The Change In Your Perspective After All These Years

Late to the game on this one @adbono and @Goosegg caught my eye. A couple of additions or things I would have can add and/or done differently now that son is out of college.

0. Little League and playing with your neighbors is priceless. Enjoy it and forget about travel until they are 13. (No your son, nor anyone else on the team is going to be a MLB star, get over it now please)

1. Training is more important than games. A great hitting and/or pitching instructor is really necessary once they get past LL ball. Get into the gym once they hit puberty.

2. Play multiple sports until the competition tells you otherwise.

3. It has to be their passion not yours.

4. Go fishing/outdoors/other family events. A few weekends away is not going to impact your son's long term development no matter what the coach of whatever team he is on says.

5. Be very selective on travel teams, PG and other showcases. The best showcases are ones that are free/low cost. (Area Code, Arizona Academic Game, other local/regional events)

6. Have your son evaluated for skill/college placement level by someone who has NO financial interest in your son.

7. Have a plan and work the plan for college. It takes A LOT of work. Be sure to include D1-D3, JuCo. ( I personally wish we had included more D3 as it would have dramatically changed our perspective and options)

8.  There is a TON more academic money than athletic.

9. For the most part STEM is not compatible with D1 ball. (Other than the IVY's and a handful of others) (see 8 above)

10. College Coaches are a bunch of used car salesmen and will tell you and your son what they want to hear, plus....11

11. You/your son will will hear what you want to hear not what the coach really said. (together with 10 makes it really difficult during recruiting)

12. Sorry but I disagree with others that summer college ball is not important. Summer internships are more important as your son is not going to play in the MLB, (sorry it is true...see LL)  so focus on what is more important after college. Internships lead to jobs after college more than anything else they will do.

13.  College baseball is HARD...REALLY REALY HARD....I mean REALLY REALLY HARD... most will drop out and/or transfer and that is OK as college baseball is REALLY REALLY HARD. (Did I emphasize this enough?...plus get over it as he is not a "failure" because college baseball is REALLY REALLY HARD (see 3 above Mom and Dad)

With STEM is depends on the letter. My daughter played softball and majored in Forensic Science. Labs were an issue. But we’re not talking about engineering. She took labs in summer school while playing weekends for a 22u team three hours away. The real conflict was a semester long DC internship, missing fall ball and having the discipline to work out alone. She went to work for a DC law firm for two years before heading for law school. So, in a sense her first job out of college was an internship.

My son played baseball and majored in Econ with a concentration in Quantitative Analytics. He chose the major because math was easy for him. There weren’t any time conflicts. An internship was a conflict with the coach. It was solved by getting injured and not being able to play summer ball. He was hired after college by the firm he had the internship.

@RJM posted:

With STEM is depends on the letter. My daughter played softball and majored in Forensic Science. Labs were an issue. But we’re not talking about engineering. She took labs in summer school while playing weekends for a 22u team three hours away. The real conflict was a semester long DC internship, missing fall ball and having the discipline to work out alone. She went to work for a DC law firm for two years before heading for law school. So, in a sense her first job out of college was an internship.

My son played baseball and majored in Econ with a concentration in Quantitative Analytics. He chose the major because math was easy for him. There weren’t any time conflicts. An internship was a conflict with the coach. It was solved by getting injured and not being able to play summer ball. He was hired after college by the firm he had the internship.

My daughter is headed for a similar experience. She's an engineer who will play volleyball at a HA, and just completed a recruiting process where she looked at both P5s and HAs. In our experience, there was a HUGE difference between the two groups of schools. An unnamed P5 with very strong academics had ZERO science majors on the roster. Every HA had at least two, and each of the coaching staffs stressed that sports can co-exist with labs, etc. Players take the labs in the off-season when possible, but the schools allow players who have academic conflicts to miss practice/workouts and make up when there's a conflict.

So one size doesn't necessarily fit all. Just one family's experience but the difference between the two sets of schools were very stark.

There are several P5’s that really discourage their athletes from taking the toughest classes.  It definitely is a factor at many, but not all P5’s