Question: Is the September 1st Contact Date of Junior HS year an incentive for coaches to lock kids up before they go on the "open contact" market? In other words, do coaches feel it is a risk to not offer kids they have significant interest in prior to the September 1st date? Or is the date a non-issue in the recruiting timeline?
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My instinct is that they dont worry about that date at all. If they want to sign you as a priority there are ways around the contact date. Dont expect offers on September 1st, but you may get your initial points of contact at that point. Its a wild ride and we are still on the uphill part of it with 2017. If you son has the wow numbers, LHP, high velo, speed or crazy power that date may mean something, otherwise there is a ton of time left in the process.
A local kid was contacted by 6 different coaches last year on the first date they were allowed to contact him. He had zero prior offers and hadn't even been looking at two of the schools that contacted him.
We didn't find it relevant, at all.
Don't think that # is out of the norm.2016's sept. 1 the phone stated ringing @ 5-5:30 and kept on till almost 10.Didn't keep track of # of calls but, kid is no phone talker (as most boys that age) so it was probable your number and/or higher. Just what recuiters do.
I agree with sunwalkingvalley. The talent of the kid will drive the urgency of any offers, not any prescribed contact dates. It is quite simply to speak with kids long before the Sept 1 date and with great frequency. All they need to do is get word to the kid via a middle man (HS/travel coach, family friend, etc), that they want to speak with the kid and the kid can call them. The Sept. 1 date only changes the fact that they can call the kid unsolicited.
If a kid is talented and fills a need, they will prioritize. If not, they won't. In CaCo's example, clearly there was interest in this kid, but he obviously wasn't a priority of any of them to get a commitment early.
Son got calls that day, and from some schools he hadn't heard from prior, but it had no relevance to the offers. Like previous posters said, if there's interest, they contact them anyway, just through a coach. son's coach would text him and tell him to " call coach so and so at this number at 7pm, if he doesn't pick up, call him every 15 minutes until you get through". simple as that. Kind of makes the "no contact" rule irrelevant.
