Might be a dumb question

I'm not sure if I am understanding your question exactly but I do know that you should be very careful in how you answer. My son filled his out a few months ago & I remember being told that you can void or endanger your amateur status if you accept 'payment' for playing in a game, even if its as simple as having your dinner paid. Not sure of the exact details, but I am sure someone here will know.

Also, paying someone like Skillshow to do a video of you must be different than having someone say, pay for your expenses for an out of state game...again, wait for better advice but don't answer until you hear it & of course, be honest at all times. Good Luck to you & your athlete!

CNY2010 - NO! You're not paying anyone to "market" your son's skills (hopefully). His skills speak for (or market) themselves.

The question is aimed at amateur status and you don't wanna mess with that one...unless you did pay someone to market them. But PG or someone like them? No, thats not what they do.

Working on the Clearinghouse questions myself. As you would expect from the NCAA, it is not very user friendly. The question I got hung up on was whether or not he had ever played on a "Men's" baseball team. Technically, our WWBA team last July was an 18U, so I guess? I finally decided they meant more along the lines of adult league or semi-pro, so I answered no. Couldn't find any help seections or FAQ's on the website.

Wayne - The questions have gotten weird. I went through it a couple of months ago...very different than 5-6 years ago.

Felt like a few probes had been inserted by the time I was finished.

Wondering if the Clearinghouse is trying to classify PG and other baseball related businesses as professional sports organizations down the road. After reading some of the questions it almost seems as if they are getting vague on amateurism which could create confusion and create a heated debate. Some people will frown on how the business side (showcase etc) of amateur baseball is impacting the NCAA student/athlete.

I think you are on to something, Fungo.
However, since the "language(marketing/advertising) NCAA is using is not specific with the word "showcase", I would answer NO.
Particularly in light of the fact that the intended audience of showcases would be the college recruiters, IMO. Of course, MLB scouts attend, as well.
When my son went through the process, we elected to put him out there with the idea of finding him a college...The pro scouts could see him anytime between Feb-November.

I find it difficult but not improbable, to think that the NCAA is on that track of going after showcases--after all they just approved 7th graders being labeled recruits in basketball.

I do know that the NCAA is making it more difficult than ever for college coaches to speak at seminars associated with showcase.

One just never knows with them---have you ever called them and tried to get an answer to a question?-- They are totally non-committal

DIY,

I appreciate your participation in our dicussions, but you cannot link to another website in your signature line. (I have removed the website link from your signature.)

Thanks,

Julie

quote:

Originally posted by MN-Mom:
DIY,

I appreciate your participation in our dicussions, but you cannot link to another website in your signature line. (I have removed the website link from your signature.)

Thanks,

Julie

A sneaky but creative guy here Julie. He embedded his website in his screen name.

quote:

Originally posted by rz1:

quote:

Originally posted by MN-Mom:
DIY,

I appreciate your participation in our dicussions, but you cannot link to another website in your signature line. (I have removed the website link from your signature.)

Thanks,

Julie

A sneaky but creative guy here Julie. He embedded his website in his screen name.

Yup, he's obviously been down this road before and knows how to get his website link noticed while skirting the advertising rules.

I went to the site and it is nothing more than one of those "pay for" sites that are a dime a dozen now a days. I guess if you are a family that has money for highly speculative investments, it may be a place to look at along side the rest of the recruiting sites that tug on the heartstrings and wallets of wishful parents.

IMHO, while it is a creative HSBBW "work-around", that backdoor advertising style does not belong here.

I can certainly appreciate a certain level of defensiveness and apprehension when it comes to recruiting services. That said, if you take a look at what we offer from the perspective of the database of college coaches alone, I think it's fair to say that we offer families a great value.

While you offer a coaches database here for free, it's pretty clear that much of the information is out of date. That's understandable, since there is so much turnover that it would be near impossible for anyone to be 100% accurate. That said, by offering the database in Microsoft Excel format, we save our families countless hours of cutting, pasting, and website verifying.

I have no problem with you removing the website from my signature, and so long as it is ok with others, I'll still participate in the discussions here without an overt effort to "sell" anything on the forums. It just seems to me that what we offer falls hand in hand with the typical advice provided here, which is to pro-actively contact numerous coaches as early as possible. Not that I am suggesting this, but with our tools, a student-athlete could potentially contact every single NCAA and NAIA baseball coach in the country within an hour.

You might have a very good and helpful service that could be valuable to some on this site.
There is a very easy way to promote your business here, and that is to buy an ad.

Being a capitalist, recruiting services have their place and will survive if they add value to their customers. Curious what you charge for the database?

BTW if anyone wants a copy of mine that is updated as of Oct of last year just PM me and I will send it to you. It is targeted toward my son’s (mostly West Coast and Ivy’s) interests and has:

Ivy’s
Pac 10
Big West
WCC
WAC
Div II West Coast
SCAIC
Div III Independents
NAIA
Independents

It is basically the ABD Bulldogs links to all of the schools with the data filled in. BTW I think there is a lot of value in researching the schools yourself as you gain insight into a program just sorting through their web sites.

D***********m,
Your insight would add to the site and I would only hope that you change the screen name before others pick up on it and new rules have to be made that respects our paying advertisers. However my gut says this site is nothing more that a "free plug" for your service.

