Squeezing recruiting timeline

Tim

Drop me an email or give a call and lets see if we can help you

Tom Rizzi
800-782-3672
TRhit@msn.com

Sorry, but you are way behind. If your son played varsity as a sophmore he must be pretty good.Therefore this summer is critical. If you look at the time line; college coaches can call July 1st, but they are not going to call a complete stranger. The players who get a call on July 1st are already on the radar screen by now. National Letter of Intents are signed in Nov. that is when they are signed; the actual decision to recruit that particular player was made back in August or September. This makes playing on a good summer team a top priority. I would recommended a travel team that attends WWBA type tournaments, summer showcases, and camps at a particular college if your son has a few favorite colleges. If your son dos not get a lot of attention this fall then the fall team and schedule becomes the priority, but I would't waste the summer season in the hope that the fall season is successful.

quote:

at the time line; college coaches can call July 1st, but they are not going to call a complete stranger. The players who get a call on July 1st are already on the radar screen by now. National Letter of Intents are signed in Nov. that is when they are signed; the actual decision to recruit that particular player was made back in August or September. This makes playing on a good summer team a top priority. I would recommended a travel team that attends WWBA type tournaments, summer showcases, and camps at a particular college if your son has a few favorite colleges. If your son dos not get a lot of attention this fall then the fall team and schedule becomes the priority, but I would't waste the summer season in the hope that the fall season is successful.

BB27 I second your thoughts. IMHO Legion will do nothing to help with exposure, you need to have him on a good summer team that will travel and be seen by colleges. Many teams will have tourneys on college campuses and as mentioned the WWBA tournament.

A couple of assumptions here that your Son is currently contacting college coaches expressing interest and you have an idea at what level he is capable of playing at. I would also recommend attending a college camp "if" he has a strong desire to attend a specific school. The recruiting timeline link can show you where you are in the process and what you need to do. There still is time but do not wait till the Fall if you can help it.

Tim,

I read your post a couple of times, and although it is clear that this is something that you are concerned about, I'm not sensing the same level of desire/commitment with respect to your son. You say that you could not get him interested in showcasing last year. Is he interested now? or is this primarily your effort?

If your son does not have the drive and passion for the game, there is little to be gained by pushing him in that direction. Once you get to the collegiate level, it is simply too much work and too much of a commitment to try and "fake it".

If there is some other reason that he is reticent, i.e. lack of confidence, fear of failure, etc., well that would be a different matter.

If he does have the passion, I would absolutely concur with the other comments. These next few months are critical.

Being behind is not a disaster---we had a player with us this fall who had been out of action for 12 months, missed all the spring, summer and most of the fall but he is set to sign in April with a Division I school

If things are done right the time lost can be made up

Tim Robertson:

I think you and your son need to have a serious talk very soon but at least before these decisions are made about showcase v legion v travel team, etc. Dopn't panic and rush into something without knowing deep down what your son wants to do. Certain questions might help in obtaining your son's true ambition and desire.

Questions like: 1) Son, do you want to go to college? 2) Do you have any idea what you would like to do after college? 3) OK, but what if you don't get drafted by a MLB baseball team after you senior year, what do you want to do then? 4) Where would you like to go to school, close by or far away, south or north, west or east, does not matter???? 5) What kind of a coach do you want to play for, all bussiness, some fun, lots of fun??? 6) Do you want to pitch and play centerfield or do you prefer one over the other?

There are many other questions you might think of to ask your son. The answer to these and other questions should be a strong determining factor in where you go from there. Read some of the other threads on the Recuriting Site and learn. Then take action once you and your son together have decided the best direction to take for him.

Welcome to the journey and best of luck.

TW344

I agree. First find out what your son really wants to do.

You are a little behind so if your son really wants to go for it, you should move quickly.

Start contacting schools he is interested in and play for a good summerball team that gets to events that provide additional exposure.

While November is the early NLI date, there is plenty of recruiting in spring of his senior year. Not being signed in November is not the kiss of death.

How are his grades?

Thanks for the replies!
Yes, he wants to go to college.
Yes, he is very committeed to playing baseball.
He was over a 4.0 in his grades last I checked.
Needs to see that he has to do some extra work as far as getting to college for baseball (e.g. contacting coaches). I am certainly not positive about what level of ball he can do in college. Looking at roster player's size, I would lean towards Div. II or III (he is currently 5'9",160), but he has surprised me many times before. Right now he would like to go into engineering in college. I think that he has trouble in the making decisions department so we'll have to work on that (although he comes by part of that honestly).
Thanks again for the input.
Tim Robertson