Coach
We come from different frames of reference and from that I learn every day. In this little corner of the baseball world the summer/fall coaches are more or less career baseball men, more often full time area scouts or associate scouts. They are usually professionals, and the minority are just dads. I'll use Chet Lemon as an example, whose teams regularly place near the top at Jupiter, East Cobb, Junior Olympics, etc. I count a half dozen others of less note than Chet, yet still career baseball people, coaching high school age kids in Florida, year after year after year, regardless of their offspring.
In this high growth part of the world, rare is the veteran high school coach who can or will assist in recruiting. There are simply not enough experienced guys coaching high school to go around. The turnover in high school teaching, a common prereq for coaching, is very high, in general, especially when they can make three times the income sitting in a model home selling houses 40 hours a week. Round here it's very common to be head coached by a mid 20's guy in his first or second year. Usually their idea of recruiting assistance is suggesting a vist to their alma mater of 800 students in Haystack, Kansas, Possum Nest, Tennessee, or somewhere.
I would much prefer a grey beard high school coach on a first name basis with the college coaches around here. Just wasn't that lucky.
EDIT: I forgot Chet actually coaches a high school team in the spring and won a state title in 2004. Probably not the best example of the less qualified recruiting authority in high school.
Given relative inconsistancies of the recruiting landscape across the country kids and their folks should utilize assets at their disposal and learn to differentiate between an asset and a liability. jmo