College One Day Camps?

One of the first camps we went to, they cancelled the scrimmage as they didn’t have enough kids (had over 50, so I never understood their reasoning).  I went up to the assistant coach and gave him a lot of flack.  He reasoned that a BP was valuable to him, but I didn’t agree.  I threatened asking for my money back, but ended up staying.  Son did well, they followed up, but it was an icy relationship for several months.  I’d like to think I grew from that, with the help from this site.

Every other camp was like you said.  PO sitting around for hours, waiting for the scrimmage.  If PO you usually get 2 innings, with 2-ways getting only 1.  It’s tough for PO, and a very long day, but many HC complimented them knowing it was tough to perform.

Though the above sounds negative, I’m a fan (in the minority) of camps and really the only avenue we took with our son to get recruited.  Yes, they are a money grab, but if the right fit for your son and you do the necessary prework (reach out to coach, let them know you’re coming, send videos, measurables, etc), they could pay off.

Good luck!

I think college one day camps can serve a purpose if the school is of interest and you believe that your son generally fits the bill of the type of player the school would be looking for. It can be a great way to interact with the coaching staff and I would ideally combine with an admission tour and see the full campus/area. Your son should get in touch with the coaching staff ahead of time to get the conversation going, express interest, send video, etc. My son (RHP) attended 4 one day camps during his recruitment process, including the school that he ended up committing too. That one was a direct invitation from the coaching staff and required airfare, hotel, etc. and we probably wouldn't have attended if he had not been actively recruited. 

In our experience, the camp formats vary widely and you probably need to be ready to "go with the flow". As a point of reference, my son attended a PBR showcase that partially rained out and by the time it was his turn to pitch, most of the scouts had already left. Needless to say, I was not too thrilled... However, he ended up killing it in the bull pen and got some great social media exposure from a post by the PBR state director. I believe the school he signed with saw that post. You never know when opportunities will present themselves and you/your son need to keep a positive attitude and be ready when they do. Good luck!

Has a PO even attended a camp if he hasn't pitched in the 15th and 16th inning? ;-)

Mixed bag here.  I've been to camps where the pitcher did little, others where the first baseman did little.  Attended one where the pitchers pitched an inning or two in scrimmage format and were the only players I saw talked to after the camp.  I think it just depends on the needs and quality of the players at those positions.   Last camp, head coach worked with PO's and then they did not pitch in scrimmage (coaches pitched BP like).  But I felt the pitchers got a good look by the school nevertheless. 

If you are within a couple hours driving distance of the school it's one thing. If you have to fly there, rent a car. get a hotel room, etc. it can add up. 

Camps can be great.  Great experience as well as valuable insight into the way a team does things.  We only have our 2021 kid attend the camps of schools where he has had significant repeated & personalized contact with the program’s recruiting coordinator.  

I agree that camps can help you see a program/school/coach more clearly. In our experience being from the East Coast, indoor camps can be pretty worthless if you are an outfielder or position player.  Any games inside are pretty limiting. PO is a different story. If you're in CA or FL you can take advantage of the winter camps that are plentiful. If you kill it in BP and they need hitters, that can be great as well.

We had a similar to the OP experience with a Villanova camp this summer.  We got a personal email from the coach asking my son to attend. He had seen him play numerous times. So, we coughed up the $$. It's close to home so it wasn't a financial burden. What it turned in to was a sham. As mentioned above, no shirts with numbers were given out so there was no way for the boys to be distinguished. Coaches didn't really interact with any of the kids.  They just ran the camp and talked to each other. At the end, they basically said don't call us we will call you if we are interested. Needless to say, the 2 other friends we knew there got the same email and never heard from anyone at Villanova. As per PG, they have 3 2020 recruits right now. 

I think it's best to find out from the coaches what they are looking for in your son's class.  If they don't need infielders and your son plays short, think twice. Agree that if your son has been in contact consistently with any of the coaches, do it.

It really varies by school.  We went to one after one of the coaches DM'd my son and asked him to come. It was local.  Complete waste of time.  Run by players.  They called my son's coach the next day to ask if he might be interested in their school and they didn't even know he had attended.  Flew to another one that limits enrollment and has 4-5 one day camps. It is a top 10 school and we thought it was worth it to be seen in a small group.  It was great for my son, not sure if it was great for everyone (which the other school may have been great for a kid or two?). There had been no communication prior and the pitching coach immediately started working with my son.  He threw the first two innings and then came and got me to tour the facilities and sit down to talk. They started weekly calls at that point.

 I would say overall, we went to 3 one day camps.  Two were good and a value, if you are trying to be seen, and one was terrible.  I guess the value at that school was that my son knew he wouldn't want to play there based on how disorganized everything was.

