The Roller Coaster

I know what you are trying to say about it being a roller coaster ride with highs and lows but I don't think I would call a 2012 with offers from Arizona State and Arizona a D1 wash out.... if those are your worst offers then I would still be pretty happy. Plus, it is still May, there is the entire summer to get exposure, you still have plenty of time.

Congrats on the nice outing, sounds like the baseball gods and radar guns were on your son's side today!

Thanks for the kind words. I wasn't there so I didn't actually see it, although I talked to two of the three guys holding the guns.

The problem with being a prospect in the Phoenix area is there simply aren't a lot of options. ASU, Arizona or go out of state. There are tons of schools in California, but none of them want Arizona kids due to the out of state tuition. Thus, we have Utah (no interest) or New Mexico (no interest) or go to a D-2 / D-3 or CC.

Son has a 4.3 GPA, so going to a CC seems like a waste.

Son has decided he likes his girlfriend (don't get me started on this issue) and wants to stay at home, thus the choices are limited and there are no other prospects in the hopper.

It's just a struggle with deciding what to do...

I'm an engineer by trade and when all the variables keep changing at the same time, I simply don't like it (and can't deal with it).

I am having trouble understanding the problems...

Lets start with the girlfriends. What if your son was unattractive and girls wanted nothing to do with him, how would you feel about that?

He's got offers from two PAC-10 schools and a Big-12 school and potentially an ACC school and the problem is what? How hard does Mike Leak throw the ball btw?

Honestly, I am waiting for the thread where someone has 299 D1 offers and they come on here to lament because Alcorn State did not make an offer.

CD thanks for making me spit my Diet Mountain Dew all over my keyboard. Your the man!!!!!!!

JMOff,

I'm guessing by the peanut galleries's responses that you're not going to get much sympathy when you rattle off some name brand D1 powerhouse schools, so let's just put that to the side....let's put the girlfriend and advisor on the backburner too.

If I understand the problem correctly it is more of a WHERE than a who, what, when or why. If the where is fixed on AZ, yes your choices will be limited. We faced similiar WHERE choices just like many have here as well. My son was adamant about engineering & D1 baseball in Virignia, but very quickly realized he wasn't going to play baseball for Univ of Virginia or Virginia Tech. So we changed the "where" to the East coast, and voila.....things opened up quite a bit. I find it very hard to believe that if your lefty son is throwing over 90 that more schools will not reach out to him.....or he can reach out to them as he has a whole year. Just a guess here.....but if I'm a D1 coach and someone calls me with a 90mph lefty...I'm taking that call or replying to that email at the very least.

The sky is not falling.....it is actually opening up and he needs to take advantage of it right now while the stalkers are still warm. I think you are feeling the effects of parental pressure because it is not entirely in your control, and recruiting is not a familiar process. Step back.....sit down with your son.....discuss goals.....execute the plan. Best of luck. Life is good.

My son had one "maybe" offer going into his senior summer, I guess we must have been doing things all wrong.

I can't beleive that you consider your son a D1 washout. I'll bet there are lots of folks here who wish they had that problem.

Who is having the roller coaster ride, mom and dad or player? If your son wants to stay close to home, what is the problem?

Understanding parents and the "problems" they think that they face these days in the recruiting process is just mind boggling, IMO.

This may not be something for your son, but would like to bring it up anyway. Back in 2000 or 2001, the father of a high schooler in Arizona contacted my brother, coach of a D1 here in Illinois, about his son who wasn't really getting much attention from the local D1's. Son ended up here in Central Illinois, had a successful college career and has ended up having some success in THE SHOW. You can look it up ... Jeremy Accardo. Just saying there are options here in the north. The current coach here at ISU is exceptional and with the new stadium construction(granted not the large palaces that exist in the southern regions of D1), special things have and will continue to happen here. Pretty good education too.

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Try a walk on the wild side...

Contact: Arizona Christian (NAIA), Grand Canyon UNiversity (DII), UNLV, New Mexico State, New Mexico Highlands, Dixie State, UNM, University of the Southwest(NM)...or any other school in the southwest...CA included...

Tell them you have a lefty, throws 92, with a 4.3 GPA (academic $), with offers to ASU, U of A, Nebraska, and has draft advisors after him....

And see what happens...


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quote:

Originally posted by Coach_May:
CD thanks for making me spit my Diet Mountain Dew all over my keyboard. Your the man!!!!!!!

44

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quote:

Originally posted by fenwaysouth:
...the peanut galler[y]....

ClevelandDad
Coach_May
TPM

Gee, I wish I was half that nuts!!!

quote:

Does this happen to everyone or is God just punishing me for something I did in my youth?

No it does not........most never even sniff this amount of attention....

God isnt punishing you.......turn your thoughts to how fortunate you and your son are.....

My 2012 Lefty son is working his Butt off to throw low 80's, maintain his B average and is hoping the small D3's he is interested in will give him a chance to play.

So no I do not believe God is punishing you, or me for that matter. We are both blessed with healthy happy talented sons. With the number of kids that have drug problems, criminal issues and teenage depression, these types of problems I will very happily accept.

Just my unsolicited 2 cents

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"How do you go from a D-1 washout to "draftable" in a few hours?"

"I'm an engineer by trade and when all the variables keep changing at the same time, I simply don't like it (and can't deal with it)."

When you're faced with controls like these I would imagine that you could go from washout to "draftable" rather quickly, but thast's just a guess. The large number of variables available will be particularly troublesome to you. But somehow or other it all comes out in the wash.



Perhaps this old standby would be more to your liking?






I wish continued success to your son!

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Thanks for the responses...

Sometimes I honestly wish he wasn't a baseball player and would go get an engineering degree and earn an honest living like the rest of us.

