Many college rosters have local kids

It's only natural that a school would have a lot of players from its home state.  This is especially so for state-supported schools, since baseball is a partial scholarship sport and thus, families will make decisions with costs in mind.  And for walk-ons it's all the more important.

It's also quite common for a school to let a player know they'd like to see a lot more of him before they commit to him.  In those situations, a camp is a great way to let them see you in a lot of game situations and also have a chance to talk with the player at length.

So there are a lot of reasons why you'll see in-state players on the roster, and why a lot of them may have gone to a camp.

That's not to say they won't recruit someone who stands out at a camp, but in my experience the statement you mention is typical to brochures and not actually reflective of whether they use their camps as a sifting tool.  For the average attendee, the camp is just a learning opportunity and not much more.

It's also a money decision for the colleges.  They are unlikely to be willing to send their coaches all around the country to find talent.  Big name programs in California, Texas and Florida have a huge talent pool so why engage in hydraulic fracking when you can just drill in your backyard, to use an analogy.  Only superb talent that attends one of their camps and dominates will be pursued.

Local kids are also most likely to be loyal to the program and often are willing to sign for much less.  Out-of-state tuition puts pressure on the school to make a larger offer so the kid has enough to pay the bills.

People like to be liked.  

Coaches want players that are excited to go to that school.  I've heard D1 coaches say "We recruit kids that recruit us."  While they may not round out a 35 man roster from kids that reached out to them.  If all things equal, but a local kid would go through a brick wall to be on that team… no brainer.

Rich

www.PlayInSchool.com

Bum, Jr. has done both.  He played for the local D1 in Washington then a Texas D1 out-of-area.  He lucked out in that the volunteer coach of his new school coached him in a summer collegiate wood bat league and he also pitched against them while he was with the first school.  The point is, he was a known quantity to them.  If a kid wants to play for an out-of-state school, 1) he had better be talented and 2) he had better be seen by them and more than once.  Picking a school across state lines may be good as it could be within the target school's recruiting boundary and also many adjoining states have tuition compacts.

Some of it depends on level. I know several D3's that truly recruit nationally. One school in sons conference recruits few if any local players. Administration has directed that player population should mirror that of the campus population. Most students come from east and west coast, so that is were they recruit from. The school is willing to pay the extra cost of recruiting. 

Why did he play for two different D1 schools?  Did he have to sit out a year?  

What was his major? 

This is a case by case basis IMHO.  Some schools recruit locally, regionally and nationally all for different reasons.  Money is usually part of it, whether it is a recruiting expense or part of an in-state or out-of-state scholly as previously mentioned.   Some of it has to do with the competitive level of the team & conference that requires top level talent that can only be found nationally.  Also, it can be a high admissions level requirement that requires national recruiting.  I've also seen rosters skewed toward a certain geography that a recruiting coordinator is most familiar with.  For example, UVA has picked up quite a bit of talent over the years from MD and PA as their recruiting coordinator is familiar with that territory.  Previously, Virginia Tech had a roster full of northeast kids as their former head coaches & recruiting coordinators came from there.  In addition, some programs have a reputation for a high JUCO transfer rate.  It just depends, and takes some time to research the big picture with a particular program.  JMO.

Good luck.

I think you will find that big schools like the BIG 12 ,SEC, etc. these schools are going to be looking for the best of the best an search East / West, North & South.

fenwaysouth +1 on your post..

Happy Holidays to all,

Joe

Actually if you look at the schools rosters in those power conferences you will find a majority of home grown talent.  

I'll chime in to agree with Midlo and others.

First, the camps. My experience has been that most of those kids didn't get "discovered" at the camps, they were invited there after the school developed an interest in the player.  That invite might have included a tour, a football game, etc.

As to the predominance of local kids, I'm speculating that is fueled mostly by finances (for the students and the colleges).  Those major DIs you're looking at are probably mostly big public schools. Look at the Vandy and Duke rosters; very few locals compared to the big state schools. Another factor is the state population. Florida, FSU, UCF, and Miami are all packed with Florida kids.  Maryland's roster is less than half in-state.

I could also see the local angle coming into play in the tie-breaker cases.  If the recruiter has two kids that he likes equally, and one lives 3,000 miles away while the other is local, I'd bet on the local kid.

IMO, the most important part of your marketing approach is to know your market.  Figuring out which schools are likely to be interested in your son is the toughest part.

jlaro, Bum's Jr.s Pac-10 and Big 12 school teams' rosters combined had maybe 5-6 out-of-state players.  PIS is correct.

Best situation, yes, and major was baseball.  Currently being paid to play.

Every college will try to get the best players in there own state.  But if you check the best players on many of these rosters you will see many out of state players.  You especially see the best northern players at southern schools. For example, two of U of Florida top recruits this year are from Ipwa and Minnesota. Every program wants to win the recruiting battle for the best players in their state.  Once they have who they want, the remainder of the roster are usually in state players, due to cost.

Checking our 2014 rankings, it looks like nearly half of the top 100 players are committed to out of state colleges. The vast majority of those committed in state come from California, Florida and Texas. However, there are players from those three states that have committed to out of state schools, too.

Just for the record, most of the top colleges travel coast to coast looking for talent.  At the same time they all concentrate on there home state. For sure if they see a kid from Wisconsin or Maine and they think he is one of the best players out there, that player will be heavily recruited by schools everywhere in the country.