Parents' Guidelines For Baseball & Softball College Recruiting
What every parent needs to know about the recruiting process and services and teams who prey on your anxiety.
Follow these three simple guidelines and you will save yourself and your child's college account big dollars!
1. Academics rule.
For every dollar you are paying for these overpriced exposure travel teams, spend the same amount on an SAT tutor or a math/English tutor.
Your child doesn’t have to be a high honor roll student to receive significant amount of academic dollars from colleges. If you need to spend money, make sure your child's individual skills are moving in the right direction and colleges that eventually fit his/her academic profile are impressed.
Baseball and Softball is a team sport premised on individual skills. When it is time for your child to be seen by colleges - or better yet register for a camp at the college you may be interested- it's all about arm action and arm strength, hitting and overall athleticism. The radar gun for the pitchers and the catcher's POP time will determine what level your child can play at, so don’t worry about traveling the world to have schools that you have no interest in watch your child play!
2. Your son or daughter should be their own best spokesperson!
Coaches want to hear from the student, not mom or dad or the high school coach. Introductory e-mails and eventually calls made by the student to the coaching staff gets results. Proactive students who have the level of talent FOR that particular school is the magic formula. Make sure more than one coach or instructor tells you how great your son's hitting is before believing he is the next Mickey Mantle.
3. There's a college baseball and softball program for every student.
Division 1 sports is great but it is not for everyone, both in skill level and time. Be realistic in your child's college choices and realize the degree he/she receives after college graduation will be far more important than his/her batting average and RBI's!
Don’t dismiss the wonderful college baseball and softball program that are not Division 1 but have academic, athletic and financial aid and playing time opportunities that may be a great fit for your child.