I just went into my profile, and I see no way for me to change my screen name. My thought was to drop the .com from appearing.

That said, if you review the posts that I have made thus far, I went out of my way not to mention any kind of services that we offer on this forum, and only did so in this thread as a direct response to someone else's post.

So despite BOF's curiosity about what we charge for the database, I suggest that interested folks simply click on my username and contact me directly. Again, it is not my intent to run afoul of any forum rules.

DIY,

Thanks for your understanding. Members get a bit protective about the non-commercial purpose of our forum posts here, but we really are a friendly bunch once you get to know the rules.


I changed your Display Name to remove the .com as you mentioned. Again, I truly do welcome and appreciate your participation in our discussions as long as you don't advertise your website, services etc. within your posts.

As you noted, members who appreciate your non-promotional posts may click on your profile and choose to visit your website based on the website link in your profile. The profile also allows you to include info about your service or organization, so that members who are curious can find out more even before they visit your site.

Members, thank you for your concerns, which are valid. I am planning to write up some guidelines to make the rules a little more clear re: links to other websites and using the website names in Display Names, etc.

Thanks!

Julie

quote:

Originally posted by DIYRecruit:
I just went into my profile, and I see no way for me to change my screen name. My thought was to drop the .com from appearing.

That said, if you review the posts that I have made thus far, I went out of my way not to mention any kind of services that we offer on this forum, and only did so in this thread as a direct response to someone else's post.

So despite BOF's curiosity about what we charge for the database, I suggest that interested folks simply click on my username and contact me directly. Again, it is not my intent to run afoul of any forum rules.

Welcome

quote:

It just seems to me that what we offer falls hand in hand with the typical advice provided here, which is to pro-actively contact numerous coaches as early as possible.

Well, then, IMO, you are saying you sell what we have all offered for free....being "typical" & all...

If you read the history of why & how the site was established, you might understand the HSbaseballweb mission to our community of parents & players. Many of our posters have been here for over 10 years. Many friendships & "family" relationships have sprouted & grown within this group...which is so much more valuable than a "typical" recruiting service.

Wow, there's a undercurrent of hostility here which seems out of place. Let me try to explain it in a different way.

Instead of recruiting, let's assume we're talking about tax return preparation. In that scenario, you can go to the library to pick up the forms and fill them out by hand, purchase tax preparation software, get a friend to help, or hire a CPA. There's probably a few other possibilities as well. In the end, it's the same process, a filed tax return. Now if you are taking the standard deduction and don't make a lot of money, you probably only need to file a 1040EZ, and you're done. If you have a very complicated return with lots of deductions, you're more likely to hire a CPA since the risk of an audit is substantially higher.

Let's get back to recruiting, and more importantly, the cost of a college education. A four year degree at a private school can run upwards of $200,000 or more. Less than 10% of high school baseball players go on to play at any level in college. A review of some of the other forum messages here shows that for every kid who signs, there are plenty who didn't. Take, for instance, the Louisiana dad who posted about his senior son. No matter how you slice it, the odds are stacked against these kids, and the stakes get higher every year.

Let's take a poll from some of the members here who successfully navigated the recruiting process on their own. How much time did you spend while your son was in high school working on recruiting? Were there instances where you weren't sure how to proceed? Did you spend a lot of time going through websites to gather up names and email addresses? Did you have questions regarding the Clearinghouse? Now take that number of hours and multiply it by $10/hr. If over the course of a few years my $119 "service" saves you 40 hours, wouldn't it have been worth it? Heck, it's even offered with a money back guarantee, so where's this indignation coming from?

Again, none of my forum posts have actively solicited people to buy anything from me. But to sit there high and mighty and say that everything free in life is "better" or even "just as good" really misses the point. You could make your own wood bats in the garage, but would that mean than Louisville Sluggers weren't a good product?

quote:

Originally posted by DIYRecruit:
Again, none of my forum posts have actively solicited people to buy anything from me.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

It must be a duck.

DIY,

Don't take it personal we throw all solicitors under the

First off DIYR I hope you don't get run off. Your insight may help some people here so IMO keep posting, time will tell on your insightfulness. The mother of all posters here TRHit (maybe not the mother but one of them...but I digress) anyway I am sure he gets business because of his activity here. He helps kids get noticed so - no harm - no foul - IMO.

To those that PM'd me give me a day, I think I can set this file up on Google Docs so it can be shared, and maybe even updated...sort of like open source software.

OK folks the Internet is an amazing place...and so is google docs.

Here is the file. Open to everyone who is interested. If you find any mistakes PM me and I will keep it updated.

Julie this is a great way to share information here without having to email documents all over the place.


http://docs.google.com/leaf?id...FkMGZiZGViMzJl&hl=en

BOF

Great list !!!

By the way we do not have a recruiting service business---we are a baseball program and that, as you know , is quite a bit different.

An additional plus for parents getting involved with their sons in the process is that by going to a college website they can get more than just baseball info on the school--

I have some updates that I will get to next week.

List updated with a few changes and one add.

http://spreadsheets.google.com...TI5b190NVhmRnc&hl=en

dated may 10'