need to vent again. Let's agree that from time to time, though rarely, a college coach will actually go watch a high school game. Chances are that such a coach will not be coming to watch your .500 team play a non-conference game against another .500 team on a cold, rainy day in May. They may go to watch a team play when a kid they are already recruiting is pitching, catching or playing SS in the state playoffs against some undefeated team who has an ace pitcher that is going to a rival school next year. In such instances, it is also likely that the college coach is visiting a sick Aunt who lives in the vicinity of your school field because she happens to be in town for a game at a nearby college tomorrow and she happens to have nothing else to do. It is conceivable that she will be impressed by a freshman catcher who throws everybody out and hits three homeruns during that game. She may make some inquiries. But she is not there to look at all the players and see if she can find a few recruits who just don't happen to play travel ball.
It is also extremely unlikely that any college coach is going to come prospect at your 16U PONY tournament in June after her team has put down their uniforms for the year. She will not be at the ASA B tournament that draws in the best town teams from at least 15 miles away. She probably won't be at the "showcase" event featuring teams from two states which occurs the same weekend something really big occurs someplace else.
As a side note, there is a fairly common misconception that kids who fly to the west coast, Florida, Colorado, etc. to play showcases are looking for full rides to PAC10, SEC, ACC, Big 10 or Big 12 schools. The assumption being that the local coaches within driving distance of my area wouldn't go out there to recruit kids. Aside from the fact that some small school located far from these showcases has an impact player from California, Florida, Texas or some other softball haven, coaches from all over the country populate these events. I know many kids who went or are going to various schools within 4 hours drive from their homes and would not have ever met them nor been recruited if they didn't make 4hour flights to be seen by the local college coach.
I have been to a few recruiting events here and there. I have seen smallish northeast schools in California and Florida, junior colleges from the deep south in New Jersey, etc., etc. I know from reviewing tournaments and showcases that there are small colleges from upstate NY who have been to big events more than a thousand miles from their schools. There are D3s from all over the country at Florida's Rising Stars showcases. There are noon-NCAA schools from the Midwest at California showcases. The point is, if you are seeking to be recruited by a small local school that does not give athletic scholarships, you may still have to travel far from home in order to get their attention. They do not restrict their recruiting efforts to an area within 4 hours drive of their schools.
To drive home the point, let's say that the best pitchers come from California or Florida. Now, assume that at a large showcase featuring 100 or more of the best teams in the country, there are 300 or more pitchers. All the D1 and 2 schools in the country cannot hope to absorb all these pitchers. But somebody will likely have some of these girls on their team. If a school of solid (decent to great) academic reputation but no athletic scholarship money can draw in one of these kids who happens to be better than anyone else pitching in their conference, do you think they might pick up such a scrap? Is that made more evident if you consider the kid needs no financial assistance and is looking to major in a subject for which the school is one of the best? What if, such a kid finds the school through her own efforts, writes to the coach requesting that she come watch her play while also telling the coach how much she wants to go to her school and why? Coaches at many and varied schools attend the big showcases. It is not merely the top 25 D1 schools who are out shopping in California, Florida, Texas, etc.
Well, that discussion involves a lot about some showcases and I don't want to go deeply into the general subject of showcase ball. I do want to firmly state that college coaches are not out watching high school games on cold calling visits looking to find prospects. They are also not just staying close to home. If you limit yourself to local high school ball or travel ball on the middle range, they are not going to find you no matter how good of a game, month, or season you have.
I think the contrary mythology has developed because, when you visit a college's web site and view news or profiles of incoming freshman and existing players, the girls' high school accomplishments are often listed while not much from travel ball is. Also, here and there folks will claim to have seen a college coach at their high school or B travel game. Many times the supposed college coach is some guy who nobody knows that came to watch his relative or friend's kid play while wearing clothing from his alma mater or a college team he follows.
