So we sent out about 35 emails....

I don't think it is too much. Especially if he has been a main contributor on his high school team. Coaches are identifying players they are interested in earlier now, in many cases.

Not to early, but one piece of advice. When you decide to make contact with coaches, make sure what you have to say is of value to them...don't waste their time with things like weekly updates, or soon you'll find a deaf ear. On the other hand, if the update has substance, like the schedule, that is of value. i.e. an award at Ft Myers, or tremendous performance, would be worth contact. Updates of anything not extraordinary should probably be kept to yourself.

If you want to make coaches aware of performance, the best way to do it is to build a website for Junior and give the updates there. Then you can contact coaches with the information that his website is available with regular updates, game schedules and directions to the games, academic achievements, and biographical information. It keeps you from being a nuisance, but gives the truly interested coaches a way of keeping tabs at their leisure. JMHO
Good Luck

Great advice as always. Does anyone know how to do a personal website?

Get a copy of Microsoft Frontpage (Comes with Office sometimes) and use it to create a website. There are tons of tutorials online and youtube. There are free templates available too. It doesn't have to be fancy.

You can register a domain name with godaddy.com for under $10 and you'll need to host it somewhere which will cost you $10-$20 per month most likely. A small price to pay.

Or, you can have your son do a blog style site on www.berecruited.com for example. You can do that for free or they have a premium service you can upgrade to. There are other sites similar.

When the time comes, I think I'll create a site for my son and just send out links to it. There are tools you can use to track who is visiting the site and how often, etc...

If your son is a 2012 like mine, you have plenty of time to learn Frontpage and get a site up and running. I bet you could have a site up and running in a day or so and then you could tweak it from there. Send out the links when you are satisfied with your work.

Add frequent updates so coaches are inlcined to visit often.

Also, I don't know what position your son plays but I had the opportunity to speak to a D1 coach at a recent showcase my son attended. I told him my son was a sophomore (most kids there were juniors and seniors) and I asked him what it would take as a sophomore pitcher to get on his radar. He told me he'd be looking for velocity of 82-85 mph, for the pitcher to exhibit he had a clue as to how to throw a breaking ball and a decent changeup. My son fit his criteria so that has us hopeful for future interest.

Good luck in Ft. Myers.

Strike3 - Outstanding post!!

Eric - CPLZ created one of the best websites I have seen for his son. Perhaps send him a PM for the lowdown. I think your aggressiveness will pay off for you.

So, doing a website using Frontpage would still require you to set up an acount with godaddy or someone like that in ordr for you to send the coaches a link?

quote:

Originally posted by Eric G:
Great advice as always. Does anyone know how to do a personal website?

Wix Website Builder

Very easy to use and its free. There are options to upgrade. If you're uncomfortable doing it yourself, there's a link for independent web builders that work with WIX and are very reasonable.

I would suggest using Google to host any video that you wish to place on the website of junior and they also can host a calendar of juniors events and games that coaches can click on and get the name, address, and directions to that particular game. The beauty of Google is that although they host it, all the apps play right on your site, they aren't forwarded to another site to see it.

I would suggest a home page, a bio page that includes academic info, a video page that is hosted by google, a calendar page hosted by google, and a stats/awards page that shows each individual game with stats and a total. I used an excel spreadsheet for the stats because it would update total stats automatically as I added new individual game stats, but you could just do it line by line individually in Word and update the totals manually if excel is outside your wheelhouse.

Down load your videos, pics etc on a free site like Photobucket if you don't want to set up a web site. Put the link in your emails. It doesn't cost anything.
We preferred DVD because it was a physical reminder for a coach. Also was minimal; cost.

I suppose using Youtube for access would work too versus the Google route, correct?
Thx CP for the link will look at it and wing it.

I have received a number of PM's about website content, so I thought I would share here, what I've shared in PM.

Purpose- The purpose of the website is to generate enough interest for the coach to dig deeper into recruiting your son. The website should contain contact info, name/addy/phone (cell preferably)/ email, for HS and Summer team coaches along with any scouts that may be following your son, with the scouts permission. I have had some scouts say no, so check first.

Be brief - Put yourself in the coaches shoes...what does he want to know? Make it easy to find, and a quick read. BIO- no one cares what he did in LL, Pony or that he's played high travel since diapers. Personal Bio - Height/Weight/Family/Academics
Athletic Bio - Position/Velocity/Times/Variety of Pitches etc.

Promotion - Be factual not flowery. Don't be afraid to say he was All Conference, but do it as a bullet point, not a sentence. The list of achievements should be exactly that, a bullet point list. PG Ranking would be good also perhaps with a link to his profile there if he has one.

Video - 2 minutes MAX! I know people will disagree, I can only share what I have learned, and that's that even at 2 minutes, most coaches won't make it to the end. If they see it's only 2 minutes, they're more likely to watch more of it, than if it comes up as 8 minutes. Remember, you're just trying to spark enough interest that coach will want to know more about junior...that he's worth the recruiting effort. The video will show juniors arm works, his bat works, his speed works.
Yes, you could do YouTube I suppose, I used google because at the time you could play the video while embedded in the website without having to leave. At that time, YouTube videos redirected the viewer to the YouTube site and took them off of yours.

