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Has anyone ever been recruited as a result of sending a coach an unsolicited email introducing themselves and sharing a link to video?

Thinking about how many kids play ball and want to continue in college. Now considering the pandemic and the inability for kids to get in front of coaches.

How many emails would a coach get in a recruiting period? Thousands? Is it possible for someone to still connect that way?

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@Francis7 posted:

Has anyone ever been recruited as a result of sending a coach an unsolicited email introducing themselves and sharing a link to video?

Thinking about how many kids play ball and want to continue in college. Now considering the pandemic and the inability for kids to get in front of coaches.

How many emails would a coach get in a recruiting period? Thousands? Is it possible for someone to still connect that way?

Yes - one school out of dozens. ('22 catcher). Said school followed up with specific video requests (blocking, breaking ball receiving). That's one out of dozens, though. I tell my son it's good life practice to write awkward emails, so we soldier on.

@OskiSD posted:

Yes - one school out of dozens. ('22 catcher). Said school followed up with specific video requests (blocking, breaking ball receiving). That's one out of dozens, though. I tell my son it's good life practice to write awkward emails, so we soldier on.

I should have added that the school in question had already been contacted by son's HS coach. 

Yes, I saw a video of the Stanford coach encouraging kids to send videos schools they were interested in.  I had my son send a video and introduction and we could see on the youtube stats that they viewed it for 10 minutes.  The coach called son's HS coach the next week and asked my son to call and subsequently ask him to come for a visit.  

This past fall we created a "resume" for my son and sent it out coaches to try to get my sons name on some radars. We included his PG and PBR profile links, his high school and travel coaches info, accomplishments and highlights, and other type things. This sparked phone calls to his high school and travel ball coaches which he then started talking to those schools. My philosophy was to let schools know that you are interested. Especially if it is out of state/out of region schools. 

My son sent some blind emails with video, and got one school interested that way.  And that led to other contacts.  Sending emails doesn't cost anything, only time.  But, that was HA recruiting; in general, I think the advice of going through a travel coach with contacts is preferable, as long as those people have contacts at the schools you are interested in.

Yes.  My son received multiple D1 offers that originated from unsolicited emails he sent to coaches.  We live in Southern California, my son wanted to go to a high-academic school on the east coast, so he had no choice but to proactively reach out to coaches.  He played for a very strong national travel program that played in PG and other tournaments in GA, FL, AZ as well as California.  His travel coach was very well connected to P5 and other top west coast schools but less so with Ivy's or other HA schools back east.  It was up to my son to figure out how to get these coaches to see him play.  He would send out regular updates, tournament schedules and videos.  He had strong measureables, lots of good video, and he played in the "right" tournaments so this helped.  Some of the coaches responded, others called him up, others never responded.  The coaches that made offers saw him play multiple times over a period of months.

I asked one of the coaches who offered how he came across my son.  He said from my son's email video.  He added that with his limited travel budget there's no way he can go everywhere he'd like to go, so getting email videos is a huge help in him finding needles in the haystacks.

Yes, unsolicited videos START the recruiting process for a large number of players.  Do they finish the process?  Not even close or at least none that I know of.  Many advise to have subject lines that stand out or you risk never having the email even opened. Others swear to keep it simple.  My son's email subject lines started out as "Joe Blow - 2021 MIF/OF {high school w/city]" and only crickets were chirping.  We started looking at his PBR measureables and realized all of his were in the top 10 of the state for his class, so he tried the subject line "2021 MIF/OF with Top 10 [state abbreviation] Measurables - Joe Blow" and all of a sudden responses started coming back.  Everything changed.  The coaches were opening his emails, reading them and watching the videos they pointed them to.  Relationships grew from there.

Are coaches getting inundated with ungodly numbers of emails 7 days a week?  Without question.  Even more so with Covid.  I've seen some college coaches interviewed by Josh Rudd that say they don't want catchy subject lines.  They want basic/less.  That baffles me when I look at my son's experience.  YMMV but I can't imagine getting any coach's attention with emails without something to draw them in.  "You're a 2021 MIF/OF?  Yeah, so is everyone else.  [delete]."

