fenwaysouth posted:Smitty28 posted:My kids had interviews as part of the college application process that had nothing to do with athletics. If they weren't able to carry on an insightful conversation with an adult this wouldn't have gone well.
+1.
It is like anything young people are just learning...it takes practice, some patience and time. My son was very introverted, but he learned that he MUST speak to coaches and he MUST speak to interviewers if he wants to be selected and offered...it is as clear cut as that.
The experienced interviewers know what buttons to push to get them talking. My son and I were at his first dream school (a local D1) and the RC asked him about his pitches and grips. So, he is going through all his pitches and grips. The topic of a knuckleball came up, and my kid is rambling on about the physics of a knuckleball and he just wrote a high school paper about it...yada yada yada. What he didn't know was the HC could hear the whole conversation in the next door office. The HC came in and joined the conversation as he was a former college and professional pitcher. This conversation (as part of an un-official visit) lasted a long time. As the parent, my job was to just blend into the background.
College interviews are a little different. My son's college interview was less about the college and more about him. Understanding his passions and goals. Again, the (admissions) interviewer was experienced and was able to get my son to talk about himself probably more than he was comfortable with. There were no baseball questions. This was the feedback I got after the interview
If your kid is blessed to get questionnaires from MLB teams they better get ready to answer questions of all kinds. And most will be adamant that it has to be answered by the player. I made mine fill out these with very little help from me. I was aware that many times the scout will bring the questions with them for home interviews and ask the kid the questions again to see if they get the same answers. When I tell you they are tough questions, many of them are very tough for a 17-18 year old to answer