Recruiting - Creating Visibility

Thank you very much for this posting ... very informative and a great model to emulate. Congrats to you and your son for hanging in there and making a dream come true...

I agree w/ 08Dad. Thanks for sharing your family's experience, I'm sure it will prove helpful to others trying to navigate through this.

In the marketing and visibility game, I think the one thing the aspiring recruit should never lose sight of, is this:

IT ONLY TAKES ONE COACH FROM ONE SCHOOL TO SEE YOU AND LIKE YOU!

My son was a late-bloomer, too, very similar to your son. He spent last off-season working out with a trainer, grew 1 1/2", gained 15 solid lbs. and it just sort of "came together" for him his junior season.

After all of his hard work (and considerable marketing efforts), it finally came down to one game this summer, where he was seen by the right coach, from the right school, who liked what he saw!

Something about "synchronicity" and "luck" being where hard work and opportunity meet.

I give you an "A" for perseverance.

There is actually several threads on this site that went into detail on the use of video and web sites.

I will try to find the right link

Thanks a lot for posting this. Your son's journey is pretty much mirroring ours at the same point in time (it's his junior year). He's very much a physical late bloomer - 6'.5", maybe 153 pounds if I put a 3-pound weight atop his head. The glimmer of hope is that he's in the low 80s now as a stick-boy. He's working hard this winter to put on muscle mass and fine-tune his mechanics to bring his whole body more into play on the mound. The possibility of a nice jump in velo over the next year, once he's bulked up a bit, are very real IMHO. I really do believe the best is yet to come -- and your story gives me strength! Congratulations to your son, and thanks again.

All I can say is "wow". We should start a new topic based on "fathers and sons" - this would certainly be the start of an interesting discussion on when our best efforts on behalf of our sons are either too much or not enough, and at what point he should take over.

I hope he has thanked you for all your efforts, and does the same for his son some day.

BT,
That certainly describes the effort and persistence it takes sometimes to get a player noticed and beyond that, get them recruited.
I will say, however, that I would not classify San Antonio, TX as an area that gets "little attention from recruiters and scouts."
I think it is quite the opposite. Some say there are more scouts on the I35 corridor betwen Dallas, Austin and San Antonio that any place in the US.
Even if that is correct, your post shows how hard it can be to get noticed, even in a hotbed.
Bottom line, that is a great story with a terrific result. Best of luck as he begins his college career.

BT,

Thank you for sharing the story of your son's recruitment. That was a very interesting read! Very best wishes to him in college.


Julie

BT and his wife are good friends of ours and we have marveled over the past couple of years at their tenacity in promoting their son. The website and tracking software have been especially amazing. Persistence has definitely paid off and we are thrilled that Brian is thriving at UIW. Thanks for sharing your inspiring story, BT!

You have definitely given me some good ideas. I have never heard of the tracking software, and I see a website being a lot easier and more effective than mailing out t5apes.

God Bless and good luck in College

I really believe that San Antonio doesn't get anywhere near the looks that Houston, DFW, Austin, Waco, and the Corpus area get. Typically, there are probably 4 or 5 times the number of early commitments from the Houston Heat, than for all of San Antonio. A friend of ours moved to Atlanta and got on with one of the quality select organizations. His comment was that he saw more recruiters at the 16/U tryouts than he ever saw playing for a San Antonio select team.

I think scouts and recruiters gravitate to the pitching and San Antonio has not produced a lot of great pitchers.

I will show you an example of an output page from Statcounter. Some folks on this site backtracked from the link I posted to my son's site. If you follow the following link, it will show the tracking results of todays activity.

Using web tracking gives you feedback on your marketing. You never know what happens to your letters or the videos you send. It does not cost a nickel to put a link on an e-mail and your videos are available on demand for folks to see.

If you use tracking software creatively, you can even track where people click thru on your site.

Current Statcounter Results Page

Congratulations, BT.

One moral I derive from this story is, for those with late bloomers, get your son's name out there now -- even if there is no initial interest -- because when he does blossom they will already know his name, appreciate his tremendous progress, and take greater interest.

Thanks, but all I really want to do is share some ideas that others can use. Since I posted the original link this afternoon, there have been 23 page loads on the original site. Which means that a bunch of folks from this message board were curious enough to backtrack to my son's site. Unless you are using America Online, I can tell where everyone came from.

