Does it matter where you go to High School?

Hi, pointanry. Don't lose any more sleep on this...IMO, don't move for baseball. If your son is happy where he is, then there's your answer. Get him on a good summer team and sleep well.

-Deleted- too much information.

Others may have a different opinion, but you just never know what is going to happen.

Agree completely with 2bmom. Focus on summer team and getting your college exposure there.

Many people asked why we were sending our son to a school known for academics and not baseball and things turned out fine.

I would say be careful what you wish for, because you may not be happy with the results.
Schools that can win the state championship typically get all sorts of transfers, but it does not mean all the kids will make the team.
I know of over a dozen kids who started for their school, only to transfer to "the baseball school", and were cut during tryouts. These same kids then get disillusioned even though they are good enough to play at most other schools. Heck some of the starters on the JV in their own program were cut at HS tryouts.

It is true that playing for a top school will help to get recognition, but not as much as you might think. Now days it seems much more important to play travel ball for a team that goes to all the right spots.
That combined with attending showcases/tourneys at Perfect Game is vital in getting exposure with scouts.
So unless your son is a stud, you had better speak with the coach at the school you are thinking about sending him to. Even then there are no guarantees. High level HS baseball has been known to cut a kid even though the parents were supposedly told their kid would make the team.
I witnessed it happening to a senior, which essentially ended his HS baseball career.

In todays world, I think your best bet is to expose your son at events like those run by PG starting no later than his sophomore year. He is much more likely to be noticed that way rather than changing HS just for baseball exposure

Find a good summer team. That's where he's going to get showcased. Back when my son was entering high school the varsity was brutally bad. We thought about sending him to a private school. A new coach came in. They contended in his soph year. Junior year they won the conference and went the furthest in the playoffs of any baseball team in school history. They are returning most of the team this year. Before this coach there were seventeen losing seasons in twenty years. My son loves playing for the guy. You never know how the wind blows.

Don't choose a school for the teams record. Get seen during Scout Ball and Travel Ball. Go to World Wood Bat in Jupiter, Fl. and Fall Classic in Az. to get seen. Just because a team has a winning record doesn't mean the team has good coaching. I know of a kid who's HS team is horrible but, he committed to a top D1 school and will be drafted this year.

I was concerned about the impact on my son's baseball future when we moved from Houston to rural Connecticut. I've since learned that his small school (total enrollment of 450) has at least 2 players currently playing D1 ball at good schools, so I know it is possible.

We've worked to develop a network of local baseball folks who may be able to help him when the time comes (minor league coaches, travel coaches with proven records in placing kids in colleges). I don't know if his odds are less than if we'd stayed at a mega school, but I can say that he will have opportunities to be seen. The rest is up to him.

I will give an alternate viewpoint.

Through two boys, who both got D1 baseball scholarships, at two very different (athletically) HS's...I think it matters a lot. Most especially in the journey to get there.

In a sport like baseball, the high school you play at matters little. It is all about the summer team. Football on the other hand, it is probably more important.

That being said, I wouldn't move just to be on what you think will be a winning team. I would take your son being non-committal, as an answer. If he really wanted to do it, he would say so.

quote:

Does it matter where you go to High School?

For baseball, it doesn't matter nearly as much as passion, talent, travel team exposure and persistence.

My oldest son had an opportunity to play for his home high school which is a perennial powerhouse complete with athletic booster fundraising, and helicopter parents. Or he could go cross-county to a magnet pre-engineering school that struggles to find baseball talent on a consistent basis. He went for the education and coupled it with an elite travel team to get the exposure in the summer. He is playing college baseball today. In our neck of the woods, travel and showcase baseball is so much more important than high school baseball.

I've seen a dozen college coaches & scouts in 4 years of high school games in a very competitive and highly regarded district. I've seen many, many, many hundreds (possibly a thousand) of college coaches & scouts at showcase and travel baseball games across the country. I realize it just takes one coach to recruit your son, but I like my chances better with more coaches.

Thank you all so much for your answers. Do you know of any good camps or showcase events in the west? I live in Utah but we are willing to travel. Thanks again.

good stuff fenway,also would suggest going to those instructional camps put on by summer organizations.(sluggers,tigers,dbats,patriots,whoever) i've seen several college coaches run those camps for fall,winter.its a great opportunity for scouts and coaches to see your kid up close and visit.and you with them

quote:

Originally posted by pointanry:
Thank you all so much for your answers. Do you know of any good camps or showcase events in the west? I live in Utah but we are willing to travel. Thanks again.

