Notre Dame Prospects Camp

This doesn't have anything to do with the camp, but I met the head coach from notre dame yesterday at a tournament up here in the nw and found him to be a great guy that definitely knows what he is talking about. Not sure what grade you me son is in, but he did mention they were done looking at the 2018 class and have moved on to 2019 and 2020.

PNW,  if you don't mind sharing, What event were you at?

Baseball northwest senior northwest championships (2018-2020 grads). I have graduated but was watching some friends and was watching a game when he sat by me before we talked for about half an hour. 

pnw2017 posted:

but he did mention they were done looking at the 2018 class and have moved on to 2019 and 2020.

That's funny....He certainly didn't mention this in the the recent camp invite he sent my 2018?

pnw2017 posted:

This doesn't have anything to do with the camp, but I met the head coach from notre dame yesterday at a tournament up here in the nw and found him to be a great guy that definitely knows what he is talking about. Not sure what grade you me son is in, but he did mention they were done looking at the 2018 class and have moved on to 2019 and 2020.

That helps though, thanks.  My Kid is a 2021

It is a 3 day camp.  Their website isn't big on specifics though

The natives (alumni...me included) are restless with Coach Aoki.  He's had talent, including this year's draftees.  But he's not delivered.  Perhaps the move to the ACC has given him a slightly longer leash.  Perhaps our AD is weak (see the continued employment of Brian Kelly as an example).  I may be wrong, but another year as a bottom feeder and he could/should be gone.

Notre Dame is done with 2018's for sure.

Regarding the OP's question, it's a college camp that is similar to most college camps.  If you're looking for camp experience for your player and some instruction and the $ are burning a hole in your pocket and South Bend is a family vacation setting, then this one could fit the bill.  We didn't find it different than other camps.

Thanks Branson.  Typical combo of both instruction and game play?

Any other college camps that you would recommend or that you liked better?  

It was showcase, instruction, and games.

My guys did a couple college specific camps. These are primarily money makers for staff members.  While ND was recruiting my oldest, we really did the college camps very early in the process for the showcase experience in a low cost, off the radar setting.  UCSB out here fit the bill perfectly for that as it was about $100  

For instruction, we really liked Doyle in Florida which is not a college camp but is purely instruction and games  

Later in the process, my oldest did "college " camps at a specific school only if multiple schools from his vetted list were there, e.g., Harvard winter camp  

Branson Baseball posted:

The natives (alumni...me included) are restless with Coach Aoki.  He's had talent, including this year's draftees.  But he's not delivered.  Perhaps the move to the ACC has given him a slightly longer leash.  Perhaps our AD is weak (see the continued employment of Brian Kelly as an example).  I may be wrong, but another year as a bottom feeder and he could/should be gone.

Notre Dame is done with 2018's for sure.

Regarding the OP's question, it's a college camp that is similar to most college camps.  If you're looking for camp experience for your player and some instruction and the $ are burning a hole in your pocket and South Bend is a family vacation setting, then this one could fit the bill.  We didn't find it different than other camps.

 

I've seen Aoki during two camps the past 18 months.  What I saw was a guy resting on previous successes.  Absolutely zero engagement with athletes lighting up his special invite Pitcher.  (Yea, my son lit his prospect up twice, threw gas from SS and not nary a word).  Aoki was consistently engaged with coffee or donuts.  Complete joke to the program, and if I was a baseball alum he would have heard it.  Seriously, it wasn't even just him directly, it was the lack of leadership to his staff and current players.  Being at the camp was a joke.

They think they are the cats meow. Go Air Force.

Edit: I live in Chicago, love the fighting Irish, but to see this and be a baseball guy, with a kid that would prefer to play for Irish vs my Air Force was really disappointing.

I second Gov's take.  My 2017 went to the ND camp the Summer of 2016. Aoki walked around behind the home plate screen talking to his other coaches, talking to some people in the stands, etc.  He showed little to no interest to what the players on the field were doing.  I got the perception that even though there were 150+ kids at camp, he thought none of them would be good enough to play at Notre Dame.  The worst was on the final day, when all of the kids were brought back together, Aoki was nowhere to be found to thank the kids for coming, encourage them, etc.  It was the only college camp my 2017 attended where I saw so little of the head coach to make it obvious that this was nothing more than a money maker for the school and assistant coaches.  Then when 2017 never got any feedback weeks after the camp, he had to chase down an assistant who apologized that they overlooked it.  Just a bad experience all around.

I guess Notre Dame can get away with that approach, but I would not recommend it when there are so many other schools with more reasonably priced camps where the HC is actually engaged and a part of the camp.  Many of them may have already chosen their recruits elsewhere, but at least they made the effort to participate in the camp.

Interesting experiences at ND camp.  So, I'll contrast that with another ACC program camp.....UVA.  

My son attended a UVA camp when he was a high school sophomore back in 2007.  Coach O'Connor sat everybody down and spoke to the kids up close and personal.   It was a large crowd, but my son said he really felt like the Coach was talking to him.  He explained what the various stations would be doing and what he is looking for out of the campers.   He further explained that he has recruited from these camps but it is only one or two players per class....clearly setting expectations.    He introduced all the coaches from the various schools that would be running the skills stations and their backgrounds.  From this introduction, my son was able to connect with a PC from a school that would later recruit him and also later see him pitch against them in conference play for 4 years.  Coach O'Connor visited every station to make sure his camp was going smooth and to check on the campers.   At various times, he would make comments or suggestions.

So, this is the way a camp should be run and you can tell Coach O'Connor is a very detailed person.   He runs his camps the same way he runs his ACC program.....successfully and fully engaged.

