Verbal (kinda-sorta) commitments

No need to apologize: valid extension of the analogy.

Isn't a gray shirt year more like living together without getting married?

Where one of the couple gets to sleep around and date others, while the other does not.

I get the baseball coaches fraternity aspect. I guess i was a bit hard on the dude. IMHO, i think it was okay for him to be upset, he lost a kid who no one else...for all practical purposes were onto. What struck me was the his comment about not having anything good to say about my son to anyone who asked. I guess that's his right and i couldn't have stopped him. The emails were benign, but just re=forwarded emails from me about son's excitement to be at said school prior to de-committment. Being snarky i guess. Really, "Getting me good".

As i said the HC was a class act and said some good things about my son after the fact and i think that was awesome. 

I'll reserve the public comments moving forward as it is and has been over...just wanted to add input to a situation which i thought was relevant. 

Still learning this message board thing....is everything posted on the interweb really permanent?

I could have easily crafted a similar post without any indictments and moving forward will change my comments, style and User Name to MilkToast. 

And a redshirt is...  no, I can't say it.

'Commit' is like dating an older woman. Much older.

You tell your friends, and they think it's really cool.  Nobody else thinks anything will come of it.

/apologies in advance

PGStaff: "That word "commitment" should be changed to decision."

AMEN, BROTHER!

If we did this,  we wouldn't have to create and normalize words like decommit (which no dictionary recognizes)!

Perhaps you can influence the elite staff at PG to use their bully pulpit to nudge things in this direction. You might some day even have a statement on the College Commitments page that lists verbals:

"These players and schools have entered into a non-binding verbal agreement."

or

"These players have made the decision to attend these schools, and the schools have make the decision to bring them onto their teams. Either party can elect to go in a different direction prior to the player actually signing a National Letter of Intent."

Does the college make any commitment at all?  They are still recruiting players for your position.

"This player has foolishly made a one-sided verbal commitment to this college"

I know of a Division I program that had intentionally avoided recruiting any more players into its class of 2015, so that they could make good on their offers to "pledged" recruits. Last week, a player decomitted.

Silly them. 

Although my post has nothing to do with decommiting, I wanted to heap some praise upon all the participating posters on this thread.  While much of it is straight forward and some humerous, a close reading of some of the posts demonstrates the true level of thoughtfulness.  The mention of either wishing one had come to this site before the commitment decision or having foregone some early commitment after reading posts here speaks volumes.  I will refer back to the "worst contract" thread where the NLI was touted as the worst contract ever.  I think the NLI contract discussion could benefit from this thread.  While the NLI is still rather one-sided, it is a long way from an early commit and hopefully the level of confidence in one's decision by the NLI date is quite high.

Trying to keep this alive.  I did not want my last post to be viewed as a closing post.  Please continue adding to this great thread.  By the way, when is PG going to sponsor a prime time NLI signing event for high school baseball players?  Maybe some of the top players could reveal their choice by having a sausage race with each racer having a different mascot.  I guess it would be kind of bad if you had to decommit because your chosen sausage got knocked to the ground.

Offer withdrawn does not equal Decommit, the consequences are different for both sides. The schools emerge unscathed.  My 6'4" RHP was up to 88-89 last summer and was offered by a top 25 program but his velo dropped in the fall to 84-85 and they withdrew the offer for fear that he might be injured. He was just not working as much, keeping his arm lose to gear up for Jupiter when they called and said he should shut down (fear of injury). Now he is back up to where he was last spring touching 89 but no interest from D1 programs. We passed on several other D1's in favor of our "Dream School" only to be left hanging.  It almost seems that you become used goods to have had a program withdraw their offer.

mcmmccm - can you provide any additional details, especially timelines, as to how your story unfolded?  Please feel free to be as generic as you feel is appropriate (not looking for actual personal details).  Did your son verbally accept prior to the withdrawal?  Also, you mentioned that "they called and said he should shut down" - how did the timing of this "advice" fit in the discussion timeline?

To others - I realize at some point schools begin offering up workout programs but when (or should) they begin discussing/advising the individual's pitching routine prior to any formal NLI agreement?

I am sorry this happened to your son.  Our son committed September of his senior year, in respect to those coaches who offered son a great opportunity, son shut himself down from anything that fall (accept a commitment to throw some innings in jupiter that fall).  That spring he played it safe as well, even though he had an NLI. The bottom line is that they pay pitchers nice $$ to come to their program and they want you to come to campus healthy and I don't think they like their commits working overtime, especially where the draft is concerned. And when the school withdraws it does leave a big question as to "why".

This is another reason why I am not a big fan of the early commit unless you have this discussion with them prior, they should live up to their commitment, they could have had your son on a medical waiver if necessary.

As far as committing to the top 25 D1 "dream" school, that isnt always in the players best interest, as you are now finding out.

Originally Posted by TPM:

they pay pitchers nice $$ to come to their program and they want you to come to campus healthy

 

 

I'm going to assume you didn't mean this they way it reads.

I am going to assume that you didn't mean this the way it reads!

All kidding aside I am not really understand.You dont think that coaches are somewhat upset when players they are going to rely upon to help their program comes injured?

Originally Posted by roothog66:

Originally Posted by TPM:

they pay pitchers nice $$ to come to their program and they want you to come to campus healthy

 

 

I'm going to assume you didn't mean this they way it reads.

I am going to assume that you didn't mean this the way it reads!

 

All kidding aside I am not really understand.You dont think that coaches are somewhat upset when players they are going to rely upon to help their program comes injured?

No, I completely understood your point and, yeah, I think they expect a kid to get onto their off-season plans immediately after graduation. I just couldn't pass on the idea that colleges are paying pitchers big $$ (again, though, I know what you were saying). Now, if you were talking about quarterbacks...

Originally Posted by TPM:

Originally Posted by roothog66:

Originally Posted by TPM:

they pay pitchers nice $$ to come to their program and they want you to come to campus healthy

 

 

I'm going to assume you didn't mean this they way it reads.

I am going to assume that you didn't mean this the way it reads!

 

All kidding aside I am not really understand.You dont think that coaches are somewhat upset when players they are going to rely upon to help their program comes injured?

No, I completely understood your point and, yeah, I think they expect a kid to get onto their off-season plans immediately after graduation. I just couldn't pass on the idea that colleges are paying pitchers big $$ (again, though, I know what you were saying). Now, if you were talking about quarterbacks...

Oh ok, I got it.  

Pitchers get most of the lions share, so I did use them as the example. 

A lot of pitchers I know who will be beginning college are headed to campus over the summer, for class and for conditioning, most coaches like the fact that they will be able to work with them in the fall and not have to be shut down because they are pitching!

Years ago they wanted you to play travel ball and compete, this is totally ridiculous IMO for a PO.