A dose of reality.....

quote:

the “wonderful” part is a very random occurrence.

\i totally agree ! My son's experience was magical and a year after graduation , continues to be !
For us it was never about just BB. It was always about the experience and continues to be about the experience! He works for a large International marketing company and has had a huge promotion to a senior position and 2 awards after only 5 months. My wife and I are in shock at his rapid rise in the company !To us it is more exciting than everything he did in BB because this is reality !
His BB work ethic has served him well and as I have said no one cared about his college school but they all asked about the experience of playing D! in the South !
As to attrition of ball players, many reasons exist ! I saw excellent ball players leave due to marks, personal conflicts, running out of money and just being cut !One pitcher who was cut went on to have a great experience at a D11 and was drafted ! That also is reality ! My son has not picked up a BB since his final game 1.5 years ago. He even turned down a job with the Toronto Blue Jays coaching a team they sponsored ! The guy who offered him the job has since lost his job in cost cutting !
Reality is all around us and choices you make are always a risk !

Notlong,

Sounds like your son is willing to take opportunity and make it happen.Sounds like he undertstands the process, and that you yourself are not expecting him to walk on as a frosh and see significant playtime.(not that it cant happen, esp for a good pitcher)

Many of these young men have battled to get there as well.Development is key and one of the things I hope you do find for your son.


EVERY player will struggle at times, and as tough as your kid is, it isnt easy when it happens.

I wish your son the best, it can be a lot of fun for both the boys and the parents.

College baseball is a unique opportunity, and one that will stretch your son in ways you cant begin to imagine until you have beenthrough it.

We felt the same as you did about our path.My son wouldnt change it either, but I am not sure if I would.Thats just my mind reflecting on things missed out on from a moms perspective.

I know baseball has done and will do wondeful things for my son, but I sometimes ponder alternatives.

I am not sure I get spending 40-50K on securing a D1 scholarship. I just think there are some things you should do and other things you don't, regardless of where you live.


Not,
You ought to get together with BHD, who claims he sent videos out to coaches and also lays claim that his son got fabulous offers from that exposure, without spending lots of money and had one of the largest scholarships on his college team.

see the realty aspect s more a parent related problem than a player prblem. all too many prents wear rosecolored glasses with regard to college baseballit has been my experience with my own sons and our players that most of the players go in with eyes wide open' and come out of the experience as mature young men

Hi Fan, good to see you post. I see your son is playing regularly. Is he staying healthy?

I am so glad that you started this threat, Flying Dutchman. Just last week I was talking to some folks about the same issue. My oldest son also played for some elite teams. Many became good friends of my son, and their parent became friends of ours as well. I bookmarked their baseball roster and stat pages last year for about 8 of them, many of them playing at some good baseball schools.

A few weeks ago I pulled up the links to check and besides my son only 2 of the 8 are on the roster their sophmore year. Most got little playing time last year, maybe somewhere between 10 and 20 at bats.

I plan to find the roster for our 16U & 17U team and do a similar review. The players I bookmarked were some of the better players on the team.

The reasons expressed that many kids quit playing or transfer after their freshman year is an important lesson for parents & players to understand.

PUHD,

Yes hes getting back into the swing of things.LOL

Doing well, healthy, finishing up second semester of his junior year at a great school.Degree next year YIPEEEEE!!!!

Baseball is starting rough for USC.Hope it turns around.5 losses by one run, with runer on third and cant score him.UGHHHH

Hope all is well for your son.Next year hes off and running to his new D1 destination.I bet your getting excited.

I can say this I have just seen so many outstanding ball players that it blows my mind.Sooo many really, really good players.Make just outstanding defensive plays,pitching is outstanding.Just a lot of good players out there.

Fullertons pitching is really, really good.They pound the strike zone and they can hit the black with all their pitches.best pitching staff I have seen yet, with UCLA right there as well.

Tough stuff. Fun to watch.I am just amazed at the talent levels.It is quite an eye opener.

Hi TPM:

BHD emailed me and we've been PM'inghere and there since 2006.

His son did play for a team way back then for little money that is now somewhere between $5K and $7K.

There was an article on PG about our 18U team back in October - it said something like they were on the road 90 days a year. That's where a lot of the money goes. At 6 am tomorrow, 3 highway coaches leave with five teams for Vero. The program goes where the competitive baseball is played - in the south. As soon as your high school season ends, our program drops everything it's doing here, and they are on the buses.

I may complain about the burden of the cost but, I know why it's there. These are fairly well-planned events with games along the way - it's a system now. In truth, it is a pretty unique life experience even at this level - a taste of the minor leagues maybe.

Last night, we drove an hour each way through some pretty messy weather with partial white-outs for this session:

http://s910.photobucket.com/al...current=P1030836.mp4

Some of the pitchers in this video will arrive at 8:00 a.m. Saturday and take the hill at 10:00 a.m. in their first game after a 20 hour bus ride.

There have been times already after a night like last night where my son got home at 11:00 and worked on homework until 12:30. I gave him a six hour window to sleep and then prepared him for a morning test. Stuff he didn't think he could do at one time...

Not,

One can only imagine the sacrifces and cost to play baseball for Canadians. Your costs are unimagineable compared to the training and exposure we get locally to be able to play after highschool. I suspect if my son had wanted to play hockey our roles would be reversed. In Texas there are several Jucos with pipelines to Canadian Athletes. At their peak U of H which is re-building now actively sought players ( Jesse Crain with the Whitesox for example ). We're also starting see players from Austrailia.

Many Canadians who I knew personally, played in Texas colleges ! In fact Texas colleges used to recruit here from certain teams. I advise Canadians to check out elite teams to see where their players signed for the last few years . That gives you a good idea where to play ! When my son played there were approx 850 guys playing US college ball of some sort.
I kept our cost down by not doing showcases and relying a DVD campaign .

TDad

Your post brings to mind a Texas hockey team that we saw at one of our tournaments a few years ago. Their costs were ridiculously high, as well.

I have a list of where 300 Canadians went and in many cases where they transferred after. Grayson is one of the TX schools they go to a lot.

My guy is to young for the video to really take effect. He has some personal invites to camps as a result of beRecruited and we will start there.