Scouting Services - To buy or not to buy...

You can learn what to do from the posters on this site. You want to be in control of your own destiny. Having a service flood coaches with information on your son has little value. How many of these kinds of correspondence do you think they get in week?

Welcome! First things first One of the most valuable things you can do is educate yourself & your son. That's why this site was started abt 15 yrs ago by Bob Howdeshell, so you've come to the right place!

This link takes you to the Recruiting Time Line & many articles on the process. The most important thing you & son can do is learn, learn, learn & then follow this timeline.

http://www.hsbaseballweb.com/recruiting_tips.htm

There is NO need to hire a recruiting service. (imo, a waste of hard earned dollars!!)

Googled Kansas Baseball Showcases & came up with several possible resources:

http://www.prepbaseballreport.com/kansas/events

http://www.kcsports.org/teams-...s/view-teams/51.html

http://www.barnstormersbaseball.com/

Good luck! 

Welcome!  Glad to see another mom on the site!

Get your favorite beverage and sit one night and do some searches on this site.  I found this site when keewartson was in 8th grade.  While hubby played in HS and coached until son was 12, I knew I needed to learn the college recrutiing ropes. 

There are some great posts and posters on this site.  Read read read.  You can learn it all here.  No need for services.  You will have questions and most posters will get you in the right direction.  What year is your son?

(I will try to dig up some old posts that I printed out years ago and will posts the links when I get home)

I will add my support to the comments above.  I thought I might say something about the convienence of some services, but not really sure they add much there either - assuming you take the time and get educated.  As RJM mentioned, do you simply want to flood the market?  While you will read these suggestions elsewhere and get explanations, I will go ahead and mention that you need to get a realistic assessment of skills (sometimes more difficult than it sounds - not something you get from a paid instructor who wants to keep everyone happy) and then make a list of target schools based on your son's academic/athletic requirements.  Once you get past those two hurdles, the rest is just putting in some hours.

Saw the picture with the car - if he is rising junior or older than you may need to speed things up a little.

Also agree.  Absolutely no reason to hire anyone.  You can do everything yourself....other than maybe pay someone to edit some video (that you can shoot yourself).  It's not difficult. 

1) Identify potential colleges

2) Email RC at each of those schools telling them of your son's interest.  Include video, some academic/personal info and summer/school schedules.

3) Respond personally to EVERY coach that replies...even if it's not your son's top choice.  It can never hurt to have contacts in the coaching community

4) Don't be afraid to contact coaches more than once.  They are a busy group and could easily have missed a previous email(s)

5) Update coaches on where your son will be playing each weekend of the summer...even if they haven't replied to your previous emails.  My son committed to a school that had never responded to an email.  His first contact with them was a July 1 phone call...and he committed 3 weeks later.

6) Find any friends, coaches, parents, future or past teammates or anyone on here who will answer your questions.  You won't have any problems....there are a lot of people on here who are more than willing to help.

A related question regarding the traditional recruting timeline, are the July 1 and Sept 1 dates still meaningful for contact initiated by coaches?  I thought that recruiting rules/timeline had been changed somewhat about a year or so back... But now I'm realizing that I don't really know for sure. 

Not sure of the pronouns used by Buckeye, but best to have your son (or his proxy using his e-mail accout???) do the communications.  He may not have to physically hit the send button, but he needs to be ready to converse with coaches as the process unfolds.  Posts here talk about practicing basic conversations with son before going live with coaches.  I've read many times here that coaches have very little interest in parents and prefer they simply fade into the background - maybe cheer from the stands.

Absolutely....the communication should be done by the player....though proofreading by a parent is a good idea.  Also, any phone calls to a coach who has given you his number and asked to call should NEVER be made by the parent.  You can stand next to him in case there are questions he needs to ask....but my son didn't even want me in the room when he called his first coach. 

You're receiving a lot of great advice here. A couple of additional thoughts:

While I couldn't agree more with the advice that you can quickly become a valuable resource for your son by immersing yourself in the information available on this site, never lose sight of the fact that your son needs to be at the forefront of his recruitment.

You are not his agent. It's his gig.

It's his passion that fuels his work ethic to improve as a player. He needs to harness and channel some of that same energy by taking a direct role in determining where he ends up after high school.

Some ongoing steps he can take? (1) Researching schools. There's a wealth of online information about college characteristics that he's capable of digging up. (2) Communications with coaches. This takes a variety of forms and becomes more involved as NCAA regs loosen with his advancing age and programs become genuinely interested in him. However, in the early stages, he should be the one sending emails, returning questionnaires, etc.

