College Baseball & Losing Love For The Game

The reality is that most HS players are attached to the fantasy of playing college baseball more than they are willing to embrace what it takes to actually do it. The travel ball model is terrible - it sets the precedent that everyone gets playing time. HS baseball isn’t much better in that many programs don’t cut players anymore. Add in the “scouting services” that bombard social media with posts about how great all these young players are. And if that isn’t enough, you have the private instructors pumping up these kids egos so they will keep paying for lessons. The combined results of all these factors creates young players with a false sense of accomplishment. All this comes crashing down when they get to college. The fantasy is over and the work begins. The real world smacks them right in the face and they aren’t ready for it. Some of them figure it out and do fine. But a lot of them don’t. Those are the ones that talk about losing the love for the game. College baseball is hard. It’s not for the faint of heart. But life is hard too. And you are better prepared for the pitfalls in life if you play college baseball - even if it doesn’t go the way you want it to.

@adbono posted:

The reality is that most HS players are attached to the fantasy of playing college baseball more than they are willing to embrace what it takes to actually do it. The travel ball model is terrible - it sets the precedent that everyone gets playing time. HS baseball isn’t much better in that many programs don’t cut players anymore. Add in the “scouting services” that bombard social media with posts about how great all these young players are. And if that isn’t enough, you have the private instructors pumping up these kids egos so they will keep paying for lessons. The combined results of all these factors creates young players with a false sense of accomplishment. All this comes crashing down when they get to college. The fantasy is over and the work begins. The real world smacks them right in the face and they aren’t ready for it. Some of them figure it out and do fine. But a lot of them don’t. Those are the ones that talk about losing the love for the game. College baseball is hard. It’s not for the faint of heart. But life is hard too. And you are better prepared for the pitfalls in life if you play college baseball - even if it doesn’t go the way you want it to.

Pure gold. Well said.

I also think that part of it is that it's maybe the first time that these players struggle and/or sit low on the depth chart and then the reality sets in that they don't have a future in the game and suddenly the effort and sacrifice isn't worth it anymore.

Think about the kid good enough to get a college offer. He was probably the star in Little League and a starter in travel and High School. Now, he's in college and batting .118 or has an ERA of 6.95 because everyone there is good or better and now "the game" is no longer fun.

Plus, then the coach is no longer in love with the kid, as he was recruiting him, and now the kid is really feeling bad about the whole experience.

It really makes me wonder if it's the minority who feel like the college baseball experience met all their expectations and dreams?

Francis;

Please define "Love of the Game"?

Bob

@Consultant posted:

Francis;

Please define "Love of the Game"?

Bob

Passion for playing

Francis;

learning the "art of playing the game" by studying the opposition, your Coach, your teammates, the umpires.

Bob

My daughter is thirty-six now. She’s a lawyer in a large, prestigious law firm. She’s a wife and a mother with the second child on the way. She’s called this week to rub it in she’s in Cancun while I’m shoveling snow.

She commented until she started vacation and is getting some rest (grand daughter getting a lot of attention from aunt, uncle, grandmother and family) she didn’t realize how hard she works as a lawyer, wife and mother. Then she commented being a STEM major and a (D1) college softball player taught her and trained her she can handle anything. It’s a theme she always falls back on when stating she can handle anything.

She did joke softball never woke her up in the middle of the night and didn’t want to go back to sleep. She joked, “But I was never hitting below .200.”

Chances are a college arhlete was a star of some magnitude in high school. When college sports gets challenging and success comes hard or not at all many players don’t see the value anymore of putting in the time and effort.

When I was a kid Little League was youth baseball and participation was huge but shrunk to almost nothing at 13 with the transition to the standard size field. Select ball with the gradual transition in field size changed that a bit, but I think the biggest culling is now the start of HS baseball and the reality that brings.

I generally agree with what Adbono says above, but I think the root cause is lack of parental objectivity in combination with unrealistic expectations of the athlete and a portion of a youth baseball industry that relies on that misalignment.

I still don’t think you can blame youth baseball organizations and the pay for play market. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with a parent paying for an activity that both they and their kids enjoy. If parents or paid coaches are inflating their athletes’ egos, I think that’s the same as it every was, until reality hits (wherever along the line that happens).  

