Hello everyone.
If you want to skip the story and head to the question it is at the bottom labeled 1.
A little history...In fall 2011 my son played Football, Basketball, and Baseball in the Pre-highschool Freshmen programs. Come fall he narrowed down to football and baseball. He opted to play football in the fall and baseball on a select team so he could do both. After football he tried out for his HS baseball team and got cut. Thier reason, weak arm, cant hit outside pitch, slow transition from fielding to throwing in infield (but he has never played IF, and they did not do OF tryouts). He worked out all fall/winter. Come spring they cut him again, no-reason cited. He played spring ball and had 10 OF assists, hit in the .400s, and stole 2nd and 3rd base at will. In spring of 2012 he made the decision to quit playing football and focus 100% on baseball. He turned 15 last August and this time made the HS (JV only) team after spending the summer preparing. At the same time, he was also selected to play on a 16U Elite team and also played some 18U last fall with the most presitgous winning teams in the area. He performed well and contributed significantly to several tournament wins and finals appearances. He also performed very well on the HS JV team hitting about .600 with several doubles anda triple. Despite being "the kid who got cut last year" and 50% playing time...he was the teams best hitter in the fall, confirmed by the team captain and the fall ball coach..he also had several more outfield Assists. Come fall evals with the Varsity and JV HS coach, he was asked how he thought he did, and upon ciiting his performance, the coach reminded him it was only fall ball with "weaker talent" so it was not a good indication of his skill. Strange way of looking at things because the spring starters performed horrible in the fall against this same "weaker fall ball talent" When my son mentioned he performed well against 16-18 year old outside school the varsity coach reacted in disbelief that he played in 16-18 ball. Then comes spring 2013. Performed well in preseason all around. Then comes regular season, benched 50% despite hitting .500 for last 12/15 games and stealing 30 bases in 12 games. At one point played 1/5 games. When asked the coach indicated he had overthrown the cutoff in practice and he didnt trust him in the field. Come end of season, coach pulls him out of practice twice, once for a cutable ball the IF chose to let go, once for not placing the ball in the coaches hand. He was told to go practice with freshmen and told "to play with them too if he was going to practice with them". Come varsity playoffs players were moved up who hit in the high .100s to low .200s, while he was not asked to move up after hitting .360. At end of season meeting, he was told that "he was a hard worker' but a team full of nice guys will not win games, and he was told that "there are other players who dont work as hard as him, but the coaches see something they can build on in those players and not in him". He was also told they "didnt know if they could trust him to play varsity, since they really had not seen him play much in a game situation"...Interestingly enough he was taking BP in the cages after a game he benched and the coach of the other team approached him and told him "if you want to play every day, I have a spot for you at my school" Weird...
Needless to say, he is demoralized after performing well, busting his butt and still getting told they dont know if he can compete and telling him they dont see much potential in him.
He still plays 16u Elite and his team is very good, and will compete in several colllege showcase tournaments. However, it looks very unlikely he will play varsity, and may not even make the team this year, or at all anymore.
He has had offers from the HS soccer and track coaches ever since he was a freshman, and the football coach has asked him to return and play CB. He runs the mile in 4:45 (confirmed mult times), HTF in 3.9-4.0 (confirmed by coach), 20 in 2.5 (confirmed by Speed specialist), and 60 in 6.7-7.0 (confirmed at tryouts), and squatted 300 lbs this year when he was only 130 lbs. so he is no slacker in speed or power.
1. So...bottom line, He plays well, can compete at a higher level, but cant get any support from the HS program...Is there any chance for him to ever make it to the college level with this kind of lack of support from his HS coaches.
