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Reply to "Headfirst vs Showball"

The October Duke camp had coaches from 8 or 10 schools, which was great; but most were D2 and D3 schools and not high-academic, so not likely a match for kids aiming for Duke.

My son was a rising sophomore and not throwing 95 mph, so I can’t say how Duke treated kids it was actually recruiting. Kids were divided into teams and a coach assigned to each. My son’s team’s coach was from a N Carolina D2.  My son liked his coach, but he wasn’t from a school son is interested in.

Duke coaches were watching every game, as were coaches from other schools. They were writing down radar gun readings for the Ps, but didn’t tell my son (or any others, so far as I know) what the readings were.

In October there were rising 9th graders who weighed about 90 lbs pitching to 6’2” HS upperclassmen (and vice versa), so it’s a mixed bag. My son said he didn’t get any useful coaching feedback, but it may be he just didn’t want to talk with me about it. And it rained, which eliminated some games/activities.

Camp was well run and fun. I think it was good to let my son play in a showcase-type environment for college coaches before he does the real thing. The players did timed runs, etc., but they didn’t get any kind of report on their results.  

If a Duke coach personally requests that your kid attend, then it might have some recruiting value. Otherwise, it’s a fun weekend, your son might learn a few things and can see a Power 5 team’s baseball facilities and also view a bit of the Duke campus...  It was worth the $250 or so we paid to do it once, but I probably wouldn’t do it again unless at a much smaller school that my son was targeting or a school that asked to see him at their camp. 

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