@Francis7 posted:THE FOLLOWING ASSUMES THAT EVERYTHING ELSE BESIDES BASEBALL CHECKS OUT - You like the school, they have your major, you are comfortable on the campus and all the financials are not any issue. The only questions that remain are about the baseball program.
To me, there (below) are the top 3 things you need to consider. Am I off and missing anything?
1. You only get 4 years of eligibility. Go somewhere that gives you a chance to compete for playing time as soon as possible. Don't go to a school where you might start to get a chance to play in your junior year because then you have wasted 50% of your eligibility.
2. Choose a successful program. Playing for a team who is lucky to win 15 games a year gets old in a hurry. Baseball is more fun when you are winning or at least have a chance to win most of the time.
3. Play for a coach that you respect and admire. Don't go to a school where you are not sure if you will get along with the coach. Worst thing to do is have a job where you don't like your boss.
Francis - Good question in my opinion. You've got the "big hitters" covered in your first paragraph. As for the rest:
1) It depends what your goal at the end of the 4-5 years is. If you want to be a professional baseball player than this becomes really, really important and a lot of it will depend on the talent level of the program. Many freshmen compete for playing time but very few players will actually earn playing time. As you know, those freshmen starting numbers decrease significantly as you move up the talent hierarchy. If your son knows he won't be a professional baseball player, and he has a demanding major then I think it becomes important to put a value on his time. My son loves baseball but he wasn't going to "sacrifice" 20-40 hours per week (depending on the season) to sit on a bench where it could be spent studying for a demanding major. He was very sensitive to this topic when he chose the school. So, if he wasn't going to be in the rotation by sophomore year he was going to consider his options. That didn't happen, but it was something very top of mind for him.
2) I disagree. In actuality, my son had a lot more opportunities to play in his 4 years because the team was never a perennial winner. His team did win their conference one year and go to the NCAAs, and he was a big part of their success. Some years the stars align with the right team chemistry. Team winning history was not of major importance to my son.
3) More important than the HC's respect and admiration is your son's chemistry with his position coach and the philosphy around strength, conditioning and nutrition. My son's PC and Strength & Conditioning coaches had a far greater influence on his performance and improvement than anything else during his 4 years. The HC is filling out a lineup, talking to the PC and Hitting Coaches, and bringing money into the program. HC has final say on recruitment, but after that he had bigger "fish to fry" with the entire program.
Good luck!