I know a fellow who likes to go to local college games in various sports. When he goes, he gets "geared up" with sweatpants, sweat or t-shirt and cap sporting the school's logo. Sometimes he leaves the college event to go watch his daughter's high school sporting event. He does not change his clothes between events! He and I often have a good chuckle about how people give him the eye and watch everything he does in such instances. I sometimes find myself in these situations too! This fellow and I have joked many times about how one day we are going to put a stopwatch and clipboard, maybe radar gun, into our cars so that when this happens, we can really look like college coaches!!
I once noted some guy I was sure was from Providence (RI school) at a high school game. I knew a girl on one team playing had already verballed to that school and assumed this was the coach coming to see her play. Then later I saw him again so I asked the girl's father. He laughed and told me the man was some other kid's father and "he just loves Providence, especially their men's basketball team." On yet another occasion, I was watching some 18U travel games and saw somebody wearing college garb. I asked a parent who he was and they told me he was the uncle of one of the girls who had signed with that school. . He was so proud she had obtained a scholarship that he purchased all their clothing and wore it everywhere!
Enough about that. Now let's talk some more specific stuff for girls who are not top players for top teams playing a grueling showcase schedule against other top teams in front of huge throngs of college coaches. When you go to see showcases, clinics, etc., one thing should strike you. Some of these girls are absolutely unbelievable athletes. The remainder are pretty good but nothing all that spectacular. There are the best and then there are all the rest.
The best and all the rest principle is true at every level of play. It is true at top showcases, lower level ones, and clinics put on by colleges or others. It is pretty much true no matter where you go in the softball world. I really don't know how it is possible to distinguish between many of these kids in terms of playing abilities once you get past the obviously great players. Yet, some of the rest will get full rides to some schools. Others will get partials. Still others will be recruited and get campus jobs more easily than the rest of the kids or perhaps find certain arcane kinds of financial aid is available to them but not everyone at the school. Some will get into institutions they might not otherwise be able to achieve. Some will go to schools of their choice that provide no assistance whatsoever and become the third pitcher or back-up CF ahead of other kids of equal ability who tried to walk on without having been recruited.
So how did these kids get recruited when they do not stand out from the "all the rest" crowd? That's pretty easy, at least in concept. They figured out where they wanted to go, learned what they needed to do to gain favor, and then did the work necessary to go there while being recruited.
The first part of the equation involves choosing schools to target. When I was in high school, I had no idea where I wanted to college or what I wanted to do once I got there. That was truie right until the day I graduated and walked away from childhood. Kids need help narrowing the very large list of possible colleges because not only must they accomplish the task, it is better if they do it in say the freshman or sophomore years so they have more time to target the softball coaches.
What I would do to begin the narrowing process is to list a kid's academic strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, and potential areas for several possible careers utilizing her strengths. If you are strong in history and English comp, you should probably not target schools known mostly for their engineering programs. If a kid is very strong in math but says she wants to teach high school or something along those lines, you don't want to target Ivies or other schools that have no programs in her areas of interest.
Try to be as honest with yourselves as possible and narrow the list of schools down to the ones which might be the best fit academically, socially and otherwise. Some kids need to be at a relatively smaller school because that's her personality. When I jumped to college from high school, my HS graduating class was just over 400. The college I chose had class size of about 2,000. That was a good fit for me. My brother graduated from the same high school but he was unintimidated by large throngs. He went to a much larger school that had, I think, 10,000 or more per class. I have heard stories and seen personal instances of kids who do much better in very small setting but who went off to large state institutions and then had to leave because they just could not take it. It takes more than brains top make it at Princeton. You kinda, sorta have to fit in to the kind of people who typically go there. Very large institutions where they get 100,000 at home football games are not necessarily well suited to kids from high schools having class sizes of 100 or less. An extremely bright, borderline genius kid may not like a teaching college despite the significant athloetic money thrown at her.
