Can I talk to the coach

Your son probably should have been provided the information by the coach. On the other hand why didn’t your son ask?

It is not your job to approach the coach. Your son is an adult in training. It’s your son’s responsibility to have the conversations with his coach.

As for coach’s responsibility to get kids to college ball don’t go by some second hand hearsay. You have to watch the individual program and ask questions of people who have been associated with the program.

The friend of my son played in the biggest name program in our area on the B team. The dad heard how much the program did to get players placed in D1 ball. The kid was talented but not a D1 prospect. The program did absolutely nothing to help the kid. He became a D3 All American. Exposure at Head First did everything the kid needed. But going through the recruiting process he was short and not fast enough for D1.

I look at it a different way.  High school ball is all about the kid becoming an adult, dealing with things on his own; if parents intervene that looks like favoritism, etc.  Even so, we say that if there's a health issue the parents should talk to the coach.

Travel ball is different.  You are paying money (possibly a lot) to be on the team, and the goal is not necessarily "winning" as such, but experience and recruiting (to be honest, until my son was a junior I thought the point of summer travel ball was to get experience to be a better HS player - and maybe we would all be better off if it was).

So, I think a conversation with the travel coach about where your son projects is appropriate.  It's a good idea to do it at this time of year, rather than in-season.  You could have that conversation with or without your son (we did it without).  Just note a few things:

- travel coach may string you along, say he "could be a mid-major D1" if he thinks you might leave the program (i.e. stop paying him) if he tells you your son projects at D3.

- depending on what type/level of travel team it is, the travel coach may have either more or less to do with college recruiting.  Certainly they should help if your son is a D1 candidate.  If he's not, then the coach may have fewer connections with D2 and D3 schools - again, all depends on the coach, and see point A.

But you won't know any of this unless you ask.  And you may not get as precise answers as you want, or you may not understand the answers.

Have you asked your reliable source what he thinks about your son's college prospects?