If there are D1 coaches getting less than 100 unsolicited emails EVERY DAY from prospective players, I'd be shocked.  Coaches at Vandy and Arkansas?  Where's my calculator...

Early in the process for son, when the target list was very wide, he did get some responses and follow-up dialog but it was not a high percent by any stretch and it was, as one may expect, far more likely for it to be from schools that probably struggled to get decent prospects.

There are no magic pills.  The more you can connect with a school with the right skill set, the right grades, the right connections/coaches/travel orgs/mentors speaking on your behalf, getting in the right places to be seen by targeted schools, fitting the right need at the time, etc., the better the chances.

There are exceptions - moreso with HA's, D3's, etc., but again, it makes sense.  Those schools are more motivated to coax anyone who can qualify academically and financially to attend.

Additionally, if the skill set and player track record gives good indication that the player can excel at a given school, they will be more likely to respond.  But those players will usually use more effective methods of communicating to such schools than just an unsolicited email.

Francis: The initial "email introduction w/ video" was definitely the rule with most of my son's recruiting (not the exception). These videos would often result in email response and put him on the schools' clipboards at showcases he would attend.  Even before this son (with my help) he completed recruiting questionnaires for each school as the INITIAL contact. This put him on the school's vastly database of players for that recruiting year. I say with my help, as RipkenFanSon often didn't know specific dates, stats, etc.  The vetting process is 2-way; schools like players with talent and those that have interest in their program. For most who wish to play college ball, THEY HAVE TO BE AN ACTIVE player in getting the school's attention/initial interest. REcruiting is not a spectator sport. Exceptions may be if the player is known locally, or blue chip P 90's +mph, 400 ft HR swing, etc.

Finally, I also agree with @Danj on subject of the email. You do want to set yourself apart from the masses. RCs get oodles of video/emails to go through. Son would put his grad year, positions, 60 time (or SBs) and GPA.

If you fish in the right pond you will always get a response from half the recruiting coordinators in a given conference.

Its important to be realistic about which truly is the right pond.  Early on, when my son was 15/16, he was told by Baseball people that he projected to a mid major D1 if he improved his 60 time and throwing velocity.   He did get some responses from D1 mid major RC’s but it was along the lines of “hey, I like your swing.  We’ll keep a look out for you.  What’s your summer schedule?  We’d love to have you attend our camp.”

Now that he’s a rising Senior and fishing in the right pond for him (D3) the responses were “thanks for your email, we are very interested, is there a time this week we can talk on the phone?”  After the first phone call there have been multiple regular texts back and forth and invites to visit campus soon.

If he had been running a 6.6 60 and throwing 90+ across the infield, I have no doubt he would have gotten similar responses from mid majors.

If you are a pitcher who throws 97mph, LSU & Vanderbilt will email you back.   Just gotta fish in the right pond.

We were probably overkill but it worked in the best of the best, IMO.  We sent over 30 emails to P5 SEC, ACC, and B12 each Monday during high school and tournament season from summer before 9th grade year until he committed right before junior year.  The emails included link to his website which I built for free, his stats and updates from last week and schedule for coming week including when he was pitching and where.  We would also try to specialize it each week for each school which was a pain but well worth it.  He got responses and questions almost every week from someone asking about schedule, compeition, or generic questions.  We had multiple P5 coaches who came to watch him and make offers that as far as we know the emails were first contact.  He may have been on their list but had not contacted until after email.  It was vital since he wanted to play in SEC/ACC and we lived in midwest.  We only stopped sending them to schools when they were removed by us as an option.  As we got to know some staffs or situations we removed some from the list.  it was a lot of work but getting what you want is always a lot of work. 