There are more types of colleges than there are flavors of ice cream or ways to cook shrimp (ha, yet another Gump reference!). There are many schools out there that are possible success stories for your kid but you must pare it down to a reasonable figure focusing on schools that seem like a good fit. Once you do that, you can look to see if they have softball teams. Create a list of your schools and the reasons why they seem like a good fit.
As an aside, I would try to list out schools which are in reasonable proximity of you. You know whether you and your child enjoy 8 hour rides or not. You know if you should cross off this school or that because she does not want to commute under any circumstances and it would be silly to enroll at a school around the corner from you if she is adamant about staying on campus. By contrast, a school as close as 30 miles can still be OK for staying on campus if they provide housing for kids that close.
Choose schools that will accommodate a kid who wants to change her major from English to Biology if your kid is strong in all subjects and is perplexed about whether she wants to write the great American novel or cure cancer. If your child is strong in science but may want to be a science teacher, make sure the colleges you choose have that available.
Also, be aware of the approximate cost and available, non-athletic aid at each school on your pared down list. Add a field for these figures noting the date on which you made the note because these kinds of things can change. Some schools' costs increase more rapidly than others. Some may lose or have lost a good portion of their endowments due to bad financial times. They very possibly may cut aid in the future. You'll want to re-verify your figures as time moves forward. Generally having these figures to reference will be a good aid to your decision making process but you will need to update them next year.
Now that you have your list of schools, the reason you (your child) would like to attend each one, whether they have softball or not, and the costs associated with each, start contacting the ones which do have softball. If you are a freshman trying to get recruited for softball, there isn't much reason to contact schools that don't have the sport, at least not until you are a junior. Don't drop them off your list but there's no reason for a freshman to contact a college so early except for the purposes we are discussing.
The best ways to contact college coaches at your schools of choice are via e-mails but before you start doing this, do the following:
1) Get registered with the NCAA Clearing House at NCAA.org
2) Look for, complete and file any prospective athlete questionnaire the ionsitution has online. If you don't find such a document after much effort, go ahead and contact the coach bec ause they will probably send you one.
3) Create some sort of record-keeping method via spreadsheet or written page on which to note dates and responses of your college contacts and keep it updated as the process moves forwards.
You most likely can find an e-mail address for most of the coaches you need to contact on the University's web site. Some few have forms to use in order to e-mail coaches. &n bsp; You can write your message offline and then use the form once you are ready.
Before you send an e-mail, it would be a good idea to not see this like texting or your other e-mail correspondence. Write out what you want to say as if you are writing an essay for school. The student-athlete should write the message but parents must review the writing before it goes out. Parents who write such e-mails should go over them with their daughters and allow her to change word choice to something she is more comfortable with. The coach knows he or she is dealing with a 14 or 15 year old kid. They do not expect advanced legalize from high school kids. And they are looking to connect with the kid, not the parent. They are also seeking kids who are mature enough to handle tasks like this.
Your first e-mail communication should tell the coach some things about yourself like why you want to attend their school. You are selling (I guess almost recruiting) them. Don't simply tell them that they have a wonderful softball program or you like their logo or mascot name. Tell them you want to go there because of their academic record and the fact that they are strong in the majors you are considering. Tell them that you expect to be able to have your application for admission accepted when it comes time for that because you fit their student profile. If you have a 100 average in honors mathematics or took the PSAT early and scored very high, you can tell them that, if you think it is important to establish your bona fides academically because this school has such high standards. As I understand things, Ivy League schools will not consider girls who have not yet taken the SATs. But many softball programs obviously will actively recruit kids who seem to have their academic houses in order long before they sit for entrance exams.
If you are going to play some showcases and suspect that the college coaches you are writing to may be in attendance, I strongly suggest that either in this first e-mail or in another sent shortly thereafter, you draw attention to the coach that you will be playing. Provide them with more than your name, the team name, and your uniform number. If you have a copy of your schedule, send them that, including times, places, and opponents. Let them know if your coach is amenable to putting girls into the lineup to allow college coaches the opportunity to see them. Some coaches are not and I suggest you get away from them since showcase ball is about, um, showcasing, not winning. If your coach finds it perfectly acceptable to be asked to put a player in just for the coaches, invite the coach to inquire if he or she does not see you on the field.
