Offer Announcements

Seems weird to me, announcing offers.

Why would you announce an offer?  I've had hookers made offers to me before.  The way some were dressed, I'm pretty sure they were D1 Power 5.  The big news would be if I were to ever accept.

OK, on a more serious note...  I think this is a bit of bleed-over from football.  It seems common, when discussing and announcing decisions with FB recruits, other offers are included in the dialog.  In baseball, it is very rare.  Not sure what the answers are.  My first impression is that I think baseball has it right.  But, when I read about football commits, I do find it interesting to see where else they had offers from.

Saw this recently, where the kid's high school baseball program tweeted the offer, and congratulated the kid. Not too common with baseball.

I guess I'm with cabbagedad on this. I can see announcing a commitment, but the idea of announcing an offer seems to serve no purpose but self promotion.

That's  a prep -football / Basketball thing. The culture is different in baseball. We do not do that in Baseball

I would have never considered allowing my son to announce an offer.  He announced his commitment 20 seconds after he hung up the phone with the coach, which I'm fine with.  I just don't see the need to announce every single offer.  To me, the offer is between the player and the coach that offered.  If a kid wants to tell the coaches who has offered, that's fine...it's his business, but announcing it to the world seems kind of flaky to me.  Maybe baseball players are just too classy to do that kind of stuff

I saw an interesting football one today.

"...I am very blessed to verbally commit to the University of XXXX (my recruiting is still open) Thank you"

The strange part of this was that it wasn't the player tweeting offers, but the school and coaches doing it.  Perhaps if it was a fringe player, maybe a coach would do that to generate interest for the player...  It just looked strange to me but maybe it is a good marketing ploy to generate more interest for a player.

Go ahead if you want to 'build your brand' and announce it.  I see no harm.  Other than too the unwritten traditioun, which may turn off an old school coach.  Control what you can control.  In five years it will be common.

NYdad2017 posted:

I saw an interesting football one today.

"...I am very blessed to verbally commit to the University of XXXX (my recruiting is still open) Thank you"

If I was the coach of the school this kid committed to I would reply with a tweet that says "Yes your recruiting is still open because you are no longer wanted on my team"   Do kids/parents not understand the definition of committment????  It's not difficult.  You commit, you're done!   If you're not ready to commit....then don't!

Buckeye 2015 posted:

NYdad2017 posted:

I saw an interesting football one today.

"...I am very blessed to verbally commit to the University of XXXX (my recruiting is still open) Thank you"

If I was the coach of the school this kid committed to I would reply with a tweet that says "Yes your recruiting is still open because you are no longer wanted on my team"   Do kids/parents not understand the definition of committment????  It's not difficult.  You commit, you're done!   If you're not ready to commit....then don't!

No, they don't understand or simply don't apply the word.  But to be fair, neither do the schools.  It's a two way street and there are committed players every year that will ultimately not be given an LOI from the school that offered and accepted the verbal.

In football and basketball, it is the norm to continue to shop yourself around after making a commitment.  Likewise, when a kid commits, it just tells the other schools to pursue the kid harder if they want to swing him.  It's simply that way it's done in those sports, largely because they're headcount sports, so the scholarships are basically interchangeable between one school and another.  In equivalency sports, the money offer between schools can vary significantly, so committing and de-committing can be far more risky.

I'm old school and don't believe that a kid should rescind on a commitment, however the schools hold ALL the cards and continue to recruit, look to pull in JUCO transfers, etc., for the same positions that they have commits, so I certainly understand the landscape and don't fault families for looking out for what's best for them.

I agree that more common in HS hoops and or football. HC and RC may ask a baseball recruit this question and the recruit should answer, but not publish. (Many HSBBWEB threads on getting an offer is easier once you get the first one).The offered school should feel special.

NY dad's post about the football commit is unbelievable. And while were on topic of announcing, players should probably delete "Schools interested in" once they commit on PG profile. After all, the one that is of true interest is where the player commits and matriculates.

My son doesn't tweet or announce offers, but when a school asks what offers he has, he's honest about who and if they ask, what the offers are. After all, those coaches are sitting together in the bleachers at his games, I'm guessing they have a good idea of who he's talking to. 

I agree 100% with Buckeye. Along the way, 2018 was given a very flattering offer and just wasn't ready to close up his search so he told the RC that he wasn't ready. Plus, he told me that he wanted to be 100% certain when he makes the commitment. "My word is my bond."  That's my boy.

As far as telling other schools, before he committed, he was totally honest with the schools he was talking to. "Coach A, College B offered me C% to answer your C-25%. No pressure. Just thought you'd like to know."  Of course, he's was a RHP touching 90 mph at the time, so I gotta believe that he held some bargaining chips.

