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Our son is an incoming freshman at a D1 school. He is on a 75% scholarship, basically half athletic and half academic. The baseball coach's plan at this point is to have him play two ways and he expects to play right away (though as we all know that is not a certainty). Here are a few things we learned along the way, and wish we knew earlier:

1. The idea of "if you are good enough, they will find you" is a misnomer. There are an endless amount of high school baseball players willing and good enough to play in college. Parents need to be even more aggressive in the recruiting process than any college coach. Coaches don't spend the entire year recruiting and therefore good players fall through the cracks. Parents can and should help their child market himself 365 days per year.

2. The easiest way to get on a college coach's radar is to network through a high school or travel coach. That is how our son ended up where he is - his travel coach used to work with the college coach and called him. It is much easier to analyze ability than character, so college coaches will rely on the opinions of those they trust to analyze a player beyond his speed and velocity.

3. If you see interest from a top school and there is no immediate offer, consider your son one of their many back-up plans. They may seem like they are interested, and then one day you may never hear from them again. It can be very cold and demoralizing.

4. Do not go "all in" on D1 right away. Consider some D2's and D3's early in the process. Make a list of at least 35 schools, with a third being 'dream' schools, a third being 'reachable' schools and a third 'acceptable' schools.

5. There are 35 spots on a college baseball roster. Most top schools have 20 or more commits per grad class. You do the math. Many of these "commits" will never play a single inning. Only scholarship players who sign the NLI are guaranteed a roster spot.

6. Give your son all the love and support you can. What our son endured matured him beyond our wildest expectations (he had to learn how to market himself, speak to adults and set extremely high goals). He also suffered through experiences that made him feel unwanted, overrated, a disappointment and a failure. A college baseball recruit is only a teenager - and needs to realize how special it is to even be considered by a college coach, no matter what the school.

7. Finally, the most important piece of advice we received from other parents who have children who are college athletes is this: Make sure they have a chance to play right away. Your son more than likely has played every inning of every baseball game of his life. Sitting an entire year would be strange, to say the least, and just gives the coach a chance to recruit or transfer someone who is better.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have, just send me a message. This forum was of great help to us, especially during the darker days of the process (and there will be many). So long.

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I'll add a very recent example to illustrate your first point.

My son has a HS teammate who is an excellent player.  On the HS team he was essentially a third stringer, sitting behind a P5 commit, but also behind the son of the head of the booster club.  So he hardly played.

For the Summer he was stuck in a similar situation...played for a big time travel program but they were focused on showcasing their big reputation guys (his reputation was clearly hurt by not getting time in HS).  He was getting some D3 nibbles but considered himself a D1 type player.

He switched teams mid-Summer when an injury opened up a spot on the new team.  Given the opportunity he lit up several tournaments and within four weeks he got four D1 offers and connected with 2 MLB scouts, one of whom is helping him get on a team to go to Jupiter.

Had this kid sat back and figured that he'd be found there is no way he'd be in the spot he is now.

Whether it be travel or college this is a great example of always choose a program where you can play!  You never know how you will get noticed.  Too many players get caught up with being part of the  popular travel programs or the big time college programs just to say " I was on team big-time".  There are a lot of stories like K9 has pointed out.

My son played 4 years of travel for the same team and with the same 13 kids.   I think 90% of them ended up playing D1, D2, & D3 college baseball without winning a single tournament.

Last edited by JABMK

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