You can see how powerful a message board can be for driving folks to your marketing activity.

BT, let me reiterate that your information is great and should be very helpful for others to understand and learn what it takes sometimes to get noticed and recruited. Not that it is too important, but I was not comparing SAT with Houston/Austin, I was comparing the I35 corridor to the number of scouts/recruiters in in most of the other 49 states. For players in those areas, where scouting and recruiting is not nearly as plentiful, they should certainly get some ideas of what they need to do from your posts. If it is hard to get noticed in an area where scouts live and visit often, imagine what it is like elsewhere.

quote:

If it is hard to get noticed in an area where scouts live and visit often, imagine what it is like elsewhere.

Indeed. An Atlanta Braves scout once asked my son where he was from. When my son responded "Near Cleveland Ohio," the scout replied "No wonder we never heard of you"

BTJ as I mentioned there have been several debates over the web site VS DVD approach on this site. I tried to find the link to a very well done web approach but can't remember the key words.
Both approaches have great benefits. I chose the DVD mail out which is very inexpensive and I followed up with emails and phone calls. The total cost was less than $100.00. The respose was almost immediate and resulted in several offers and offers to visit and workout. My son's dream school UNLV recruited him heavily from the video but in the end no offer. We had interest from schools as prominant as U Miami all frrom a DVD. Your approach is also very good and I would still chose DVD/CD. We only attended 1 showcase in my son's last 3 years put on by his Elite team which also resulted in offers and phone calls etc.
Our team got very little recruiter attention as well except on US trips. We were getting BB programs sent to us from all over the country but the schools my son was interested in were not aware of him at all. We had to create interest and sending a DVD is like aying we are very interested in your school. Kinda like sending them a card on a speacial day.
Either method can work depending on how you package the approach. I do not like the commercial videos I have seen and a lot of web videos. Too much commercial garbage and not enough substance. Coaches do not have a lot of time and in my opinion do not like listening to music like the Rocky theme while watching a player show his stuff. I think it detracts from the effort.
tracking visitors can be helpful but it dosen't put pen to paper. Talking to coaches gets deals signed.
The thing that really sold me on the DVD/CD approach was that you can have hours of video and the coach can pick and chose what he wants to watch. If he has no interest or need he can put it in the garbage pail which is where it should go. To me web sites are a shotgun approach and DVD/CD are a targeted approach.
i saved alot of money not attending expensive showcases and viewedthem as last resort. Many players I know spent the money and are no better off.

CD the great lakes areas are the poorest scouted areas. I have been told this several times. You have to attend tryouts to get on their radar.
There was a time only a few short years ago when our area was heavily scouted but the advent of large showcases and tighter budgets have changed this.

quote:

Originally posted by BTJohnson:
I really believe that San Antonio doesn't get anywhere near the looks that Houston, DFW, Austin, Waco, and the Corpus area get. Typically, there are probably 4 or 5 times the number of early commitments from the Houston Heat, than for all of San Antonio.

I think scouts and recruiters gravitate to the pitching and San Antonio has not produced a lot of great pitchers.

Perhaps the better explanation is that the team your son played on didn't attract the attention, and wasn't at the venues providing the visibility. The other SA team has been pretty impressive, in terms of signings, over the past few years.

SA isn't as large as Houston, especially when you take into account the metro area around Houston. Nor as large as the DFW metro area. So naturally it won't attract quite as much attention or have as many players go on. But as another pointed out, it is far easier to be from SA than to be from Terlingua. Or the Dakotas.

Manship brothers, Vasquez, Volz, Suttle, Moldenhauer, Thebeau, Hammock, Keithly, Pawelek, Sebek, Stouffer, Pennington, Hill, Pape... Just to name a few. {The full list would be much longer.} Not too bad a group from the SA area.

Folks should be aware that a parent can oversell their kid. There is a thing as too much, and it can be harmful. Also, be sure to let the player being the one making the contacts and doing the talking.

You just listed the high profile recruits over around a 4 year period. I think Thebeau and Hammock are from Corpus. I think there might be three or four early commitments for San Antonio this year. When you go to the Houston Heat site - that team alone has 21 early commitments.

I guess compared to other parts of the country, we might have it good. As far as the private school thing, yeah, we aren't going to get much in the way of looks. However, I attended many of the high profile public school games. I never saw a bunch of recruiters. The most would have been when Volz was throwing for Smithson Valley.