We went to three, one really hosted by PBR and had to have it for underclassmen showcase, and Missouri coaches were there and did a great job of interacting with my son and others but not everybody.  Went to another school and they catered to my son all day.  It was so bad that the other parents were asking what was the deal with this kid.  He literally sat on a bucket with the coaches for part of the day and ate lunch with HC.  They asked to come back the next week for offer.  Went back to Missouri at HC's  request after they hired new staff.  No one talked to him all day except a player he knew.  When we were leaving the VA stopped him and said he needed to work on his command.  I looked at him and said did you watch him pitch?  He said no just one of their player's notes.  I said he threw 8 pitches in the one inning he pitched and had 2 K's.  The RC called the next week and did not even realize he was at the camp which the RC was at also.  It would have taken a lot to get our attention after that from them.  Each camp is different.  Coaches also see camps and showcases differently.  Some coaches see it as a tool and others just as money maker.  I also believe you have to be on their radar to be worth it.  Unless you are the man you can't just show and hope you get seen.

We went to a number of camps. Son was offered in the last one. Several of the camps, he had been asked by the coaches to come so they had their eyes on him when he got there. Others, he made himself stand out. He was the kid who instead of standing around would strike up a conversation with a coach, a player or whoever was standing nearby. One time he got bored hanging out in the dugout so he started "coaching" third base — to the point where one of the batters got panicked and told another player that he didn't understand the signs, when did they get the signs??? If a player wasn't paying attention to where he was supposed to be, son would grab his glove and go play the position.

I was worried that he was making himself obnoxious but a couple of coaches said they enjoyed having him around and liked to see the personality. It helped that he had an 88 MPH fastball and a wicked curve that he threw for strikes, I'm sure.

He also learned from those camps — he learned coaches he liked, coaches he didn't. He picked up a yoga style warmup for pitchers from one of the camps. We also ALWAYS combined the camp with an academic visit — meeting in admissions, visiting with professors, etc., usually the day before or after and spent a little time getting to know the community where the college was located. Didn't much matter if he loved the baseball if he hated the school, or didn't know if he liked the school.

Now, as a player who works camps, he said they usually know which players the coaches are interested in. They know to pay special attention to those kids. And as a guy who eventually wants to coach, those camps are another good learning opportunity.

I can speak from some level of experience here in that my son did quite a few college camps. The important point I'd make is that you have to be very certain what your objectives are in attending these beyond simply getting on a school's radar or getting an offer. There are potentially many reasons but some of my son's were as follows:

- Exposure to college coaches and players from various levels
- Skills evaluation and improvement
- Feel for level of play
- Feel for coaching methodology and preferences
- Feel for campus location & vibe

In total, my son attended three top 20 P5 D1 camps, two non-P5 top 25 D1, two mid-major D1, two top D2, one mid-level D2, and one NAIA. Only two of these required travel that was not already planned and those were multi-day overnight stay events. They spanned his first three years of HS and provided invaluable feedback which helped shape his opinions of where he could see himself attending and playing. I've read many of the horror stories but I really don't have any complaints about how the camps he attended were run or what they resulted in as far as feedback goes. One thing became obvious pretty quickly; if a school wants the kid to play for them, they will likely express it clearly unless it's one of those that are too early in the process for that particular level, which leads me to an additional piece of knowledge gained. We found that these camps differ by level. In hindsight, if the P5 D1s we visited had been interested in my son, we probably would have known about it by then, even being located in a relatively small area remote from them. Echoing from above, don't show up expecting to be discovered at that level. I think at some of the other levels, D3 for example, there are quite a few of the kids who end up on the team that have attended a camp, potentially sight-unseen.

These are just a couple of anecdotes where we saw benefit but could we have learned in other ways that did not require the dollar amounts? Of course. Hindsight is 20/20 but I truly don't regret a single dollar spent on the camps my son attended. We/he had some great times and it was a way to augment the fact that he was not part of a travel organization that provided the exposure at events that many folks' kids out here have been privy to i.e. WWBA, BCS, Music City, USA National, etc.

My bottom line is to know why you're going and what your expectations are. Then ask around and do some research on the interwebs to see if you can find more information on past events. Once your decisions have been made, have your son communicate with the coaches so that they can know to expect him there. Once there, be interactive with the coaches and players. Some of the nuggets he'll glean from those conversations might stay with him for life. Best of luck!

I think getting discovered really depends.  If you don’t play for a power team, which we didn’t, the school may know nothing about you. We did those camps to get on the radar as part of our plan.  We honestly had no idea where our son stood.  We knew he was pretty good for our area.  His dream schools were all top 10 schools. We had no idea if that was at all a reality until we went to the camps and they pulled him aside.  After it happened at 2 of his top schools, we knew he wasn’t a long shot.  You have to look at your recruitment plan.  If you play for a power team, you would probably know who is interested. If you don’t, you have to find ways to be seen...showcases, camps.  We relied completely on those two things.

Great feedback from others and particularly good "across levels" perspective from Tequila.  My only warning to his objectives would be regarding the "feel for level of play".  Many one day single school camps get low quantity and/or low quality level players, therefore giving no indication whatsoever as to what one might expect for any level of play.  Son once attended a camp for a strong D2 program.  He stood out at the camp and, at the time, he was not one that would stand out at that level.  This is an area where attending a bigger event and/or playing competitive travel with an organization that plays in the big events can be more helpful.

