College Camp Invites-another viewpoint

congrats to you son.

We got camp invites a year after my son was already at college. We attended no camps.

I must agree with gitnby. . .we too still recieve camp invites. . . the numbers have shortened up a bit recently but I think that is due to the publicity that he signed early. .

One thing I think is great, if your son wants to go to school out of your area or out of state. . .attend those camps ("wish list")

However, the number one way that worked for us, and I will always be grateful for an awesome experience was PG National!!! It was the beginning of a whole new world for us!

An experience...

Junior goes to showcase and notifies college coaches on his list that he will be at this event. A coach from his list sees him at the event, talks to him afterwards (volunteer asst) and tells him that he should come to their college camp so that the head coach and whole staff can take a look at him. Junior goes to college camp, does fine, no further interest. We find out several months later that the school had already gotten a committment from the only pitcher they intended on offering, long before even the showcase, let alone the college camp. (The volunteer asst was a paid coach at the showcase)

Months later the showcase promoter wants to know if junior signed anywhere so they can keep stats on how many players that attend their showcases wind up playing college ball...even though juniors college and this showcase had no connection.

Showcases exist to make the showcase promoter money.

College camps exist to make money for coaching staffs.

Both can serve a purpose other than the primary goal of cash cow, but be selective.

Another example and what we did: My son had been to a four day camp with both DI and DIII schools. He really was just interested in the DIII schools. He got a follow-up letter from one of the DI schools at the camp saying they had seen him, liked him and would like to take a closer look at him at their fall camp on their campus. We suspected that they were mainly interested in the money, but son sent them an email indicating that he could not make the camp on the dates held (he actually had other college visit commitments), but that he had a video of him pitching that he could send to them in the meantime that other coaches had found useful, and that if they had further interest he would follow up with them to see if they could get together. We never heard back.

casey75, I think you found the right way to determine interest. By the way, the D1 coach never responded to my e-mail about his camp. We'll send the questionnaire back only because they sent a postage paid envelope with it.

If they really want a look at your sons, they will make time to see them outside the camp. This seems a sure fire way to weed out the money makers.

quote:

Originally posted by casey75:
.... son sent them an email indicating that he could not make the camp on the dates held (he actually had other college visit commitments), but that he had a video of him pitching that he could send to them in the meantime that other coaches had found useful, and that if they had further interest he would follow up with them to see if they could get together. We never heard back.

This was a great decision! We too created a skills video and were able to reference it(which we did all the time). It helps to weed-out the money seekers but also gives a coach who doesn't have a chance to see your son a tool to help them recruit.

Side note - a skills video can do a lot more than a coach watching a game in person. Think about how many swings will your sone have in a game or how much fielding will he be involved in. Think of a video as a virtual showcase then take it from there (maybe an invite to a workout.)

Another nice thing about a skills video for pitchers, which our son is, is that when shooting from behind the mound (the same angle shown on TV during MLB games) you can really see the movement on the pitches very well. A couple of coaches had specifically requested this angle as well from the 3rd base side (for a RHP). You can't do it during a game, of course*, so we did it as a bullpen session.

*I guess you could shoot from behind the centerfield wall during a game if you had a really powerful zoom video camera, which we did not.

quote:

Originally posted by casey75:
Another nice thing about a skills video for pitchers, which our son is, is that when shooting from behind the mound (the same angle shown on TV during MLB games) you can really see the movement on the pitches very well. A couple of coaches had specifically requested this angle as well from the 3rd base side (for a RHP). You can't do it during a game, of course*, so we did it as a bullpen session.

*I guess you could shoot from behind the centerfield wall during a game if you had a really powerful zoom video camera, which we did not.

What we found was that for a RHP coaches wanted 5" behind the pitcher and about 3 - 5' to the right. All showing the catcher receiving the pitch.

Then they wanted shots from the catchers end. Again for a RHP it would be about 3 - 5' behind the catcher and as close in to the catcher as possible (try to simulate what a RHB sees but with the catcher in the shot). No one we spoke to wanted game footage, just bullpens. Oh - they wanted about 10 - 15 fastballs 5 - 10 curveballs and maybe 5 or so change ups from each perspective. Of course we had to shoot a couple of peens to get real good footage