Coach O'Connor was previously at Notre Dame.  We'd like him back as Head Coach.

I won't pile on Aoki any more than to say the recruiting of my son, who would have crawled to ND from California, was a complete cluster f$%#.  The haphazard and ridiculous communication and then the disbelief when my son went elsewhere. 

Jack $awbuck$, our illustrious AD, won't pull the trigger, but hopefully his successor will.

From my recall, other than when UNLV changed coaches and the HSBBW had a lengthy thread with many comments on the backlash from cutting nearly every player and those with an NLI, this is the very first thread which trashes a college coach, by name, and  for, what I view to be  very subjective  reasons. This thread is unlike the thread on the coaching change debacle  at UNLV. 

Personally, I think it is a shame.

My sincere apologies to all.  I should have kept my comments specific to the prospect camp.

infielddad posted:

From my recall, other than when UNLV changed coaches and the HSBBW had a lengthy thread with many comments on the backlash from cutting nearly every player and those with an NLI, this is the very first thread which trashes a college coach, by name, and  for, what I view to be  very subjective  reasons. This thread is unlike the thread on the coaching change debacle  at UNLV. 

Personally, I think it is a shame.

But it sounds like parents who are footing the bill for these camps don't feel it's a shame, they feel it is a sham. Let's face it, funding a college coach or three is what these camps are about, and they do it on the dreams of the kids who either think they may get noticed at these camps, or in my son's case someone who travels sometimes thousands of miles at great expense because a coach asked their travel team coach to see if they would come. When you get that interest as an underclassman from a program through your club team, it makes you feel it is genuine interest. Then you show up and they have no idea who you are...then you realize you just paid  ton of money for travel, lodging and food to put a few hundred dollars into a college program's budget. That is a shame, infield dad.

My advice to college coaches everywhere, don't contact a player either directly or through their travel ball coaches to come to a college camp unless you are at least will to say "hello, thanks for coming, we are glad you are giving us the chance to get a better look at you" to the kid. I have several friends now who are so sick of this college camp money grab that they are no longer going to attend any...and I am in that group. 

SanDiegoRealist posted:

infielddad posted:

From my recall, other than when UNLV changed coaches and the HSBBW had a lengthy thread with many comments on the backlash from cutting nearly every player and those with an NLI, this is the very first thread which trashes a college coach, by name, and  for, what I view to be  very subjective  reasons. This thread is unlike the thread on the coaching change debacle  at UNLV. 

Personally, I think it is a shame.

But it sounds like parents who are footing the bill for these camps don't feel it's a shame, they feel it is a sham. Let's face it, funding a college coach or three is what these camps are about, and they do it on the dreams of the kids who either think they may get noticed at these camps, or in my son's case someone who travels sometimes thousands of miles at great expense because a coach asked their travel team coach to see if they would come. When you get that interest as an underclassman from a program through your club team, it makes you feel it is genuine interest. Then you show up and they have no idea who you are...then you realize you just paid  ton of money for travel, lodging and food to put a few hundred dollars into a college program's budget. That is a shame, infield dad.

My advice to college coaches everywhere, don't contact a player either directly or through their travel ball coaches to come to a college camp unless you are at least will to say "hello, thanks for coming, we are glad you are giving us the chance to get a better look at you" to the kid. I have several friends now who are so sick of this college camp money grab that they are no longer going to attend any...and I am in that group. 

I am in that group too.

SDR, I have no particular issue with an assessment of the Camp.

You recently wrote in glowing terms of HeadFirst and not so much glowing about Stanford.

At no time did you drag individual coaches and names into the assessments, especially as it relates to the Stanford Camp. Your perspectives were subjective and personal (as they related to the experience and reception of your son).  But they focused on facts about each Camp (with the plus side you saw for your son and the downside you saw for him rather than naming specific coaches and how they may have interacted in a positive way or negative way through the camp process. )That is what this site is all about.

In my view, this thread went way beyond the camp. This thread  got very personal about the coach.

Personally, I think it is nuts to continually read about the $$$$ parents are spending with the "vision"  of getting their son recruited to a likely 25% (probably less in the vast majority of situations). In most situations, even the 25% is not guaranteed and in at least 1/3 of the situations, the 25% is gone after one year and so is the player.

Some parents want to revile in the process in which they all appear to be willing "victims," I don't have a big issue in them posting about their "angst" with the process while they fork over the $$$$.  My view is your comments have in focus one of the "culprits" and you give them a pass.

This site has never been a place for  critical comments of a specific coach of the type provided in this thread, including  advocating for that specific college coach to be fired (until now).

I think, personally, this is a bad day for the HSBBW if this now sets the bar for what is permissible posting.

Just for poops and giggles.  What do you think it's like for the college coaches that run these camps?  Ask yourself this question.  Will your son stand out in a crowd of 100 good HS varsity players?  Will it be obvious that he is the best player on the field?  If you can't answer that question confidently with a loud YES than the chances that he gets much of any attention at a college camp is very slim.  That is the quality of player a top D1 is looking for.  

From our family's perspective, a college camp is about having a fun Baseball experience and getting a chance to learn directly from college coaches and play on a college field.   Learn in some drills and get some innings of live playing action.

In my opinion (and I reserve the right to change my mind!) for an underclassman many (but not all) College Camps might be a better use of money than many (but not all) Travel Team tournaments.   At least you are getting instruction and drills along with game time and presumably, you'll get to play defense at your favorite position at the camp, too

For those who attend camps strictly to try to get a commitment I can understand the stress involved and the expectations.  Maybe I'm just weird but that wouldn't be our approach