Let me say from a recent experience point of view when it comes to showcases(having only done it this summer and fall), the most exposure has been at the Perfect Game events. Others had some college coaches, but the PG events are loaded. At their event in Jupiter, they had literally hundreds of college coaches, each with their own golf cart going from field to field. Every game at the various fields had a stalker radar gun set up, along with two members of the PG staff notating every minute of the game. All the coaches seemed to have programs with the games and names of the players in hand. There were also pro scouts at every field as well. I was told that the Blue Jays had 40 scouts there alone, and by the number of carts with their name on them, it might have been more.
I know they have different events around the country, but even if you must travel to get there, I highly recommend PG events. Here is the link to their website.

http://www.perfectgame.org/

BTW- As a final thought on your original question, I actually have my son in a highly exposed HS baseball program just like the one you are thinking about. While I am sure it helps, especially here in such a competitive area, my son drew very little interest despite being "highly projectible". It took going to a half dozen events over the summer & fall to get him on coaches radars. The days of playing well in HS and "they will find you" seem to be over for all but the blue chippers.

IMO, a good HS program with a coach who is good at helping place players at the appropriate level is the ideal situation and still the best way to get a scholarship.

Showcases/tournaments and summer teams are a great supplement to HS ball when there is a good HS program.

Where the HS program is weak when it comes to getting exposure then the summer teams and showcases/tournaments become much more important and an alternate rather than a supplement.

I am going to take the contrary opinion. My son went to high profile (private) HS which played at the highest level. It was the best thing we could have done for him.

Summer programs are great; but the real work and the competition in HS really sets the stage for both his education and his baseball experience.

We choose to send him the private school without doing that he likely would not have had the chance to play ball in college.

We struggled with the same problem 4 years ago and there is no easy answer as my son who attended a magnet type school but would have to play for our sending district which has a terrible baseball program. The opportunity was there for him to play for a few different high schools (catholic and public) who every year are in the top 10 to 15 in the state but HE decided how he wanted to spend his high school years and it was not going to determined by a team that only plays about 7 weeks together in the spring even though he and my wife and I had the same dream about him playing college ball for teams like Texas, LSU, ect. at the time . Well thank goodness we listened to him as it could not of worked out better for him. He will play college ball (D-3) , he did have the chance to play D-1 ball but again baseball was not the major factor in his college decision but he will attend a very good school with about 97% of the cost covered and he is loving it.

Here is a link to an article about my son that was a preview to the senior all star game that seemed to put everything back into prospective for us. He is the scientist kid.Best of luck to you and your son, the next 4 years go so fast so enjoy it!

https://www.allshoremedia.net/...:features&Itemid=202

Ken, you must be so proud. What a great story. Congratulations to your family.

Great story, Ken. I noticed that your son played for the Farrah Builders. Was he there this fall? We played against that team at Jupiter.

No, he was already up in college this past fall. He played with them 2 fall seasons ago and then with the Toms River Black Sox the following fall.The 2 teams play in the same fall league and they always seem to battle it out for the league championship but the Black Sox do not do the East Cobb type of travel as he already knew at the time he was not looking for baseball money.

Ken, thank you for the response. I read the article and your son seems like a great young man and a great example. I am going to have my son read the article.

Thanks he is a good kid, I just wish the schools in the NESCAC played fall ball because now my son plays rugby in the fall instead of baseball and I think his stitch count is about 37 in his first season playing.

PGStaff frequently reminds us that every path has worked for somebody.

My son and one of his LL teammates both wanted to go far in baseball.

The local public school in whose boundaries we and they live had a weak baseball program.

After weighing all the pros and cons for several months, the other kid's dad put his son in a private school with a much stronger program. We stayed put.

They both worked very hard at their respective schools and had different but positive experiences. The other kid helped his team win some titles. My son learned some lessons about working through adverse situations.

And now as seniors, they're both signed to play at comparable college programs.

It turns out that their effort and attitude after it was decided where they'd go to high school mattered more than the decision itself.

I could not agree more Swampboy, Great post!