Kids in all sports announce offers all the time. It isn't just a football/basketball thing and a "we just don't do that in baseball". Social media is here to stay and it's a new generation. There are any number of reasons players announce their offers. Good for them. If employment worked like that, as an employer, I would have no problem with it either. If I hire someone who has a lot of offers, it means they wanted to come to work for me.

People in search of attention.....

(But as stated, it is common in football and basketball - I know of at least one current HS QB who was committed to Big10 School X, tweeted that he got an offer from SEC School Y - coach of Big10 School X subsequently pulled his offer...and commitment, one day later.  QB is now committed to sub-P5 School Z).

justbaseball posted:

People in search of attention.....

(But as stated, it is common in football and basketball - I know of at least one current HS QB who was committed to Big10 School X, tweeted that he got an offer from SEC School Y - coach of Big10 School X subsequently pulled his offer...and commitment, one day later.  QB is now committed to sub-P5 School Z).

The way "Big 10 School X" handled it reflected poorly upon them. They had signed another 2018 QB about a month prior. This was an excuse for them to reneg on the offer to the player. The "sub-P5" football school is a good choice and would wreck plenty of P5 teams on the field.

Yup - I'm an alum and fan of School Z, so we reaped the benefit of it.  Still kinda crappy for the young man.  Except you're right, he's headed to a good program with what seems like a very good HC.

I am old school.  I don't announce anything unless there is something to be announced.  If a third party were to do it, I would thank them for the gesture and kindly ask them to remove the tweet or facebook post or from whatever other medium ASAP. 

Here's another thought... I don't believe people ought to let any third parties know of any potential offers or any other private business for that matter.  This information should be kept in the family imho and if it does not leak out, this kind of thing perhaps could be avoided in the first place.  If the D1 school is letting the third party know of the offer, there is not much you can do about that other than to ask the 3rd party to remove the offending tweet after it occurs. 

I agree CD.  Our younger son committed after one game of his junior season.  I told his HS head coach and travel team head coach and asked them to not tell anyone else. And our son told the other coaches recruiting him so they wouldn't waste their time. I did this because I didn't want any distractions during his junior season.  Just play baseball without any unnecessary attention.

They kept their word, for which I was grateful.  In some ways, it became somewhat funny - assistant coaches confused as to why he wasn't talking to colleges, asking if they could help ("no thank you"), etc...

But it helped provide a clear head and very fun and successful year.  11-0 on the bump, a #1 team national ranking in a couple of media outlets.  That was the most fun - getting attention for the right things.

Buckeye 2015 posted:

I would have never considered allowing my son to announce an offer.  He announced his commitment 20 seconds after he hung up the phone with the coach, which I'm fine with.  I just don't see the need to announce every single offer.  To me, the offer is between the player and the coach that offered.  If a kid wants to tell the coaches who has offered, that's fine...it's his business, but announcing it to the world seems kind of flaky to me.  Maybe baseball players are just too classy to do that kind of stuff

+1.  Agree Buckeye 2015.

Some people like to tell everyone that will listen, and others play it very closely to the vest for their own reasons.  I truly believe this whole "announcing thing" is a result of the peer pressure these kids are under.   I saw it with my sons travel team years ago.   Every kid went to a D1 program.   In a lot of cases, I saw kids committing just for the sake of committing because others on the team were committing....peer pressure.  It is like a feeding frenzy, and this is where opportunities can be lost in the rush to commit.   There is no question, the recruiting coaches take advantage of this situation.  

 In our case, my son was very hesitant about announcing his commitment until he got an official admissions letter.  He did not share offer information with anyone except his travel coach, family and people he trusted.  If a coach asked about his offers or interests,  sometimes he would share the name of the school but mostly he referred to the athletic conference that the school is in.   It depended on the situation, and if he liked/trusted the coach.  When he did commit, I had to force his hand a little to inform other offering college coaches that he had verbally committed to another school.  

As always, JMO.

Football and Basketball twitter offer announcements remind me of the seedy underbelly of the used car salesmen universe. But that is where the money is so SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

I would like to announce that my Kid was offered an opportunity to hang out at the swimming pool with a kid who knows a kid who knows another kid who has a cousin who plays for the Houston Banditos.   We're planning a news conference at Noon

I don't see a problem with it.  The travel organizations tweet it out all of the time so I know their motivations behind doing so.  However, with the kids I think it is genuine excitement for the most part with a small minority probably hoping this gets the attention of another school they are interested in.  They have worked their butt off and for most of them it is an honor to get that opportunity.  They are excited, they want to brag a little, so be it.  They have earned it in my opinion.