The offers he has are pretty soft (25% baseball, lots of academic money and verbal only, which is by rule I understand). It's not like they're telling him he's actually going to play when he gets there. Brand name schools for sure, but schools that bring in 17-20 pitchers every fall and keep 12. Arizona only used about 8 guys this spring with any regularity. ASU used a few more. Getting an invitation to show up is far from a sure thing.

We go from, "he's not good enough" to "he's really good" in the same day. I'm trying to advise him to go to the right place with the right balance, to get the right education while having a chance to play baseball.

I don't mean to offend anyone and I guess this is a "good" set of problems to have, but sometimes I wish he was a D-3 kid who could get some help with tuition, graduate with a degree in something employable and live happily ever after.

What I don't want is for him to get big eyes, go to the big school filled with delusions of grandure and end up holding the radar gun for the real pitchers his freshman year and asked to leave after that. About the time I have him talked out of tyring the big school, he does something (like throwing 92 out of the blue) that makes us rethink everything.

I've been trying like heck to get him to look outside Arizona at other schools and he just doesn't seem to want to do it. He wants to stay home. I LOVED Nebraska when we visited there. I think that would've been a great place to go. All he saw was the snow still on the ground a week from their first game.

IMHO the baseball thing is a huge distraction, the allure of an easy lifestyle never having to work a day in his life versus the reality that 99.8% of kids like him never get paid more than $2k/mo to play and end up done playing at 28 with a wife, two kids and no degree. These guys discover that all their credits expired and they have to start over as a freshman. They can't support the family as a full time student, so they never go back... And these are the guys who actually got to play in college...

Sorry if I offended anyone and maybe I'm being a baby. My college selection process didn't involve sports and neither did my wife's. Son is my oldest, so all this is very new with lots of people offering lots of conflicting advice. Son's performances are erratic, so he's very good then not so good. Lots of ups and downs. Making choices is difficult.

The short term plan will be to not make a choice as long as possible. Hopefully the choice will be more obvious in a few months. Maybe another school comes into the mix or he demonstrates he IS good enough with some consistancy.

Academic scholarships are more valuable than (one year) baseball scholarships. If he gets lots of academic money and keeps his grades up, both you and your son should be happy. He will get an opportunity to play at a very top program and if that don't work out well, he can transfer. Or he stays and his academic money should help satisfy your goals for him.

Seems like a good situation to be in.

quote:

I don't mean to offend anyone and I guess this is a "good" set of problems to have, but sometimes I wish he was a D-3 kid who could get some help with tuition, graduate with a degree in something employable and live happily ever after.

How do you know he's not "just" a D3 player that can get some academic money? Seems like it's D1 or bust. I know of some very good players "only" playing D3 ball.

quote:

What I don't want is for him to get big eyes, go to the big school filled with delusions of grandure and end up holding the radar gun for the real pitchers his freshman year and asked to leave after that. About the time I have him talked out of tyring the big school, he does something (like throwing 92 out of the blue) that makes us rethink everything.

How do you know the radar guns are accurate? Maybe it's a few miles off. Even if he did touch 90 once, did he do it with all he's got and not really able to throw that pitch after pitch. Perhaps he is what he is: a consistent low-mid 80s thrower that can reach back and touch upper 80s and maybe 90 assuming guns are accurate. Certainly, there are schools that would go with those numbers.

quote:

IMHO the baseball thing is a huge distraction, the allure of an easy lifestyle never having to work a day in his life versus the reality that 99.8% of kids like him never get paid more than $2k/mo to play and end up done playing at 28 with a wife, two kids and no degree. These guys discover that all their credits expired and they have to start over as a freshman. They can't support the family as a full time student, so they never go back... And these are the guys who actually got to play in college...

This is reason #1 why my son chose education over baseball. He took an honest appraisal of himself by his senior year and based on the work he would've needed to do to keep up to play baseball and where he was, he knew where his future was. Now he wasn't a pro prospect by any stretch but had the tools to work with to potentially have himself a decent college career playing ball. He was a very solid HS player who was a varsity starter. He had opportunities to go the baseball route but he chose to focus on education. Now maybe your player has more potential and interest and all but at the end of the day, the decision was all his and he's the one who had to go thru it. I would've loved him to play college ball but I knew he would've had to want to so I didn't lament or go woe is me. I left it up to him and I was there to help along the way. In the end, it all worked out.

By putting this woe is me stuff on yourself or calling hima D1 washout, it sounds a bit like you may be too caught up in it and need to take a step back and see what he wants and let him make a decision for himself regarding baseball, college and yes, the girlfriend. As a parent, you need to back him up and help him with options but they need to be realistic as well as him but most important, he has to think and decide for himself what he wants to do, now what somebody else pushes him to do.

If he's that good and is willing to put the outside distractions aside, he will find a place to play with a good fit.

And yes, grades and SAT's are important. Without them, they close doors academically so that's where it starts.

Jmoff,

I saw JmoffJr pitched against RR23Jr's team during the last workout and from what I saw without knowing the gun readings that he is not a Washout! In fact he is still the ACE. I remember he struck out 2 guys. He even got a hit off a change-up low in his knees from RR23Jr.

I also noticed another 2012 LHP in your team who was throwing some heat too but not sure who he is and how ahrd was he throwing.

Sure would love RR23JR to play with him in PG WWBA 17U East Cobb Georgia if the opportunity arise. There would be a lot of exposure in the next few mos and I agree with the consensus that you probably should expand the horizons a little and as PG staff said to just keep grades up. Maybe even consider Ivies.

Everything should be fine my friend. With the 2-3 offers he has gotten as a LHP, he is far ahead with most of his 2012 peers. THe only question is finding the right fit with a great balance between academic and athletic success that would make him enjoy his 4 years.

Zombywoof,

When did your son decide to focus on education alone?

RR23