Early Recruiting - Very Early

quote:

Originally posted by strike:
At what grade can a player be signed/recruited. I read in Sports Illustrated that basketball players can now be recruited as early as 7th grade and 2 players were the first to take advantage of this rule by signing to USC in the 8th grade. It is my understanding that for baseball it is the fall of the 9th grade. Is this correct?

I am not sure what the current rules are but I believe none of these kids "signed" in 7th or 8th grade. They may have given a verbal commitment but they cannot sign a NLI until senior year in HS.

I have never seen a freshman in HS commit to a College for baseball, but I have seen numerous Sophomores commit.

Strike,welcome to the HSBBW! Lots of discussions on this subject and NCAA has rules they must follow. I will say this,we were at Disney for the 13U Elite and at the same time AAU was having its 8th grade basketball national championship going on. For the AAU show there was a NCAA coaches entrance .I personally spoke to a NCAA head coach of a recent national champion.He said 8th grade is when they really start to follow.My 13 year old son sat next to a head coach of an NBA team during one of our rain delays.Baseball approaches it differantly. After Junior year of HS basically.

The only thing that can occur before the students senior year in HS is a verbal commitment, there is no signing up until then. The verbal is non binding.

Are you sure? I just read today that Jack Nickolas's grandson received all kinds of written scholarship offers (for football) and he is starting his junior year in high school.

strike,

A student can be offered a scholarship verbally at any time. He can receive a written offer any time after September 1 of his junior year. He can't sign anything until the NLI signing date, which for football is early February of his senior year. Other sports, e.g.baseball and basketball have an early NLI signing period in November.

Nothing is binding until the paperwork is signed.

FWIW, son got his orally, then confirmed via e-mails. But nothing is binding until the NLI is signed, and that can't happen until November of senior year at the earliest.

after september 1 of the junior year can coaches respond to inquiries from parents of a kid who is being recruited? on similar note, it is just better at such an early stage for parents to just stay out of the way until things heat up, if they do?

quote:

I have never seen a freshman in HS commit to a College for baseball,

Some kid who was a freshman last year verbally committed to Florida. I think he was all-whatever he could be (county, section, state ... whatever Florida high school does) his freshman year in the Tampa area.

quote:

Originally posted by hitithard:
after september 1 of the junior year can coaches respond to inquiries from parents of a kid who is being recruited? on similar note, it is just better at such an early stage for parents to just stay out of the way until things heat up, if they do?

That's really two questions.

1. Can coaches respond after 9/1 of their junior year?

Only by email or mail. They are not allowed to make phone calls to recruits until July 1 after their Junior year. They are allowed to receive phone calls and talk if you get a hold of them by phone.

2. How involved should the parents be in direct contact?

This has been a very debated topic over the years about the level of involvement of parents. I've found it best if the parents only talk to the coaches when the coaches want to talk to the parents, otherwise, let junior handle the direct contact.

I believe Max Stassi committed to UCLA as a freshman. But he'll never play for them; he signed out of the draft this past summer.

quote:

I believe Max Stassi committed to UCLA as a freshman.

Sophomore

I also remembered seeing that USC stopped pursuing an 8th gr. basketball commit during his jr. year of HS because he didn't pan out.