Contact during no contact period

Welcome Boliermaker!

This is what I have seen in emailing coaches. It seems reactions to proactively emailing coaches fall into four categories, in increasing order of desirability:

1. Nothing. No response. Zippo.
2. Generic Camp Invitations. Often from a mass mailing program.
3. An apparent personal response with a mention of camps or a recruiting questionnaire, with the coach's cell number. Might even say something like "call me with any questions."
4. Coach reaches out to HS or travel coach to arrange a call from the player.

Obviously, #4 is the best, but #3 isn't bad, either.

I think Baseball Operations isn't a coach, but maybe it's different at that school? 

If you EVER get an email from a coach, operations guy, etc, etc, etc that includes a CELL number, go ahead and give it a call.  It's a pretty clear sign they are interested.  If you get a voice mail, keep in mind they can't call you back....but leave a message and say "Hey coach, this is Joe Smith from Johnson HS....I'd like to talk to you about your program.  I'm sorry I missed you, I'll try to call back tomorrow at X:XX o'clock"

Thanks for the replies.  I'm also interested in seeing how frequently coaches communicate like this during the no contact period.  In both cases, it seems that the correspondence violates the rules (not that I care.  just wondering if it's a sign of their level of interest).

It was "director" of baseball operations (not coach as I originally wrote.  He refers to himself in the replies as Coach E.

Looks to me like coach can have written or electronic communication with a player almost any time after that contact is allowed — I think in June before the junior year?

"13.4.1 Recruiting Materials and Electronic Correspondence—General Rule. An institution shall not provide recruiting materials, including general correspondence related to athletics, or send electronic correspondence to an individual (or his or her parents or legal guardians) until September 1 at the beginning of his or her junior year in high school."

Probably not a big deal, but technically I don't think the coach should have included that specific information about son's 60 time. I don't think it's a common practice; most school send a boilerplate "we can't respond with recruiting information" until 9/1. This could be their focused marketing effort to get him to a camp, or it could mean that they're truly interested. A phone call would help to figure that out, and Buckeye's suggestion is a good one. Your son could also send the college coach his club or HS coach's phone number, and ask him to call the guy as a reference. That would open the door for college coach to use them as an intermediary to make a connection.

Go to the website and see if the person who responded was actually an assistant or operations manager.

my 2019 son has had direct replies to emails from one school, the RC seems to be playing it a little loose with the rules. he'll email/text things like "let me know next time you're pitching" but when it comes to "real" recruiting issues like visits, etc. he goes through his coach. We were surprised the first time we got a direct response, but now i figure- don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Anyway I'll be glad when Sep. 1 rolls around.