Recruiting Websites

What is WJS?

My son used the same website and we got great networking contacts with coaches. He is also a RHP from VA and we loaded his stats and a few videos of him pitching so coaches could see and it worked great. He got contacted by 1 D1, 4 D2, 3 D3 schools and a few NAIA as well. He was offered partial scholarships from 2 NAIA and 2 D2 schools but we ended up settling on a top D3 program in NC. Highly recommended!

Wall Street Journal

My son uses berecruited.com and it is nice for uploading stats and videos. I paid for $39.00 but would not recommend it. The free part is just as good.

I operate one so Ive been through pretty much all of them. Dont want to advertise here but you can PM me if you want. I put my little cousins profile on there just as a "dummy" profile to test it and he got contacted by 5 or 6 schools before we opened. If you use any of them, my best advice is to not spam by sending a video to everyone, but focus on the schools you want play at and follow up to make sure they watch the video. How you do your video is also important. There are plenty of tutorials online, and Im sure there are some on this site. No need to go crazy adding extra video space. 5 minutes is plenty if you edit well.

By the way, you cant beat playin college ball in FL!

For people that have used berecruited, how long did it take for you felt that you were starting to get noticed? Also if a coach contacted you, how did they do it?

Other advice is good as well.

Thanks.

Is there an advantage (aside from cost) to using a recruiting website vs. setting up your own website?

Thanks

quote:

Originally posted by MarlinsMS_35:
For people that have used berecruited, how long did it take for you felt that you were starting to get noticed? Also if a coach contacted you, how did they do it?

Other advice is good as well.

Thanks.

We received a few hits within about a month. Mostly from JUCO's and out of state small schools. Also used the be recruited site to send out email letters to coaches but never really heard anything from them or saw any extra activity on the site because of them.

Here is a link that will quickly take you to all NCAA member schools baseball websites.

http://www.ncaa-baseball.com/

Go to your schools or choice, find the coach's email or phone number, or both, and introduce yourself.

NO CHARGE

The advantage is that coaches already go to the recruiting sites looking for players, so you may be contacted by coaches without having to solicit them. You should initiate contact with the schools you know you are interested in.

Cost wise its probably pretty close. Just see how much the recruiting sites are and compare it to how much it is to create and host your own (if you're good at making sites that its probably pretty cheap). Whether you use a service, your website, or a YouTube profile, the key is to have a good video and make sure the places you are interested in get to see it.

quote:

Originally posted by OLDSLUGGER8:
If a kid has game, a major contributor to his HS program, he will find a solid summer program.

Just like most things, talk of absolutes like this simply are not true. He may find a summer program, and a summer program may find him. Many summer programs have tryouts before the player has a chance to contribute in that particular year, so many summer programs are a year behind the curve in identifying and targeting new found talent that has game.

quote:

talk of absolutes like this simply are not true. He may find a summer program, and a summer program may find him.

Sorry, I am wrong and I deleted my post. Hopefully that doesn't lead anyone to spending unnecessary money for a service??????????????

I'm not paying, I'm using a free profile.

Also, i have trouble finding the coaches e-mails on their websites. It has a nice, long bio of the coach, but no contact info. Am I missing something? I fell kind of stupid, not being able to find it.

quote:

Originally posted by MarlinsMS_35:
I'm not paying, I'm using a free profile.

Also, i have trouble finding the coaches e-mails on their websites. It has a nice, long bio of the coach, but no contact info. Am I missing something? I fell kind of stupid, not being able to find it.

"staff Directory"

quote:

Originally posted by OLDSLUGGER8:

quote:

Originally posted by MarlinsMS_35:
I'm not paying, I'm using a free profile.

Also, i have trouble finding the coaches e-mails on their websites. It has a nice, long bio of the coach, but no contact info. Am I missing something? I fell kind of stupid, not being able to find it.

"staff Directory"

Thank You

If you don't find it on the athletic site, go to the actual school's web site and look for the staff directory.

You can also find many here (HSBBW College Address), but it may not be the most up to date, you should verify with the schools site since coaches change rather quickly and you don't want to start off on the wrong foot.

Thank you Homerun. On the school's site that I was sending the e-mail to, they had the same e-mail address for the head coach, and the pitching coach. I could tell it was some mistake, and that the initials matched the pitching coach, but were nowhere close to the head coach. I found the head coach's on here. I did verify, he is still at the school

You may find that the recruiting coach is where many schools want their recruits to funnel their information through, after you get into their actual recruiting pipeline and have talked to the head coach; they are more open to correspondence to other coaches.

I've gotten an e-mail back from 1/5 (It was automated, but it's still something). it was probably a bad time to send it because of the holidays. I figure if I don't get a reply by the end of the month, I'll send them out again, and probably a copy to the recruiting coordinator as well.

Back on topic:
Would the July 1st after Junior year take effect on the site? I assume it would, and that I won't really see much action for another year, since they're not looking for 10th gr. as of now.