As an aside, I am rather serious about getting away from showcase coaches who won't put you in, maybe even get offended, when college coaches ask to see you. This is no way to coach a showcase team. Folks who cannot accommodate such requests should find another hobby. I recognize that there are many coaches out there who are like this. I just don't understand it. There are times when a team must show that it can play competitively to remain in a showcase in following years or to hold onto good field placement. But coaches on teams charging perhaps thousands of dollars, which deprive you of the opportunity of being seen when college coaches ask, should be avoided. Better yet, make sure everyone in your area knows that the ultra-expensive team repeatedly turned down college requests. They soon won't have a team to play and that should open the field up for another, more well run one.
At this particular juncture, I would like to raise a subject which relates to the topic and which I found rather interesting. I recently attended a brief recruiting seminar conducted by an organization promoting a new tool for aspiring college softball recruits. When I first heard about the tool, I must admit that I was not optimistic. I felt it was just a web site for putting video tapes and opther information online at a cost, a cost I was not willing to pay. I believed it was put together by some local coaches in order to make money from college softball recruiting. My understanding, if you can call it that, was corrected at the seminar.
The web site is Fastpitch Online Showcase (http://fastpitchonlineshowcase.com). The organization which runs the site held a "college showcase" event which was run like many of the camps and combines. Players performed certain drills, pitchers pitched under the radar gun, catchers popped under the stopwatch, hitters hit, all while being videotaped. The tape of the "showcase" in its entirety is being placed online for college coaches to view for the next month. Folks involved in the showcase suggested, though never stated, that a bunch of college coaches would be in attendance. I signed my daughter up purely to get the experience of participating in a combine setting, not to get in front of college coaches. Some folks made public inquiries as to whether there would be coaches actually in attendance or not. They rightly suspected that there would be few. I believe there were 4 or 5 actually on site.
But this thing was not some local get-rich-quick or fundraising scheme. And it was not intended to draw in tons of coaches. It was really intended as a sort of introduction to this new service. And, at least on the surface, these service, the web site, and the costs associated with it, would appear to be very reasonable. The idea in everything we have said up to this point is, most of the girls aspiring to be recruited for softball need to make connection with coaches and get the coaches out to see them play. This service is designed for that purpose. They have a database of schools and the e-mail contact info for those schools' coaches. The site itself offers up space to hold and present a fixed number of videos to use in order to draw the coaches in. They provide guidance on how to go about making connections with the coaches. They also can videotape players to make recruiting tapes to place on the web site.
I'm going to leave it at that because i want you to do your own homework on http://fastpitchonlineshowcase.com. As of this writing, I am not subscribed to the service and I am not making any sort of income from mentioning it. I merely came upon it and want to bring it to your attention for further investigation. if you do subscribe and have positive or negative feedback, I invite you share it with me.
So the idea is to develop a list of schools and then contact the college coaches. make this a personal message. Don't write some canned message and then personalize it with a "Go Fightin' Randoms" phrase thrown in to convince the coach that you have school spirit. if they have a beautiful campus and everybody knows that, tell the coach that you know that. if their engineering program is world renowned let the coach know that is why you want to go there. A college professor once told me that everybody has some one thing good about themselves. At times, with certain people, I have come to doubt that. But when one is courting another, it is customary to offer a compliment or flattery of reasonable measure in order to win them over. On the other hand, canned "lines" usually end up getting you soaked by a thrown drink. Be smart. Otherwise, maybe college is not for you!