I don't think you can do too much marketing. If they don't know you, you better find a way to get them to think about you. Keep in mind, I think I am speaking more to folks who are not your high profile recruits - like my son.

What I like about the web-site video approach is you will know if the coaches have looked at your stuff by using a web tracking program. From what I have read, some coaches look at mailed in materials and some don't. Who knows? You will know if you e-mail a link and then track to see if someone from the school is looking.

Just to update one aspect of the internet, since I posted a link to a post that I stored on my son's internet site, 49 hits have occurred on the sites index page. Since I did not have tracking on page I stored the post on, it means that those hits all came from folks that bothered to figure out and type in my son's web page. That is a lot of activity - that included a visit from Korea and Canada.

I think where you can have a problem with the internet/email approach is when you have coaches that are not consistently looking at their e-mail. I think that tends to be a problem with some of the smaller programs.

I was referring to the select team he played for, not the HS team. I agree, there isn't a lot of college scouting going on at HS games.

Again, the Houston metro area is probably five times the population of SA area. And with only three Houston teams taking the cream of the crop, I'm not surprised that the Heat has more early commitments. Four or five in SA, twenty-one for the Heat, that's not too far out of line.

And there is year to year variation. This looks like a down year for SA area. Next year should be much better.

Kids absolutely can be oversold. I've had scouts tell me about certain players whose parents pushed them too much and oversold. It does have a negative effect.

If the player is the one doing the work and the contacts, then that problem goes away.

And you are correct in that some coaches aren't fond of email.

Great post.

I like the part about listening to the wife.

Texan - I think this is a down year for SA, but who knows, maybe the season will show some surprises. I do think that 2008 should be a much better year.

And please pass on congratulations to your son. May he have a successful year playing for Heep.

I have struggled with the concept of my Son doing the bulk of his "marketing".
I suppose in the purest sense he does. He plays the game, and that is the most important part of marketing, showing his skill and intensity during a game.

In recent hindsight it has become more apparent that his ability to play the game may be all the "marketing" that he needs. We are very fortunate that we live in heavily scouted Florida.

None the less, (I can tend to be overbearing, forgive me ) my Son just turned 17. He weight trains with the baseball team every morning at 5:45AM, goes to school all day, then has evening workouts, running, hitting, fielding and throwing daily.

He needs a life outside of baseball. To follow up with mail, allow coaches and scouts to be aware of his schedule, his success on the field etc., I don't know how I could expect him to do it all without my help. I research showcases and camps for him to attend. I line up instructors and trainers.

I ship off his High School Schedule and I e-mail updates to potential colleges, as well as setting up un-official visits. I have become sensitive too though, as to the pitfall of being perceived as an overbearing problematic Father who may be more baggage attached to a talented Son than a College Coach wishes to deal with. I have backed off a bit.

We work hard at keeping God foremost in his life. His focus is on the game, and his grades and a little spare time for socialization.

Yes, when July 1st (?) has passed after his Junior year, and recruiters or scouts are able to approach him directly, the ball is in his glove. I will do my best to not speak on his behalf. He is growing into a capable young man, able to handle many of his own affairs.

quote:

Originally posted by floridafan:
In recent hindsight it has become more apparent that his ability to play the game may be all the "marketing" that he needs.

This quote is right on when it comes to players actually finding a place where they can be successful on the field.

Some in this thread have referred to terms such as over marketing, etc. There are also high school coaches who have a reputation of getting mediocre players onto the rosters of high quality college programs.

What is the goal? Is the goal to get a scholarship? To get college paid for? To get some quality playing time?

Would you rether be the kid who has little to no scholarship but plays a lot, or the kid with a big scholarship who sits on the bench. Often these guys are teammates. Which of those teammates do you think is the happiest?

These are simply rhetorical questions, not a criticism of anybody's marketing strategies. As a matter of fact, I only skimmed most of the posts in this thread.

Perhaps I am veering off topic a bit, but when I looked at a list of early signings last week, I am guessing that roughly 90% of the players signed with colleges that are in their own state, and many top programs signed players almost exclusively from their own state. If these observations are true, that can narrow the target marketing for many people.