I was his HS coach for 9-10 grade year and it was amazing how many calls I got from coaches and most of them not putting it together until I told them that he was my son.  One in particular that we developed a great relationship with asked his strengths and weaknesses.  Then asked one moment in his time under me that he showed what it meant to be more than a baseball player.  After I answered those questions honestly and he found out I was his father he responded I want to meet you and shake your hand one day.  Most dads would have never been that honest and vulnerable about their kid.  We met at a tournament 2 weeks later and ate lunch together while he watched another player pitch.  He even asked me what I thought about the kid.  My son contacted every team that had made him an offer and a few that had shown a lot of interest but never made an offer to tell them he was going to UT.  It was interesting that only 2 of the 20 plus teams were upset.  Most of them thanked him for his courtesy and wished him well.  Several of them stopped him at tournaments and congratulated him.  One even contacted him a few weeks ago about a kid that plays on his 14U team that he is coaching since he did not get to play a lot this summer.  Small world. 


Creating the right email address for recruiting helps. If ABC Baseball Academy is known for placing players an email address like BobbyBaseball2022.ABCAcademy@gmail (dot) com is more likely to be viewed. 

One of my son’s high school teammate’s father sent out about 100 unsolicited emails with video in the kid’s name to mid majors and D2s. The response rate was about 25%.

The best avenue is have the travel coach presell. Then, the player sends video and a game schedule. 

Last edited by RJM
@Francis7 posted:

Thanks. So, it really started with the coach and not the email, right?

Francis, it's hard to say. The coach had done this outreach well in advance of the contact with no immediate response (said coach doesn't have any connections to the university in question). By contrast, HS coach's outreach had garnered interest from other schools, just not this particular one. 

It's important to take your location into consideration with your approach.  Not only where you live, but where you hope to play.  We live in the midwest where travel ball at the high school level (it's rampant for 8U-14U ball) is in it's infancy stages.  And it's fighting hard with high school coaches who are hell bent on keeping Legion ball alive.  Those coaches have a death grip on the outdated cliche that "if you're good enough, they'll find YOU."  The best avenue might be having a travel coach pre-sell, but that option isn't possible for everyone.  And yes, it puts you at a distinct disadvantage.  The kids with the best offers, rankings, reputations, etc in our state are those that got into traveling and did so early as freshmen and sophomores.  For those that don't, you're forced to get creative, highly  strategic and work much harder when not on the field.

You truly have to build your own HIGHLY customized magic bullet from the ground up.  

@DanJ posted:

Yes, unsolicited videos START the recruiting process for a large number of players.  Do they finish the process?  Not even close or at least none that I know of.  Many advise to have subject lines that stand out or you risk never having the email even opened. Others swear to keep it simple.  My son's email subject lines started out as "Joe Blow - 2021 MIF/OF {high school w/city]" and only crickets were chirping.  We started looking at his PBR measureables and realized all of his were in the top 10 of the state for his class, so he tried the subject line "2021 MIF/OF with Top 10 [state abbreviation] Measurables - Joe Blow" and all of a sudden responses started coming back.  Everything changed.  The coaches were opening his emails, reading them and watching the videos they pointed them to.  Relationships grew from there.

......

My son's experience was very similar...started by putting name/position/year in the subject.  After a few rounds we included his best measurable and had much more success.  My perception is that these coaches have so many kids to consider that they quickly reduce a player to his best metric (RHP 88, or LH OF 6.5, etc.)

He did get some responses from D1 mid major RC’s but it was along the lines of “hey, I like your swing.  We’ll keep a look out for you.  What’s your summer schedule?  We’d love to have you attend our camp.”

Now that he’s a rising Senior and fishing in the right pond for him (D3) the responses were “thanks for your email, we are very interested, is there a time this week we can talk on the phone?”  After the first phone call there have been multiple regular texts back and forth and invites to visit campus soon.

 

This is how my 2021 son has experienced the difference as well.  Mostly polite but lukewarm email responses from D1s, enthusiastic requests to talk either via phone or zoom from D3s.  The difference was clear as day.  And, now I understand why folks here say, you know when they are interested.

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