After initial contact with a coach how do you continue to keep in touch and express interest in the program? Especially after your season has come to an end.
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Sending out periodic updates is a good way to keep in touch and let the coach(es) know what's going on.For example,after the high school season is over you can send a Spring/Summer update to all the schools on your list. In this update you can include academic,athletic,and personal achievements from the past season/school year, and a youtube link of your hitting,fielding, pitching etc.Also, you can include your summer team info and schedule, tournaments your team will be playing in, and any showcases you'll be attending.
Good luck !
Wagner5,
100% agree with bobbyaguho. Sending milestone updates to coaches every so often is a great way to stay in front of interested coaches. SAT updates, combine updates, scouting results, tournament or Legion results, tournament or showcase schedules and scheduling changes would be few examples of milestones that come to mind.
Son is a 2015 PO and while at 16U WWBA I called and left a message for a coach to ask if he was in GA. The coach got word back to son through Team coach to call him. It was apparent that it was simply a response to my call and not so much that they were that interested. My son questioned whether or not I should be making such phone calls, thinking that if they are really interested, they will call. He wants to be wanted rather than me manufacturing interest. Some of son's team-mates are being pursued by nearly every top ten team making big offers and begging for visits. It's tough finding the balance of pursuit or pursued. When do you switch from one the other? He's had initial contact from half a dozen coaches who say they will be watching and like what they see and to keep in touch. When it starts to look like the interested colleges rosters are filling up a sense of initiative starts to kick in.
Initiative is great but most college coaches/RC's don't want to hear from parents. Contact should come from the player and/or the club/scout/HS coach or instructor if there is a credible relationship with the targeted school/s.
The recruiting process has been likened here quite a few times to a couple's courting process; and, I'm one who thinks that's a pretty apt parallel. In keeping with that, it tends to often be the case that if one party pursues the other with more interest and vigor than the other party is ready to accept and share, the vigorous party can find the object of their ardor looking in other directions. In recruiting, this is particularly true, of course, if the enamored party happens to be the player involved.
...and to extend the parallel for one more step, if the enamored party's parent intervene's upon his behalf, it raises the probability that the target's anxiety is more likely to be triggered and acted upon in exactly the opposite direction intended and desired by the parent.
So, when advice is given here that communications ought to follow natural steps in the process (i.e. the sharing of a player's interest in a program and/or team and showcase schedules), it seems to me to be pretty good advice. As soon as players (and, especially their parents) begin going out of their way to find means of manufacturing contact, they raise the risk that the coaches begin to wonder if the player's becoming a "square peg" trying desperately to fit into their baseball program's "round hole."
Just as in courting, desperation is not on the list of admired traits by the one being pursued. Every coach out there is aware that there are many players who don't fit their program. It's all too easy to cast those who come across as trying too hard into that undesirable category.
mcmmccm,
I think your post has veered off topic from the OPs post. You could start a new thread called 2015 Anxiety? Believe it or not, I think most of us understand what you are feeling. I know I certainly do.
My two cents....It seems to me you are overstepping your bounds either because your son is not getting enough attention, or because you think your son is not being aggressive enough with coaches, or both. Possibly the best solution is to sit down with your son to map out a strategy, timetable, and tasks ranging from phone calls, follow up emails, researching colleges, etc.... Ask him what he needs help with, and let him delegate to you. No doubt there will be backoffice things that need to be done that he'll want help with, but your son needs to be the mouthpiece to coaches for his recruiting effort. Follow up in a week or two to see where you both are at, and make necessary adjustments.
Best of luck!