I believe that @adbono wants to return to the time where youth coaches could tell a player directly that they don’t project to play HS or college baseball either through capability or character. My son’s incoming HS freshman summer team coach (appointed by the HS HC, but not a school employee) tried something like that in 2010. After a week with the kids, he split them into two groups (parents watching from the stands) and told one group, that unless something substantially changed in their ability or performance, they had no chance of playing HS varsity baseball. There was a new coach the next day, and four years later not one kid in that group saw a varsity game from the field.

As for college, I think juco weeds out the non-grinders from the heard quick. I think that’s likely true for most serious college programs. Some at the college and pro level reach reality with their projection, effort required and future return and then choose a different route. There may be less pragmatism and objectivity in today’s athletes due to the factors already mentioned, but I think this has always been true. I just think that very few ever play baseball into their twenties.

IMO, nobody deserves to be a high-level competitive athlete (HS, college or pro). You earn the results of the physical/mental work, diet and life choices, but that’s it… Everyone is blessed or challenged with genetic ability/capability (your ceiling), varied environments, varied opportunities and old-fashioned luck.

@JucoDad, I agree with you that parenting is part of the problem. I don’t know when parents began snowplowing every obstacle out from in front of their kids thinking it would insure success, but it’s a horrible trend. It actually cripples the kid. Kids have to be allowed to fail so they can learn from that experience. With baseball they learn what they have to do to get better, or what it takes to get where they want to be. Or even to learn that they have a better aptitude for some other activity. Not allowing this to occur organically sets a kid up for failure later on. My parents would have never dreamed of inserting themselves into my athletic endeavors. I was much more involved with my kids athletics than my parents were with mine, but I never did anything to prevent them experiencing failure. It blows my mind to see what some parents will do today. And we see results play out every day in ways that make us cringe.

@Francis7 posted:

I also think that part of it is that it's maybe the first time that these players struggle and/or sit low on the depth chart and then the reality sets in that they don't have a future in the game and suddenly the effort and sacrifice isn't worth it anymore.

Think about the kid good enough to get a college offer. He was probably the star in Little League and a starter in travel and High School. Now, he's in college and batting .118 or has an ERA of 6.95 because everyone there is good or better and now "the game" is no longer fun.

Plus, then the coach is no longer in love with the kid, as he was recruiting him, and now the kid is really feeling bad about the whole experience.

It really makes me wonder if it's the minority who feel like the college baseball experience met all their expectations and dreams?

Based on the guys that my son started his college career with as a freshman, this is exactly what happens.  Some kids think they will walk in as a freshman and start day 1.....and the reality hits them hard when they are a month into the season and have 1 AB or have thrown 2 innings.  My son started with 9 or 10 kids in his recruiting class.   I think there was 3 left when he ended his senior season. 

@Francis7 posted:

...........

It really makes me wonder if it's the minority who feel like the college baseball experience met all their expectations and dreams?

Looking back, I think it is the rare parent and rare student who truly understands what they are walking into as a recruited athlete.  Self-awareness and adult maturity are in short supply in college baseball recruiting @ 17 years old.  It takes a lot of self-awareness to not believe everything that is said in the recruiting phase among college coaches, travel coaches, etc.   I recall a conversation with my oldest son as he was narrowing down his last 3 offers.   All that he wanted out of his college HC was "fairness".   He got it, and I think my son was onto something there.   

Just my experience.

Nobody (me included especially) knows what they don't know.  There are kids at the lowest level of the game, through high school, college, and the pros that your 90 year old grandmother can pick out of the line up as they are getting off the bus and recognize "that guy."  Those are the exceptions to the rule.  The game is lots of fun for those guys.  Those are the kind of guys that when the college coach recruits them, he says you will be an immediate impact player and start from day one.  Evidence will be that they got a scholarship bigger than all or most on the team.  For 99% (or more) of everyone else, it is athletic Darwinism.

My son was told on opening day of his freshman year that he had been redshirted.  Called me in tears.  I felt bad for how it was handled but refused to feel sorry for him.  I said become the best redshirt player in the country.  I said you still get to practice, dive for every ball, and show the coaches they made a mistake.  Be the first there and last to leave.  Outwork every guy on the team.  Become better.  The story has been told too many times here but it was a happy ending for him ( a 1 in a million chance if you will).  Adversity is a good thing.  Get better or go home.

We had a pro scout here named bbscout who has since passed and his advice was the best for incoming college freshmen.  He asked a simple question.... He said, "Did you start on your high school team when you were a freshmen?"  Most, (except the top 1% mentioned above) if answering honestly, will say no because they were not physically ready.  He said, "Why would you expect to start on your college team when you are just as much at a physical disadvantage as you were as a freshman in high school?"   

