Chico Escuela posted:
I've been involved in a few threads here on camps... but I still feel like I'm missing something, because I don't really get how camps could be a major element of recruiting.
Timing, targeting and cost all seem to weigh against them. If XYZ University is recruiting your kid, is nearby and their camp happens to be on a weekend when your son hasn't already committed to play with his travel team--then sure, why not? But mostly the camp invites don't seem like useful recruiting tools to me.
Coaches recognize that players have pretty crowded schedules, which is one of the reasons that you see so many camps scheduled in the late fall and over the holidays. They also tend to value the attendance of a player who fits their program's profile when it's known that the player is missing one of his team's events in order to be there.
Without getting into semantics over terms like "major," I think the coaches tend to view camps as an important piece of the recruiting equation because they genuinely want to see those players who have done enough due diligence of their own to come to the conclusion that there may be a real fit for them with both the program and the school. In those instances, camps are viewed as a valuable means of giving the players an opportunity to validate their opinion of fit and the coaches a deeper knowledge of the player; both on and off the field. Because of this, it's not unusual to find that a material percentage of a college program's players attended one or more of that school's camps.