If you have a video, I suppose you could mail it to the coach. Video is a great way to show your skill level. But the guy or gal making the decisions usually does not view every softball tape that the school receives. If someone is viewing it, it is probably an assistant chosen to screen such things before the head coach wastes their time. Your tape may very well end up in a box on the floor. The actual physical videos can be rather expensive when you have to send out 20 or more of them. It may be unproductive and inefficient to send hard copies. Instead, many kids today put their vids on Youtube or other types of web sites. That can be much more efficient assuming you can get coaches to go and watch it. That is really what the previously mentioned web site is all about and I agree with their premises on this. They believe it would be far more productive to place your vid where other softballers have theirs. It is hard to refute that logic.
Either in your first e-mail correspondence with the coach or in subsequent ones, it would be good to send along a link to your videos. This way the coach can quickly determine if there is any chance that you are a prospect. They probably won't come right out and say anything since their communication to you is very limited. Don't take it one way or the other if you don't hear back from them regarding your video. Instead, keep reminding them of it and you by e-mailing them once every month or something like that. An remember that the objective is to get them out to see you in person. So, if you are going to attend a showcase, one of the NFCA recruitment camps, or some such, write them with your schedule, etc., invite them to come watch you, and remind them about your video. If they come out and see you, you have succeeded. If they don't, ask again next time. You aren't badgering them unless they have somehow communicated that you are wasting your time. E-mails are easy to delete. Addresses can be presorted into junk or other folders. It is not as if you are calling them each day as they walk into their office or get up to leave for lunch. It is just an e-mail. It can be removed with one click of the mouse. And, if you are e-mailing a link to your video, you are not junking up their small office or desk area with something which merely collects dust and must be cleaned after they get over their bout with the swine flu.
In summary, evaluate your station in life - your place on the rungs of the softball ladder. Select a list of schools that fit you on a number of levels. Contact the coaches and do so repeatedly, preferably by e-mail. Get them to come out and see you. Be on your best behavior and show them what sort of person, student, and teammate you are. And once you have done this successfully, be wide awake for any clues as to interest level they provide you.
If you have asked a coach to come and watch you, she does, and she invites you to a clinic, go to it. If you invite her and she comes and then you invite her again and she comes, there's a good chance she saw something in you - assuming there is not some other kid doing the same and she is really there to see them. If she invites you to a clinic, there are 80 other kids there all of whom play your position, two of these are called over to a station where the coach watches them closely while you are not, most likely she is not interested. That doesn't mean you should stop recruiting her. But it may be your clue that perhaps you should not get your hopes up and perhaps should look in other directions. In some cases, coaches at these clinics will tell a kid outright that she does not fit the profile they are looking for. In many cases in which kids are singled out for closer looks, coaches do not communicate their interest immediately or directly. You have to read between the lines some. The process can be disconcerting but that's the way the real world is. You can try directly communicating with the coach and asking outright whether she has any interest. But I'm not sure this is the right way to go about things.
The one thing perhaps you should avoid once you begin walking the path is any direct questions about athletic scholarships. You should already know whether the school gives any athletic money. You should also have gained an understanding of the sort of kids they recruit. If you are likely to merely be a pre-arranged "walk-on," you probably can gauge that for yourself. You can ask coaches about financial aid questions without bringing up athletic money. They may or may not respond with direct answers to your direct questions. Everybody is different. But as with courtship, the idea is to engender interest before we get down to prenups.
OK, so that's what I have to tell you today. I hope there is something in it which you have not considered before. When I take the time to go to a tournament or seminar, my hopes are that one thing stands out as a take-away. I threw a lot of stuff up in order to hopefully get you one thing you didn;t know or correct something you had wrong. I'm not an expert. I am merely a person like you who is interested in sharing what I learn. I hope you got something out of this. If you already heard everything I had to say, sorry to have wasted your time. If you have something to add, write me. Just please don;ty write me stories about how some kid got discovered and erose to be the ace pitcher for Arizona when the coach there read about her in the paper or saw her at a high school game. I don't want anecdotal exceptions. I want some principles others can follow.Labels: college, parents, showcase
 
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