Hand Addressed Letter, any more credence?

I have always taken the hand written items as more personal and of more importance

Go with it

Keller dad,
Good question. I always thought the hand written note meant more than the typed letter but that may be what the recruiting coaches want us to think. Most parents and players are looking for a signal from a coach to indicate special interest. Yes the hand written letter vs. the label could mean more interest but in reality it probably means the coach is a little more savvy in recruiting procedures. It tells me he understands the importance of the “personal touch” in marketing his program. The legendary Ron Polk from Mississippi State is a master in the recruiting game and always sends hand written notes to prospective recruits. He even sends hand written letters to players he failed to sign congratulating them on selecting ANOTHER college. I advise caution in trying to over analyze the recruiting process. (like I did)... I think one of the reasons recruiting is often referred to as a “game” is because coaches use many different tactics and strategies to maintain and edge over their competition. All letters are good (typed or hand written) but have a special meaning when they are from one of your son’s top choices. Best of luck to your son.
Fungo

Just did some research......$29.000 per year for this school in question.

Wonder if McDonalds is hiring for weekend jobs.

Interesting. I think we're probably over-analyzing the letters... thanks for the reality check!

Although, we did get one letter we thought interesting... an obvious form letter with a photocopy quality. We'd gotten letters from the school before, but this one seemed to be a bit more "focused" in it's content. At one point in the letter, there was this short sentence "Our interest in you as a student-athlete is sincere." We decided to take it at face value and put this school back on the radar screen.

Another letter taught us about mis-interpretation. It was hand-written from a head coach of a quality program, but a quick read of the wording left the impression on both my son and I that it was a letter of "non interest". So, son threw it away. But, something made me pull it out of the trash later in the day.... I looked at it again and after a closer reading, I realized that it was really a "I would like to know more". Follow-up communication with the coach confirmed this, so now we've got another school back on our radar screen.

If it weren't so personal, this whole process would really be interesting <grin>.

Welcome to one emotionally charged roller coaster ride.

Try your best not to be overwhelmed and to keep it all in perspective. It is soooo easy to try to over analyse every letter, ever phone call, every everything. (we know this because that's exactly what we did)

And no matter what any of us tell you, you won't be able to keep yourself from doing it. (they tried to tell us too)

The most "sincere" sounding letter we received came from a program we doubted very much was truly interested. Heck, they even sent mom and dad a letter telling us they had sent our son and letter and we should take it very serious. (nice touch by the way)

Funny thing, we never got another piece of correspondance from them, no phone calls, nothing. (so much for their serious interest)

The good news is that 24 hours after your sons signs his letter you will be able to look back on this process and laugh (of course you may need a few brewsky's to pull this off)

Good luck.

Analyzing the mail was one of the crazy parts of the overall recruiting process. Though, it was the most fun too! We kept pretty good records of all recruiting contact during HS and looking back there really wasn't a correlation to the number and type of correspondence and actual July 1st calls and future offers. The most honest feedback came for 1-on-1 discussions between our son and the coaches. That is why I'm a broken record on this board saying "don't wonder, pick up the phone and ask".

Just for the record, beginning sentences of letters:
Vanderbilt...Our coaching staff hs enjoyed watching you play...
Stanford...Being an excellent player as well as an outstanding student, you have been recommended...
Charlotte..We feel you are an outstanding prospect..
Michigan...you have been recommended..
LSU...You have been highly recommended...
Dartmouth..A memeber of our staff has recently spoken to your coach...
Mississippi..Greetings from MSU baseball office...
Duke...I recently had the opportunity to see you play at the PG National...
Arizona..you have been recommended...
Miami..we understand you are an outstanding player..
UF..you have been recommended...
Notre Dame...One of our coaches recently had th eopportunity to see you play....
Now Clemson, first paragraph
"I hope this letter finds everything going well for you at this time. The baseball coaches here at Clemson University are very interested in attracting players of your quality Even though you are a junior, we feel that you have a potential to be a future college player at this level. You need to realize that your junior and senior years are very important for you academically. The college boards (SAT and ACT), class rank, and grades in the core curriculum are three large factors in your acceptance at Clemson".
Please note never once did they mention anything about him in particular, or that they had seen him play or he was recommended. Notice the most importance is placed on academics. We thought that this would be the tough one, go figure.
You never know, just fill out the questionaires and stop wondering what it all means.

