This whole recruiting process has sneaked up on me.
A little background: My son is a sophomore. He went to a Major D1 prospect clinic in the Fall. The Associate Head Coach/Pitching Coach/Recruiting coordinator told my son they were very interested in him as a pitcher. My son went back for a Pitcher's only clinic this past weekend, and at the end this same coach gave my son his card and told him to call him with updates on how things are going. He went out of his way to give this to my son, so it wasn't something he requested from others. This college would be his number one choice as of today, but it's early and he wants to see what's out there.
He pitched this fall on a scout team. This Spring he's pitching on his HS team. This summer he has the opportunity to play on this scout team again. Over two months they'll practice two nights a week and play in 7 tournaments, including at least three that will have recruiters. (PG, PW, etc.) Also, this organization is run by a MLB scout who gets the players exposed to scouts and recruiters. I like this idea, but I'd also wonder if he needs to take a break from pitching for a few months. There are several camps at colleges later in the summer he could attend, but looking at the prices we can't afford the fees, travel, food, hotel, etc that would be involved. Right now I'm leaning toward the scout team this summer, then taking the fall of his Junior year off. He'd still work out and do long toss. So I guess my question comes down to this...
1) Does he need to take a few months off from pitching? I don't know how much he'll pitch this Spring, but he's only thrown over 80 pitches twice in the past year. So it's not that he's been overused, but he hasn't a break of more than a couple weeks between bullpens.
2) If so, since we can't afford to go to camps other than a few that are in state, is it better to play in prospect tournaments in the Summer before Junior year, or the fall of Junior year?
3) Is it too early to make a video of him and send out a link to some of the colleges he might be interested in since traveling to those schools is cost prohibitive?
Any advice is welcome as I'm a dad going through this for the first time.