On berecruited:
Does anyone want to share their experience, so I know what to expect? It doesn't seem like many coaches are on there though.

quote:

I've gotten an e-mail back from 1/5 (It was automated, but it's still something).

I hate to throw water on your parade. But I could get my dog return letters inviting him to camps and telling him to have a great high school career. And then he'll get invited to a lot of camps.

He's very quick and goes well to either side. He has questionable hands. But he's great with his mouth. I guess having to run the ball across the infield and spit it out at the first baseman would be a minus.

Marlins, let me tell you about my 09 son, he received the letters, camp invites and flyers. He never once attempted to contact the coach to start a dialogue. He is taking the wait and see approach. At first I thought wow, he is going to be one of those kids you read about in the paper, big scholarship to a large university. Then I found this site, and realized after reading previous posts, that the letters were "junk mail", the program did not know son from Adam. I suggest if have any schools that you are interested in that you look at the team roster, read the player's bios. If you are second team all league with a 2.8 GPA and the guys on their rosters are "All American", GPAs of 3.8, and most of their players are from in state, then you may want to concentrate on schools with players of your stature. I did this for my son on some CA schools, no way did he fit in with these elite players, why they even sent him letters is beyond me, especially in that 90% of their rosters were CA kids. You are doing the right thing by contacting the schools, it shows you have initiative. Good luck.

PUHD,

You have learned a lot in the last few months. I really respect your ability to be humble, take advice and begin to leave it in your sons hands. Your relationship will be better off for it.A lot different than your firsts posts on this site. Good luck keep me posted FAN

Fan, do keep us posted on your son too, he is a year ahead of mine. The support on this site is priceless.

I got to admit, berecruited is great! I know a few more sites that are up its alley too. I also know a site that is like the baseball myspace which has around 4 to 5 former MLB players on it. They are more than nice enough to give you help with your game.

Hey Lebanonbb, how about sharing the names of those sites & the myspace type.

Who was the football player found on the internet? I was watching one of the bowl games the other day (can't remember which one) and the announcers said one of the starting players was a construction worker, had not played high school football and was discovered on the internet. Can anyone help as to who this was?
Thanks,
Fungo

I think you are talking about this guy.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/big12/0-5-18/Ex-construction...art-for-Sooners.html

quote:

Originally posted by DavidW:
Hey Lebanonbb, how about sharing the names of those sites & the myspace type.

berecruited.com

checkswing.net

I have a really hard time understanding just how these places garner clients. I guess it's just because people don't know any better. No fault of their own but it is the case. recruiting services are nothing short of a scam. do they place kids? probably. With good programs? I'm sure very very rarely. do they do anything that you couldn't do on your own and for THOUSANDS of dollars less? Absolutely not. First off, the only coaches that would recruit a kid off of a service is a lazy coach. Plain and simple. Every sport has plenty of opportunity to get out there and recruit and make the most of your program. someone who sits around and waits for the best video to come across their screen is not someone who i see as running a successful program. And considering they're lazy on the recruiting trail, I would imagine that their efforts in the development of my child would fall along the same lines.

With that said, the service that they provide is fine in some instances. They email stats, grades, a picture, and then a video accompanies it. Now how much did i just pay for that??!! I don't have the link to it but there was an article in the Wall Street Journal that i read in print about these services. Some of them charge up to $5000 dollars! The part that really got me was service that was playing the good guy by only charging up to $750.

Trust me when i say that having Joe Somebody from College Scouts of America send me an email and tell me that i needed to recruit a kid held absolutely no weight in my recruiting plans. What i would like for him to say is that this kid is paying me a ton of money to copy down on an email what he already has down in an email and sent to me. I'm going to forward this to 10,000 coaches and hope that somebody bites so i can somehow justify charging this kids parents thousands of dollars. Then i could live with it.

The recruiting world does not pay attention to recruiting services. They put in hundreds upon hundreds of hours recruiting each and every year to sign the kids that they feel are the best fit for their program. That will be someone that they have seen with their own eyes play several times.

There isn't a recruiting service in the world that can honestly say that they did something that could not have been done by the athlete and his parents alone. Bottom line.

One company would send out their information every year in a big manilla envelope. It was stacks upon stacks of paper. Each one of a different kid. Sometimes there were 2 kids on one page... i guess they only paid a grand!! but the papers were filled with baseball players..and volleyball players...and softball players.. basketball.. equestrian... you name it and they were in there! Here's exactly what happens.. the baseball group is picked out.. addresses and names are taken.. and out go the camp letters! Congratulations Johnny, you just paid $5000 to get invited to our camp so we can make some money off of you too! That may sound harsh but it's reality.

Find out what you need to do and do it on your own. In times like this money is hard and you need to protect your money. The same thing that company did for $5000 can be done by yourself for not a penny if you have or can borrow a digital camcorder. Sure you may not have jock jams synced in the background with a well struck double.. or you won't be able to say that College Scouts of America rated gave you 7/10 stars based on the video they saw of you.... none of that matters. What matters is what that coach perceives through his own observations of you first in your video, and then on the field if he thinks you're worth taking a look at. after that it's how he perceives you as a person in his program.