I will also reinforce some things with another perspective...  If you were to look at college baseball job postings over the course of a year for the MANY volunteer assistant positions that come up at various colleges across levels, you will see a constant.  Almost every single listing states that, while it is a volunteer position, money can be made via camps.  So, virtually every college at every level puts on multiple camps sufficient to pay volunteer assistants.  This knowledge should help you curb expectations.  If you are crossing off a school because one of their camps wasn't run well, your actions may be misguided.  If you are expecting all the coaches to be fully engaged and actively searching out prospects at every moment during the camp, your actions are most likely misguided.  Without prior dialog, expectations should be low unless you are a true standout.  Go for some of the other reasons Tequila states.  There also may be measurables being recorded.  But again, will they be done with the utmost attention to detail?  Curb expectations.  Will the HC, PC and AC be engaged?  Sometimes.  Keep in mind, this is probably their seventh day of work that week and only necessitated by the need to throw their volunteer assistants a bone, aside from maybe the one or two players they personally invited with the purpose of a visit, a third look, etc.

Lastly, not sure if already mentioned here but know the difference between a regular camp and a prospect camp and drill down further to determine if the prospect camp is a true prospect camp.  

cabbagedad posted:

Great feedback from others and particularly good "across levels" perspective from Tequila.  My only warning to his objectives would be regarding the "feel for level of play".  Many one day single school camps get low quantity and/or low quality level players, therefore giving no indication whatsoever as to what one might expect for any level of play.  Son once attended a camp for a strong D2 program.  He stood out at the camp and, at the time, he was not one that would stand out at that level.  This is an area where attending a bigger event and/or playing competitive travel with an organization that plays in the big events can be more helpful.

I should have clarified this cabbagedad; what I meant by "feel for level of play" is not in relation to the other camp attendees rather what the expectations of the coaches are (they will sometimes say things like "you need to be at a 2.0 flat or better" to be a Tiger catcher) and what the college players look like who are helping with the camp as they will often demonstrate various skills, etc.

We did a few....twice at a mid-major close to home.  There seemed to be some interest after the first one, so we went again.  Saw the HC at a couple weekend tourneys son's junior summer, he said hello and asked how son was going, but that was it.  Another was at a B1G.....total waste of time.  There were at least a dozen "invited" kids there.  The others could have been invisible.   Funny thing with the mid-major.  Ended up being son's "rival" in college and son had good games against them every time he faced them.  If he'd have been offered by both, he'd likely have gone to the one where we attended the camps as he really like the staff    Funny how things work out

tequila posted:

cabbagedad posted:

Great feedback from others and particularly good "across levels" perspective from Tequila.  My only warning to his objectives would be regarding the "feel for level of play".  Many one day single school camps get low quantity and/or low quality level players, therefore giving no indication whatsoever as to what one might expect for any level of play.  Son once attended a camp for a strong D2 program.  He stood out at the camp and, at the time, he was not one that would stand out at that level.  This is an area where attending a bigger event and/or playing competitive travel with an organization that plays in the big events can be more helpful.

I should have clarified this cabbagedad; what I meant by "feel for level of play" is not in relation to the other camp attendees rather what the expectations of the coaches are (they will sometimes say things like "you need to be at a 2.0 flat or better" to be a Tiger catcher) and what the college players look like who are helping with the camp as they will often demonstrate various skills, etc.

Ahh, got it.  Makes sense.. my bad 

I agree with the overall content here. The "quality" and usefulness of the camps seem to vary greatly. My 2017 pitcher went to 6 of these. At one they were ready to sign him up immediately, at one the PC showed huge interest and started a strong relationship, and at the others there seemed to be no benefit at all related to being there. My overall sense is that the priorities for the schools are 1) make money, 2) checkout and interact with a very few guys they already know and like, and somewhere on down the list.....maybe run into a prospect they did not previously know. I would definitely recommend making sure that someone on the school's staff knows who you are and knows that you are going to be there ahead of time. One of these day camps was definitely the key contact that led my son to the first school where he played.   

IMO you shouldn't go to a camp unless they know you're coming, meaning they have an interest in you (other than a generic camp invite) and/or your HS/Travel coach has some kind of relationship with the coach.

nycdad posted:

IMO you shouldn't go to a camp unless they know you're coming, meaning they have an interest in you (other than a generic camp invite) and/or your HS/Travel coach has some kind of relationship with the coach.

This has come up several times and is something I've tried to implement with these camps. My son has been pretty good about reaching out to them with some minimal prompting. This has created some slight relationships, but not what I would call "interest."

I have tried to get his travel coach to reach out to teams with no noticeable success. Either he's lazy or doesn't want to stake his credibility on vouching for my son. The first is inexcusable, the second - well, he just ought to tell me.  The one that sticks in my craw the most is a camp where we signed up late and got wait listed. Our travel team coach and the RC at the school running the camp had been assistant coaches at the same university, though at different times. I asked him to reach out to the RC and see if he could get us off the wait list. I gave our coach all the info he asked for but nothing happened.  We're actually going to that school soon - we caught a later camp. Guess I ought to ask our coach if he ever heard anything.