Offer experiences

@Zanzibar posted:

Curious if you noticed any changes post-commitment.  I'm not worried about my son letting off the gas once he accepts an offer.  He's self-driven like I assume most kids in his position are.  But do worry a bit about the added stress of having to "live up to" being committed early and all the pressures and social dynamics that might come along with it.       

My son has two club teammates who have totally dropped off after committing.  One committed summer after his 8th grade year to a Top 5 program.  The other committed after his freshman summer to a P5 school.  When my son committed the head coach actually said, "Don't let up like_____, _____, and _____ have been rumored to do."  These coaches know everything about every player.  As small as you think that world is, its much, much smaller.

Every player knows on every team they play who's committed and where they are going.  Your son will get used to that pressure or he wont.

@ARCEKU21 posted:

Oh no, they were interested. It was more on my son's end. His thought was that he wanted to choose his coach, not be given a coach. So when the coaching change was announced, he de-committed and opened his recruiting. The new coach recruited him during the process, but ultimately he chose a different school.

I asked that question because you never hear of players saying that they wanted to stay with the new coach and play for their dream school.

I get it though.

@SpeedDemon posted:

Softball coaches are still looking at younger players and inviting them to camps but early offers/verbal commitments are much less common. And nothing is announced until after 9/1. It's a huge improvement from a few years ago.

Baseball isn't there yet. Still lots of early commits. Too early.

But softball and lacrosse were the worst, and that's mostly been cleaned up.

And PG is going to try to un-clean it. We have the first PG softball player rankings starting with the 2024 class.

https://www.perfectgame.org/softball/

@ARCEKU21 posted:

And PG is going to try to un-clean it. We have the first PG softball player rankings starting with the 2024 class.

https://www.perfectgame.org/softball/

Extra Innings Softball and FloSoftball have been ranking players for years. So this isn't anything new. And 2024s are HS juniors. But I hear you.

So much money to be made playing on people's hopes and fears.

FYI, as background - PG entered into a partnership with PGF (Premier Girls Fastpitch, large tournament operator based in SoCal) just before the pandemic in 2019, and PG is slowly taking their baseball model to softball. I think it's a net positive - softball recruiting is way less efficient than baseball recruiting, more data will help both coaches and players.