High School recruiting?

The rules vary from state to state. We left CA when my oldest was in kindergarten. So I don't know the state rules. A couple of years ago I saw an article where the De Lasalle football coach swore he doesn't recruit. If that's true the success of the program is naturally drawing a lot of the best players. Plus the players could be doing the recruiting for him approaching players.

Where we lived during the high school years the private high schools in the state athletic association are not allowed to recruit. Yet the same private schools repeatedly go to states in every sport. I think we can read between the lines. The schools not in the state association are allowed to recruit. Some of than are national powerhouses in the sport they choose to excel.

My son was recruited by a couple of schools. They offered half off tuition if he would play two sports. Neither lower their academic standards. Both have entrance tests. However, one has more of an are you stupid test more than how smart are you. Even with the tuition lowered to 12k or 8k I felt our highly regarded high school was just fine.

Yup, similar to RJM's experience, in our area, most privates end up with an unusually high percentage of gifted athletes, particularly in the sport they are best known for.  Privates typically advertise and tout what is great about their school, including historically strong athletic programs and facilities.  While they usually will not offer discounted tuition specifically based on athletic abilities, they are certainly free to offer special help with "needs-based" situations such as yours.

I believe CA has specific rules but I don't know the details.  I know of an AD who had his hand slapped a few times for going out of the country and coming back, only to have a few remarkable athletes from the country he visited show up on his sports roster the following few years.

So, your dialog may not include concessions that are directly based on sports performance but likely will include an offer of tuition help based on "needs".

Whatever those rules are, coaches regularly deny specific sports recruiting but the results certainly point to something otherwise.  Certainly, there is an element of "chicken or the egg" where star athletes search out privates that excel in their sport of choice.  I'm sure that both occur and ratios vary from school to school.  All JMO and observations mostly from a short distance.

Hey Truman,

I'm a bit confused... not sure if you are likening the way private HS's recruit as similar to private colleges or if you missed that OP was talking about HS.

Ooooops,  you're right.  Somehow I read right past that.

20116 Dad,

I sent my son to a private school in my area as the league of private schools consistently provided the highest level of competition and in part, I wanted to get my son in a program to take him to another level. There was a school that actually made an effort to "recruit" my son and subtley offering incentives.  But I later learned that this was against the league policies.  As it turned out, we did not sent my son to the school that would do those things and we chose a school for reasons that had little to do with the individual school's baseball program, but it was the leagues level of play that was a big factor.

Anyway, in the area of CA that I live in the private high schools are not allowed to "recruit" nor offer any financial incentives to come to their school.  The coaches at some of the private schools sometimes try to find ways to bring interest to their program . . . like having baseball camps or having a summer baseball program.  I don't know if it's statewide, but it seems that this issue of recruiting depends on what part of the state of CA you're in.

Private schools do offer financial assistance using a similar process as the colleges where one completes a FAFSA form to find the need basis for financial assistance.  And from what I've observed, it can vary widely from school to school as to how much influence a coach might have in softening the academic entry requirements to get a prospective player into the school (which isn't part of any "recruiting" process).

So, it doesn't seem like the type of "recruiting" you describe is allowed in private schools, . . at least, not in the are in which I live.

California is governed by the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) and the primary rules regarding recruiting and transferring are in Bylaw 510.  Additional rules associated with transferring where a connection to a former high school or travel team coach exists are given in Series 206 and 207.  The rules apply to both private and public schools.  

Basically the rule is that no school may provide "undue influence", defined as any act, gesture or communication (including accepting material or financial inducement to attend a CIF-member school for the purpose of engaging in CIF competition regardless of the source) which is performed personally, or through another, which may be objectively seen as an inducement, or part of a process of inducing a student,

It is extremely difficult to establish that undue influence has occurred. I live in the same area as Truman, and my son attended a private high school (in the same league as his) for pretty much the same reasons. The local baseball board has periodic bouts of allegations of misbehavior by the private schools, although ironically the rules are written sufficiently broadly that IMO any public school within 50 miles of a private is very likely to be in technical violation.

Anyway, frequently privates do relax their academic requirements for excellent athletes, and this is legal.  At my son's school, financial aid to any student is based on need, and students receiving aid have to work before or after school in partial compensation for the aid.

Thanks for the links to CIF rules. I can tell from the rules just about every circumstance under the sun has been exploited at some point. They cover a lot of situations. Had no idea they went into so much detail.

We're in the league with Baseball America's #1 HS team Harvard Westlake, their upcoming JV and Fresh teams dominated the league as well so wondered how much of their success is great coaching and development vs stacking the teams with known talent.

Sounds like I'm in the same neck of SoCal as 2 of these posters.  My perception is 'High School recruiting' is just something middle school dad's tell each other.  If another person believes my kid got recruited, am I going to clarify the situation?  Or even worse, if I imply my kid got recruited, is there really any way to verify (or debunk) it?  I think kids/players/families self select into High Schools programs.  In specific reference to the HW team, they run a full club program down to the 8U age group.  I believe they fielded four 14U 8th grade teams this spring.  I'm sure a large number of those players applied to HW.  The coaches just need to wait to see who gets through the admissions process.  We're still talking about High School athletics - give a quality coach five or six athletes and he'll fill in the rest.

We have a private school about 15 minutes away from me that offer reduced tuition if you are a talented athlete.  I guess you could say they "recruit".  There is a guy that just graduated there that was a gifted 3 sport athlete who basically got to go there free.  He still paid, just not as much.