After I 'retired' from coaching for a year, and before I came back as a part-time college coach (not involved with much of the recruiting), I was asked by a parent if I would attend a showcase to help market his kid, and would be paid generously. I had to tell him that his skills and abilities would market him, and that I would not do that. I believe that kid was 'over marketed', and though he did get scholarship money, did not play an inning as a freshman and may not play much as a sophomore.

I am not against marketing, but the #1 marketing tool is the ability to play baseball. A scholarship will not make any kid a major contributor.

Good insight & observations, grateful. Thanks.

Floridafan that is exactly how I approached the marketing.
I wasn't concerned about my son proving himself by phoning coaches. He had worked hard on his game and got the marks to go to college.
I saw my job as packaging him in a manor that would attract a busy coach to notice him and form a great opinion of him.
many coaches are very hard to get a hold of so I followed up. Most of them called back and gave me their cell phone #s.
One coach from a top D1 JC played phone tag all summer and finally got a chance to view the video and made an offer. He travelled around the country giving lectures and pitching instruction. I just kept trying until he called back with an offer. I didn't bother him and I never had one coach that was not friendly. We targeted about 25 schools and had great relationships with the coaches. Most asked me to have my son call them on their cell when he wasn't working, working out or playing ball.
i really don't understand why people can't see the benefit of an adult talking to a coach.
BTJ I have seen some great web sites that show a players skills. I also think it is interesting to know who viewed the site. My question is how does it help. If a coach looks at the site and dosen't call or show interest how does it help ?
You have to talk to the coach/coordinator to get feed back. This will allow you to adjust if you have to. I was amazed at how many coaches knew some of the players my son pitched against. Some had guys on their roster that he played against. It is through personal contact that a lot of doors opened.

quote:

Originally posted by BobbleheadDoll:
i really don't understand why people can't see the benefit of an adult talking to a coach.

And I can't understand why people can't see the benefit of a young adult talking to the coach. Learning by experience how to deal with adults and authority figures. How to handle their own affairs. Yes, there will be a mistake or two made. But often we learn best from our mistakes.

The process of a young adult moving to independence and maturity is best done as a transition, beginning in the high school years.

As a scout told me, if the coach wants to talk to a parent, he'll have no trouble getting in touch with you.

The way I saw it, for the most part, was that if a coach saw my son's site and looked at his video, he would either be interested or not be interested. There is no point going after someone that sees him throw and is not motivated to respond. However, I found that the vast majority of coaches that bothered to look at his site and check out his video did bother to respond to my e-mail. I found it very effective and easy.

Whether a parent or a player follows up, when following up seems necessary, I guess just depends on the situation. Personally, I preferred my son calling. He is very sociable and both the coach and he get a chance to get a feel for each other. The coaches don't want to get to know me. The only time I spoke with coaches is when they called me - which only happened a couple of times.

Please keep in mind, e-mail was not the only thing we did. It was very effective in garnering interest, but ultimately it had nothing to do with where he is going.

BTJ:
Thanks so much my son is a 08 grad, and we are right in the middle of marketing campaign. The information you have posted is beneficial.
Continued good luck to your son.

Marketing is creating interest in something that someone may not be aware of or even know they want.
Selling is making that someone want what you are selling.
Watching a video of a guy throwing a ball (having viewed hundreds) is not enough. You have to follow up eventually by phone to sell that coach on your son. that is what I do and I enjoy it. My son has to close the deal and that in most cases was talking to the coach who was already to buy.
I used the video as an excuse to call and see if the coach had viewed it. I called usually early in the morning when I knew the coach would probably be in. My son was in school or working etc. I made the initial contact and my son talked to the coach at a predetermined time.
What does being social have to do with talking to a BB coach ? Bill Gates was probably not social. Calling a coach is not a big task. Selling him can be.

Obviously, you had the success you wanted with the approach you used. I was very satisfied with the approach we used. I guess I used the wrong word in describing my son as being "social." He is a very effective communicator. He is what I would describe as a natural born salesman. Besides, I wanted this to be a joint venture. I had done plenty. I used the skills I was best at and my son took it from there.

Coaches might get to see a ton of video and maybe they get overwhelmed. However, I don't need to call them to find out if they saw it. I know if they saw it by looking at the tracking software. Also, there is more to the internet approach then just looking at the pitching video. By having showcase reports, links to articles, personal goals, and other info - a coach can find out a lot more about my son from the website than I can hope to get across in a phone call. However, that is not to say that phone calling was not the best approach for you. I am just saying that I feel our approach was very effective for us.