Do it yourself. Save tons of money. And achieve absolutely positively the same results if not better by yourself.

quote:

They email stats, grades, a picture, and then a video accompanies it. Now how much did i just pay for that

sounds like something you could do for yourslf :

going back to the ways that you can contact coaches yourself someone gave a site for all of the schools contacts and said just email them yourself, My question is when you are making 1st contact with a coach is it best to fill out the prespective student athlete questionaires that they all have on their sites or should you just email the coach directly.

I agree with most everything dannymac stated in his post about recruiting services. Some are better than others. We got out of the recruiting service business many years ago. The reason was simple. The real good players didn't need a recruiting service as much as the real bad players. It is really hard to help a bad player get much interest without lying. So in order to be successful you have to lie to the player about how much you can do for him and you have to lie to the recruiter to create any interest in the player you lied to. Something just didn't add up for us, so we quit that business in short order.

That doesn't mean everyone else in that business is bad. In fact, some may be very good at helping young athletes. It just wasn't something we were interested in doing.

While it is true that people could do the same thing themself for a fraction of the cost, people still need to know that these coaches get thousands of emails, letters, phone calls and videos from players and parents.

My point is... Good - you will save lots of money over having someone else do it. Bad - it probably isn't going to get a whole lot accomplished.

First of all, make sure the player has what it takes. No one is buying a lame horse no matter what that recruiter gets via email.

The best advice - If possible, get to where the recruiters are, within your means. The most expensive thing out there doesn't always mean you will get the best results. Find out what sources coaches really do utilize, outside of their camps, to find and recruit players. Ask them that question at every opportunity. If you have the goods, you will not have to be sending them much of anything and you will save even more money. They will be getting in touch with you and that always seems to work out the best.

quote:

going back to the ways that you can contact coaches yourself someone gave a site for all of the schools contacts and said just email them yourself, My question is when you are making 1st contact with a coach is it best to fill out the prespective student athlete questionaires that they all have on their sites or should you just email the coach directly.

Well it doesn't hurt fill one of those out. You can just about guarantee however that all it does is add you to the camp list. Being on the camp list isn't a bad thing if you can get to the camp. It's an opportunity to play in front of these scouts.

PG is right on by saying that it doesn't matter what you send the coach, until he see's you play your not on his mind. As a parent your job is to find a way to get your son in front of scouts. Once you do it's up to the kid to perform. There are a lot of great travel teams that do great things for kids. And that is get them to tournaments that the scouts will be at.

PG and his crew have tournaments all over the place that are crawling with scouts. It's those types of tournaments that coaches will go and maybe come to watch you if they haven't seen you. They're not going to make a trip to comes see you play. They can see tons of other kids on their list at these big tournaments. If they like what they see then they will be out to see only you play at mid week games and what not. Get your son entered into big tournaments and slip the schools that you are interested in that would be in the area a note and tell them you are interested in their program. Tell them that you'll be playing for X team in X tournament you hope they have time to slide over and watch you play. Maybe they will! But simply email blasting coaches and giving them a schedule of your local high school team probably won't lead to stands full of scouts.

Take a look at teams in your area that play in Perfect Game and the other good circuits going. It's worth the effort to find out what it takes to get on one of these teams.

Yes fill out the online questionaire. Then follow up with an eamil to the rec. coach letting him know that we completed the onlince questionaire. In the email we let him know that his school looks like a great place to get an education and we are excited to learn more about the school and his baseball program. We tried to come up with a question or two that the coach might answer. If he answered we then knew he read the email. Most coaches sent a respone to our question. We ended the email with a thank you for spending the time to read the email and I he needed anything else (Highlight DVD) please let us know. Hope this helps. It is fun to see the emails roll in.

GED10 is a 2011 graduate, we use the "FREE" berecruited website.

Powe-Berecruited website

We've had alot of contacts in camp and showcase invites, some coaches have bookmarked his site.

But, other than camp/SC info, he cannot be officially contacted for another year. So, I am unsure how much it will help when he is recruited. Our expectation is to have him exposed to some coaches and see where that networking goes. Since November 2008, he has had over 2,500 profile hits and 100 coaches views.

The bottom line, as a parent, is to get the player in front of the right kind of coaches and scouts. In my opinion, a solid summer program that participates in PG and WWBA events is by far a better investment of money than a professional service.

Also, we've had some contact for camps/SC events from recruiting questionnaires too. It ALL HELPS!

GED10DaD

GOD loves catchers!

When signing up on a site such as BeRecruited, does it matter if you sign up as a parent or a player? Maybe it is best to sign up as a player with the parents email address.

David

GED10 uses my e-mail address, it gets monitored more closely. GED10DaD

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There is a new website out there that was developed to be a FREE tool for parents and coaches to use as a recruiting tool. You can upload video, pictures and it will also keep up with your stats. You could keep up the profile and then contact coaches where you are interested in attending and have them check out your profile. www.sportsz1.com. If you would like more info please PM.