@fenwaysouth posted:

Looking back, I think it is the rare parent and rare student who truly understands what they are walking into as a recruited athlete.  Self-awareness and adult maturity are in short supply in college baseball recruiting @ 17 years old.  It takes a lot of self-awareness to not believe everything that is said in the recruiting phase among college coaches, travel coaches, etc.   I recall a conversation with my oldest son as he was narrowing down his last 3 offers.   All that he wanted out of his college HC was "fairness".   He got it, and I think my son was onto something there.   

Just my experience.

This is spot on. I say to every player and every parent that I talk to about recruiting (which is on a daily basis) to pay attention to the character of the HC. Every program is a reflection of that guy. If he is fair and honest the chances are your son will have a good overall experience. If he is not the opposite is true.

My son's college experience was good. I recognize the players I've known in some of the things that have been said, and not in others. I knew kids who worked extremely hard at D1 college baseball programs, and still got cut.  They weren't entitled, they were chum.  Most of them transferred and kept playing, I'd guess they still loved the game, since they could have just quit baseball at that point.  Most had success at their second (lower-level) schools.

I think what people are saying is that you don't just need "passion for playing the game," you need passion for being part of the game; you have to love being at games (and doing all the things that Consultant listed above) even if you're not playing in them.  You have to love lifting, practicing, etc., whether it's because it makes you better, or you have friends on the team, or you just like doing those things.  Maybe it's easier for pitchers, who are always watching more games than they play.

But to go back to Francis7's original post - I think there are way more kids who lose their love for the game (if they ever had it) after age 12 than in HS or college.

@anotherparent ,

I agree with everything you wrote however, I'm going to counterpoint your "maybe it is easier for pitchers, who are always watching more game than they play".   Don't you think that makes it harder sitting and watching (and wanting to help) but its out of your control?  I think it takes incredible patience and love of the game to sit and watch others if you are on the pitching staff or happen to be injured.   It always amazed me how players (not in the game) stay in the game mentally.   My son and a pitching teammate were always trying to steal the other teams signs, and were very successful at it.  That seemed to be their way of staying in the game from the bench.

JMO

@fenwaysouth posted:

@anotherparent ,

I agree with everything you wrote however, I'm going to counterpoint your "maybe it is easier for pitchers, who are always watching more game than they play".   Don't you think that makes it harder sitting and watching (and wanting to help) but its out of your control?  I think it takes incredible patience and love of the game to sit and watch others if you are on the pitching staff or happen to be injured.   It always amazed me how players (not in the game) stay in the game mentally.   My son and a pitching teammate were always trying to steal the other teams signs, and were very successful at it.  That seemed to be their way of staying in the game from the bench.

JMO

LOL, I was going to say that.  At some schools, the non-active pitchers chart pitches.  Or they have to watch the backs of people in the bullpen.  That seems more involved (especially charting) than running after foul balls, which is what the bench position players did (I'm talking about D3 here).  But it is certainly more frustrating for POs who were hitters in HS, for a whole bunch of reasons.

@anotherparent posted:

But to go back to Francis7's original post - I think there are way more kids who lose their love for the game (if they ever had it) after age 12 than in HS or college.

But the % are different.

2 million play Little League Baseball. Maybe 65,000 play college baseball.

So, the % of those losing love is higher in college.

I think a common issue that doesn't get talked about enough is bad coaching. I bet there are a lot of players out there who feel like they can never win with their coach. Nothing they do is good enough, nothing but criticism and negativity.

I know of a few guys who were right there in terms of talent and just never got the time of day from the HC. If you feel like you're getting slighted in terms of playing time or just truly aren't getting the opportunities you feel you deserve all it takes is getting chewed out for something small to sit back and say is this really going anywhere?

I've had 2 in college baseball. One coach would hold the door open for you so he could stab you in the back. The other will put his own job at risk before he wrongs a player. We did a tour with another teammate of ours early on in the recruiting process. The other parent had asked if they cut players in their program (competitive D1 mid major) and how many? Coach said something along the lines of - it was his fault if he couldn't recruit properly, and it was even worse if he couldn't churn out a contributor in 4 years time. He would never punish a kid for his failures as a coach as long as they were doing all the right things.

In the five years I've been around the program I've never seen a recruited player cut for anything other than grades or disciplinary issues.

One played for a better team, the other got a better experience while still playing meaningful baseball.