BTJ you have a pm

I would like to start by saying thanks again to BTJ for sharing a best practice in what worked for him and his family on the recruiting practice. That is exactly what this is a best practice. It may or maynot work for others. I am a parent that is trying to learn and to help my son make it to the next level. This site is a great tool for just that, and to exchange ideas. There is no one size fits all for anything that takes time and hard work to accomplish. Again thank you BTJ.
It seems at times that people on this site think there way is the only way. That is pretty shallow thinking.

BTJ
You have a PM

BTJ I don't want to give the impression that I am against web sites. I am surrounded here by techies and when I decided to go DVD as opposed to web site it was because I felt there was a disconnect and a reliance of waiting for coaches to view the site.
I believe in targeting your schools and that the phone is your best tool to sell and close your deal. We also included news clips,awards etc and a cover sheet The coversheet was in paper form as well as on the DVD. It laid everything out so the coach didn't have to run a videeo to get where he wanted. a caption would describe the video and the coach could view it or not and move on to a different video. Pickoff move, fielding a come backer etc and game action could be viewed on a TV or computer. I had total about 6 hrs of video and a few coaches asked for more. I assumed they watched all of it to my surprise.
Both methods work its just I feel DVD has some real advantages over a web site approch.
The biggest thing was the coach knew you were sending a DVD because you were interested in their program and not just broadcasting to anyone who cared to look. Like I said it is more personalized like sending them a card. The phone calls were free as I have toll free so it was very economical.

I like gjbk1's reply.

It's a place to exchange ideas.

I can see one having to work harder at the recruiting process because of location. A player living in a highly visible state (FL, CA, TX, GA for example) may not see the need for DVD'a, websites, etc.
All that has to be taken into consideration.

I am sure most of us here will admit that they did lots of the recruiting work for their son. It can cover a lot of work, plus we usually know better what needs to get done (from visiting here of course).
However, I have always thought that phone calls should come from the player. It's hard at first, but gets easier. Only time a parent should be involved in a call is when they are called. That's just my opinion.

The bottom line is that there are so many ways that work as far as player recruitment is concerned, and that what works for one may or may not work for another.

When my son was being recruited, I was an NAIA head coach. We just let things happen. No showcases, no videos, no websites. Some coaches saw him play as a sophomore during the high school season, some more saw him that following summer. It was clear by then that he probably wasn't going to play for me in college, though it was always an option. I rarely speak about him on this site, because it is his life, not mine. All of my thoughts and examples (in my contributions on this site) come from first hand experience, either as a parent or a coach.

The next summer (after junior year) he was invited to an Area Code tryout; the goal being to make the team that went to the Area Code Games. One result was that more coaches saw him.

Some people asked me if I called this school or that school's coaches. I did not call any schools, nor did I send any emails or profile sheets. A few coaches later told me they did not call because they assumed he was going to play for me.

I knew some of the coaches who were recruiting him, but not all of them. Phone calls were to my son. He eliminated the schools he wasn't interested in, sometimes without telling me for a week or so. He turned down offers for official visits and sometimes didn't tell me until after he committed.

In my boy's case, if I were to 'market' him or contact other coaches, it would have made the process more cluttered and more confusing.

He didn't need to play on a summer travel team that was playing in all the major tounaments. He played with local players he knew. College coaches and scouts go to several tournaments, even the ones we don't hear about in these threads.

Some people think he had an advantage because his dad was a college coach, but the only real advantage he had was that he had ability and skill. Coaches from every major conference (except the PAC 10) recruited him. I didn't know most of those guys.

Marketing is not necessary for all players. Nobody here should assume that marketing their kids is the 'best' or 'only' way to do it.

As a small college coach, I have personally coached kids who were over-marketed and couldn't play a lick. I have also coached kids who were not marketed at all and became professional players.

There is not one way to go through recruiting that has proven to be the best way, but what is most important is honesty and accuracy. My son's goal has alwyas been just to play baseball as long as possible. My hope was that he would play for a program in which the coaches really wanted him.

Many parents believe that college baseball is a business. Most coaches consider it more of a passion and a way of life, an avenue to touch people's lives.