Some exciting threads in this forum as 2018's and 2019's get offered opportunities to play at the next level.
As opportunities are evaluated, I wanted to highlight something that my boys (and me and my wife) gave very little thought to during the recruiting and committing processes. College coaches change jobs. It's obvious that they would...we just didn't give it much thought at the time.
My oldest son's pitching coach just called him. The coach is leaving for another opportunity. He recruited my son hard during the transfer process. My son loves the guy and is a key reason my son is at this school. They had a nice year together, but he's gone now. My guy is bummed out on the eve of returning to campus. Ugh.
When my youngest was at Headfirst in the Summer of 2015, he really connected with one recruiting coordinator. That RC was gone by late Fall 2015 after my son committed to his school. The Head Coach was gone by June 2016. All new coaching staff when my son arrived last Fall. It was very upsetting to my son and completely unexpected by us.
It's often said to pick a college even if baseball wasn't in the mix. That's impossible to do for a kid going off to play college baseball.
And it's very difficult for a player to separate the RC and HC when evaluating schools. Of course they'll have a huge influence on the player's perspective of a school! But they will likely change...
Almost all of the things being evaluated when trying to select a college are pretty stable. A school's location doesn't change. The physical buildings of a campus change some or maybe not at all. The baseball field and workout facilities might change a little bit. The majors and minors offered by the school don't change too much. The size of the student body is pretty stable. The profile of student's admitted is pretty similar each year. Career services is what it is. Ditto the dining hall, student center, dorms...maybe some changes, but not too much over 4 years.
The team's roster will change every year.
And it's very likely that one or more coaches will change.
My only caution for those going through the process is to not overly weight the coaching staff relative to all the aspects that can go into selecting a school.