letters?

Yes! IMO, The format that seemed to work the best is to either fill out the college profile (can get them on-line) or develop your own profile (sample can be found on this site) and add a personalized cover letter to the coach. In this letter is where you express your interest in their program/school and highlight where they can see you play this year. If you have a game schedule, include it as an attachment with the profile.

What do you mean by personalized letter cover. Also do you think it is smart to put the schedule on the the introductory letter, even when they have never seen me play. What i did was write a personal letter by hand and expressed interest about the school. I am just looking for some last minute touch up's i can do. Thanks

Yes, daniel, it is a good idea to let coaches know where they can see you play. It sounds like you have already been sending what I referred to as a personal letter. I have seen players just mail back profiles, which I don't think is very personal or often provides enough information. My suggestion was to attach a one page letter that is addressed to the coach by name, refers to the school and the baseball program by name, a brief statement as to why you are interested in their program, and a short list of where they can see you play. Hope this helps. Good luck with your recruiting!

Personalized means you did some research about the school, the coach, the players etc...for example, you might see a player a roster you played against in summer or HS ball...perhaps referencing that you competed against a current player will show you took time to read the roster and also give the coach an idea of they level you have competed against...if they won a league title you might weave that into the mix of the letter...I have noticed a lot of kids who write a cover letter that is one rambling paragraph...keep letters brief, check all spelling and break it up into 3 or 4 short paragraphs....

I can send you a sample letter if you send me a PM with your email

Advisor,
Knowing the coaches I have met, they would consider that brown nosing.
Daniel,
Before you include where you will be playing, include your current GPA and SAT/ACT score, any tournaments/showcases you have participated in and what other honors you have achieved (baseball, any other sport, academics). That is the first thing they look for, trust me. They know you are interested, that is why you are sending them the info. My son knew very little about the school he is now attending at first. In return for your efforts you will get a questionaire.
If you have participated in a showcase, they will go directly to get a report on you, if interested.
My advice is to develop a short resume
with the above info, include your grad year etc., and then just include a short cover letter with it, coaches have very little time to read over lots of info.
And they are rarely interested in your stats. They look for homestate, position, GPA, SAT first. Teams you've played for other than HS. You can ask your English teacher to help you with it, they love helping with that stuff.

For those that may be interested in how we handle it:

We contact the the coaches (phones/email) for the players on our travel team to make initial contact and fill them in on the boy. We also make sure that the colleges know where we are every weekend even if they cannot attend and many of them request reports as to how the player did over the weekend.

We actually "market" our players and it is all in the program--nothing additional-- And it happens even if the player does not attend all the events we are in.

It is a real team effort as we ask the players and parents to continually update us as to who is writing, calling etc. The players in our showcases get the same assistance if they request it. They do not have to be on our team to utilize our assistance. It is all wrapped into ther showcase/travel team fee.

Every program does things differently-- we do it our way and have for the past 11 years.

I truly believe that the parents have to do some extensive research before they become part of any program. Those who do the proper research are usually well rewarded and have no sour grapes after it is all over.

Good luck to all of you who have dreams--they can come true!!!

TR,
We paid a lot of money for our son to travel on a summer team. They did exactly as you do, they contacted the coaches or scouts to let them know where they would be each weekend or each day. In some cases, they actualy brought the team to play at schools so the coaches could get a look (greatD1 schools too).
I realize now that I had paid them to market my son's talents. Funny, I never looked at it that way,it just was so well done. Killing two birds with one stone. Playing with a good team and having them do the work for you. I can tell you that coach was very instrumental in helping my son to gt into school. He is still in his life, as I imagine you must be in some of your players as well.
Parents when looking for someone to assist in helping your son get recruited, your best advisor and marketing rep may be his coach!

TigerPawMom

We too play on college campuses--already this summer we have been to Western Carolina and Coastal Carolina with others still ahead on the schedule.

One additional thing that we do is to have each event stand on its own--players do not necessarily attend all of the events--this can help keep costs down and it also affords us the opportunity to have more kids seen in areas where they have interest in colleges. We usually travel with around 16 to 20 kids but by seasons end 35 to 40 have been on our roster