You want a coach to be able to find everything he needs to know to generate the initial recruiting interest, in 2 minutes. Bring up your site, and see if you can find and answer all the coaches questions in that time and adjust. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have more content than 2 minutes worth, just make sure he can easily and quickly find the critical information without much effort.

JMHO's

I agree with what you said. The only difference was I was trying to generate offers from the video.
There were school said they wouldn't make an offer without a personal workout but there were several that did.
The reason I preferred DVD was that it allowed you to catalog lots of info, pics, action video awards etc. Both methods work but I was after an offer without traveling.
The key is well edited video and not to cherry pick.

CPLZ, awesome buddy I thank you, looking forward to trying to do this upon getting home!

My son was recruited by a perrennial D2 power program. When he got to his official visit, they had all of his correspondence clipped in his file...in chronological order. They won the D2 CWS the next year....somehow without him.

Wasn't Mt Olive was it ?

Eric G,

Sometimes your internet provider provides free webspace to where you could host the webpages you create. It wouldn't be the same as having www.joesmith.com but really, you're just going to provide links to the coach to check out the webpages.

Using free web services, etc.. usually leads to unwanted pop up ads or advertisements somewhere on the site you create. Not what I'd want a college coach to see or experience.

Here's a youtube tutorial for starting with frontpage, Tutorial . Really basic for the beginner but you can search out more tutorials. Super easy to use once you just learn a few basics.

Edit: Didn't realize that there was an actual joe smith website.

CPLZ, its going well , I have finagled my way around a bit and got a website done, still need to tweak here and there. Thanks for your help. Before I move further with that WIX site, I need to ask....do I then have to register it with like godaddy or someone or is it simply a website now that I can type in under www.....?

To much to early. UNLESS your son is a first round type guy. Some schools will show courtesy sending back the questionnaires but for the most part they are not thinking about the 2012 class UNLESS they are can't miss front line guys. Your son may be that type of player but if he was you wouldnt need to lift a finger to get him seen. So my point is-just let him play for now.

Eric,
The website now needs to be hosted and uploaded. Wix can do that for you too. If you choose their "no ads' upgrade, they will host it for less than $60 a year. To me, it seems the easiest way to go. Your website will also display with no ads on it, where the free version does have ads. They will also provide the domain name for you (the www.mywebsite.com name).

You could go the godaddy route, get your own domain name, but then you have to find a host...I wouldn't imagine you'd save much.

I also wouldn't pay attention to the post above. It's not too early. Many schools have already started scouting the 2012 class, and not just the first rounders. That's why there are events like PG WWBA Ft. Meyers. I know a number of players that had coaches contact them at and from that event, and these are players that don't stand much chance of being drafted. Good luck.

Thanks CP! As for Ryans comments I can see your point but respectfully disagree as I did see the multitude of scouts at the 2011 (primarily) event this past weekend and there were a slew of 2012 and even some 2013 kids present.
As far as my son goes, he is not involved to the degree I am doing this, he has been told to just play the game and get better and I will take care of all this extracurricular stuff.

Emails cost nothing but your time---it can't hurt by sending them out---I like to throw bread on the water and see how many seagulls pick them up if you get my meaning

Yes they are looking at the 2011 and 2012 kids already--I spoke with a major D-I program the other might --they have a few 2010 spots to fill but are looking at the 2011 and 2012 kids--it is just the way it is---actually we have 7 2011's on our Jupiter roster and all are superb players

quote:

Originally posted by BobbleheadDoll:
Wasn't Mt Olive was it ?

Florida Southern.

I agree with Ryan - it's too much too soon. And if he really is that good, you don't have to build a website.

It's true that college coaches keep a file with correspondence, but my impression is that most DI recruiting coordinators are not scouring websites looking for kids videos. Am I wrong?

While I would never profess that my son is the best 2012 out there because he is obviously not, however he can hang with the best of them I feel. He has played at some of the highest levels for his age and played up most often for the past 8 years. I think I plan to use the website as a "one stop shop" sorta thing. While there are beliefs on both sides of the fence on this topic I would certainly rather err of the side of caution and start now then later.

quote:

Originally posted by brod:
but my impression is that most DI recruiting coordinators are not scouring websites looking for kids videos. Am I wrong?

Websites are made for different reasons. I have two businesses. One website is designed to be found by search engines and have people go to the site to get them to call and book trips. The other is for a technical business, where I direct clients and potential clients for solutions. It's an image builder, not a seller.

You are right I believe, in that recruiters aren't randomly searching the web to stumble upon kids baseball videos to watch them for recruits. But that isn't the purpose.

The purpose is not to generate the initial interest, but take initial interest to the next level. If you were to google Juniors name when he was a HS senior, you could see several things about him as a baseball player. Named top prospect at a specific showcase, his summer team would come up, but his website would also come up. So that a coach that had seen his name come across his desk, and googled it, might go to the website to learn more about Junior. It did happen that way.

The other, is after the initial contact, usually the form, an email would go to that coach with a link to the site. The coach could then go there, see all Juniors recent stats, bio, and video. It took Junior from a kid who filled out a form, to a person of interest, worthy of more research and possible recruiting effort, in less than 2 minutes of the coaches time.

So to say if he is really that good, he doesn't need a website, probably only covers the top 5% of potential college recruits. For the other 95%, that website will probably serve some positive purpose, for both the coach and the recruit.