BTW, most of these letters came AFTER PG wood bat in Jupiter.

Keller, Like RHP said "pick up the phone and call". That is the only way you can truly "gage" where son stands. I agree with TR that a handwritten letter does mean more than a typed letter. Bottom line, you just never know. In our experience, you can count that he'll never get a call from many, if not most, of the folks that send him letters. So, if your son likes some of these schools - he needs to call. He needs to see it like an invitation that says "CALL ME"!

I read TPM response that referred to the letter from Clemson. I quickly realized that the letter was the exact same intro to the letter that my son received. I even found the letter and checked! Guess I don't have enough to do. This is definite proof that the letters from coaches are not always personal-which we never believed were unless the letters contained very specific references to my son.

Too,
You got the point of my post. While so many letters you receive at first might seem to be sending a message, they are really only first recruiting letters.
Once you've sent in the questionaire requested, they get a chance to look it over, things can change. We didn't make any phone calls until after we submitted any info to them, then he let them know how they stood on his wish list. Coaches know nothing about you, other than they may have seen you play, or someone else did.
There is really no reading into it, it is what it is, a first recruiting letter.
The only message I got from that letter was that they specifically were stating their requirements for academic eligibilty before stating anything else, something I didn't see too much of in many letters.
Turned out later , he was one of the top recruits on their list all along, but no letters received during his junior year ever suggested or indicated as such.

We got a letter in response to an intro letter from a local school that read "Thanks for your interest in the University of Blank Blank. We can't however recruit everyone who would like to play baseball for the ***. Enclosed please find an application to one of our summer camps where you will gain the skills to hopefully improve your game."

Obviously a waste of two perfectly good postage stamps.

True to form they never wrote or called. Maybe they heard his dad was a pain in the butt.

Some letter stick in my mind (and maybe my son's) One went like this from the University of Memphis: "July 4th tournament, bottom of the seventh, score tied, hanging curve ball.....Nice home run Josh!" We are looking forward to ...blah, blah.

Of course the one from Slipery Rock made me think. I had to look up Slipery Rock to see if it really exisited....and the one from Valparaiso (I think) that mentioned their baseball field was first class with an electric score board. And there were a few letters where his name was spelled wrong or called him John. There was also one letter that was sent to my son but the inside address was to his teammate Matt Cain (now with San Francisco). I called Matt's father and they had crossed up the letters .... the body of the letters were identical except the names.
Fungo

We are paticularly fond of Ivy League letters that contain numerous spelling and grammatical errors...OOPS!

quote:

Originally posted by Dad04:
We got a letter in response to an intro letter from a local school that read "Thanks for your interest in the University of Blank Blank. We can't however recruit everyone who would like to play baseball for the ***. Enclosed please find an application to one of our summer camps where you will gain the skills to hopefully improve your game."

Obviously a waste of two perfectly good postage stamps.

True to form they never wrote or called. Maybe they heard his dad was a pain in the butt.

Dad04,
Well, at least you knew there was no hidden meaning in that one!

Fungo ...

For those of us who grew up in Western Pennsylvania and who had friends go to the school, we referred to Slippery Rock as 'Slimey Pebble' ...

It is kind of like the community of Squirrel Hill in metropolitan Pittsburgh ... sometimes the name just is too strange to be fiction.

2002....lol

Hand written usually means that the 'puter was broken and the secretary had to write a few herself.

Means nothing.

What matters is when they invite you for a campus visit and make an offer.

there's more to S-R than meets the eye

I'm comfortable with one in mid-town Atlanta, but I'd be up worrying all night with one at S-R

Interesting Bee. That is a school that called my son last winter and although he did have one coach tell him it was a "partying school", I heard nothing but wonderful things about the place. They are a perenial power house at DII level.