A significant additional responsibility of his is to perform sufficiently well in the classroom that he qualifies for admission to his chosen schools, This goes for college entrance exams, as well. As a rule, baseball coaches are limited in their ability to grease the skids for subpar students. One of the biggest favors your son can do for himself is keep his college coach out of the Admissions Office; pleading on bent knee on his behalf.

With your son at the lead of his recruitment, you'll see an amazing maturation process take place; one that will serve him well in a number of important respects and not be lost on the coaches whose impression counts for so much.

Best of luck to him!

Your recruiting service at your service!

You found the right spot mom. Welcome and stick around, everything you need is here, best yet it is free, you just need to put the time in. 

None of us had any experience in this ride when we got here, and many of us have had our kids play through HS, College and some beyond. 

Best of luck in your journey. You did not post your sons age, which will be helpful as far as advice.

Good Luck and Welcome!

The title of this thread mentions "Scouting Services". I think she meant "Recruiting Services".

For the record Perfect Game is not a recruiting service.  We are a scouting service.  We hold events and evaluate players.  Then we provide information on the players we see.  The recruiting is done based on talent and need.  Players pay a fee to attend events. We talk to college recruiters and MLB scouts every day, but we are not a recruiting service and don't want people thinking we are.

That said, there are different levels of recruiting.  For simplicity we can break them into two parts.  Scholarship or no scholarship!  Actually it also includes academic level, but again that still fits under scholarship or no scholarship.

With the cost of college these days, I have always wondered why anyone would pay a service to find a player a no scholarship deal.  I suppose for some it might help, but no scholarship schools are easy to handle yourself.  In fact, there are colleges that will put damn near anyone on their baseball roster just to reach enrollment quotas. And yes, there are many no scholarship colleges that are very selective and looking for the best possible talent.  Some recruiting services specialize and even promote the fact that they have helped their clients get into some of these colleges that require nothing more than a warm body that will get through admissions.  Guess that's OK if the customer is happy and doesn't know how easy it was to get certain colleges to show interest.

Two things count the most at scholarship and higher level non-scholarship programs. 

1. Talent, in most cases it has to be seen in person rather than reported.  However certain reports are much more important than others.  The information needs to come from a legitimate source.  It doesn't have much impact coming from someone you have paid to help get you recruited.  There are exceptions, but I look at some recruiting services as dishonest businesses.  Because in order for them to help a bad player, they need to be dishonest. They either have to lie to the player and his parents or they have to send out less than honest information to colleges.  However, remember those colleges that will take anyone?  It goes like this, We have a client with no ability, we think he can get through admissions, please contact him.  These type colleges are a gift to recruiting services.  Once again, there are exceptions, not everyone involved in recruiting services is dishonest.  I do think those that are the best, agree with me regarding the sick feeling many have when they even hear the words recruiting service.  

2. Academics, the stronger a player is here, the better for both baseball scholarship and non scholarship schools.  It can mean significant academic scholarship money as well as open doors that will be closed for weaker students.  Every recruiter wants and needs to know your grades and scores.  

So in the end, it becomes somewhat simple of you have talent and brains.  All you have left to do is be seen by as many decision makers as possible.  The rest of your questions can be answered right here.  BTW, there are some groups out there that don't offer recruiting service for your son, but they do offer recruiting advice.  I'm not sure how much these type services cost, but I do like the fact they aren't selling something they might not be able to produce.

Thanks to everyone for all the advice. Many asked the age of my son, he is 15, going into his junior year. I was so glad to hear I don't have to be his agent. LOL. my son is very willing to do whatever he needs to do, he wrote a couple of e-mails last night to coaches. I agree, we do not want to send his information to every school, we want to make sure we find a good fit for him. He is an above average student. He says a junior college is just fine with him because he wants to play.

Yes, recruiting services is what I meant. The clarification is very helpful, seems some companies hold themselves as both, which muddies the waters. I think we have decided to forget about a service and focus efforts on contacts and being seen by the schools that would be a good fit.

Great idea.....feel free to ask questions here any time.  My son just graduated and is going to a D1 in the fall.  He was a kid who likely wouldn't have gotten a lot of D1 looks had we not been very proactive in contacting coaches, etc.  We learned a lot here....and I also have a very good friend whose son went thru this process 3 years before us.  He was an SEC commit out of HS so I have two different perspectives based on two completely different kids.  Funny thing is, what they did...and what we did were essentially the same....just different schools.   Good luck!!