Skip to main content

Reply to "What to ask?"

Asking the above questions are important.  A crucial one is, how familiar is he with placing players at different levels (D1, D2, D3, NAIA, Juco, etc.), and will he give you an unbiased assessment of which level your son belongs, and will he explain and be honest about college recruiting?

You didn't say how old your son is.  But, I agree with Gunner Mack.  One thing I noticed through our years of travel/showcase was that, especially at 16U, people got upset when they thought the coach/organization was not promoting their players.  But, they didn't understand that their players did not have the measurables to be of interest to D1 coaches, and the other level schools were not really recruiting at 16U.  Our organization had a lot of players, the program head did promote them appropriately when it was time - after all, it was good for them to have as many committed kids as possible.  But, they never explained to us how it worked, when different types of schools recruited, that's what led to frustration.

It's always the best thing if your player plays against good competition, so you need to ask which tournaments it will play.  But, also be aware that while WWBA and other equivalent tournaments are a lot of fun, at 16U and even 17U it can be a lot of money spent (7 days in Georgia!) for little result if your son (a) is not a D1-level player, or (b) plans to go to school close to home.  It is definitely good competition, but go into it with that in mind, rather than that he will necessarily be exposed to relevant schools there.

My son played in one organization through high school; some teams were better run than others.  Here are some issues that people had at various times; I don't know what questions one can ask to avoid them, but this is the kind of thing that goes on.  A lot of it has to do with poor communication between the coach and players/parents about how things are going to be run:

- player thinks he's the greatest, but is platooned with another at main position, doesn't like it, quit the team mid-summer

- player almost never plays (2 at bats or 1 inning pitched in a weekend) - it's a showcase team, you are paying all that money, for travel and hotels, quit the team mid-summer

- coach's son plays every inning, but other players don't - some of those who play the same position and get very little time quit mid-summer

- main coach is not a parent, but who are the 1st-base and dugout coaches?  yep, parents.  Sometimes they disagreed with main coach and things got messy; sometimes it seemed like daddy-ball without the name

My general feeling about dad-coaches is that if their son is the best player on the team then they will probably be a "good" coach in whatever ways matter at the time (winning, or fairly rotating players, or showcasing players, whatever it is), whereas if their son is not the best player, then they are somehow less good as a coach for everyone.  And that was with 2 sons who played rec ball, as well as the one who played travel!

×
×
×
×