We had our NCSA "consult" - Selecting colleges base on majors question as well

They do a "great" sales pitch don't they?

Big Coin though.

Excellent Career Choice!

Yes, they do a very nice pitch. I used it for what it was, to get my kid thinking more.

Florida, Yes, he has 2 uncles, 1 aunt, 1 cousin that are actuaries. His brother is in his first year of college for actuarial.

t

quote:

it is a highly specified degree that is well paid.

It is very competitive also. Paid internships during the summer go to the top performers in college. Jobs will be offered to you way before you graduate. If you are top of the line academically, you can get a nice academic scholarship. I'm talking full tuition, books, room and board. Really, it makes the baseball scholarship look like chump change. Penn State has a very good program.

quote:

Originally posted by PA Dino:

quote:

it is a highly specified degree that is well paid.

It is very competitive also. Paid internships during the summer go to the top performers in college. Jobs will be offered to you way before you graduate. If you are top of the line academically, you can get a nice academic scholarship. I'm talking full tuition, books, room and board. Really, it makes the baseball scholarship look like chump change. Penn State has a very good program.

PA:

I guess that is what I was thinking from reading some of this board and the ncsa stuff. Perhaps if a coach wanted a lefty pitcher with adequate skills enough, it would give my son an edge on more academic grants/scholarships.

I know the D2 college in our area that is state run gives most of their ball players $1500 max scholarships. Thus, I'm trying to get my son to realize how important the ACT is and continued good grades - plus trying to excel in baseball.

t

I used NCSA for my first son. To me and my son it was worth it for the knowledge and information they have available with the formatting of a quality player profile. I am not saying join up. I am saying for the cost of a quality tournament you get a lot of intel to process that is easily accessible. With this site and NCSA site along with a couple showcases and quality tournaments made it possible for my son to be ready for the next level. We are all are enjoying his college baseball experiences. NCSA never placed him with a college yet, but it did give him many options for him to choose from of schools across the US. Many contacted him from D1 to JUCO. NCSA stays with him and continues to help you be proactive by sending your sons profile to college fit schools all through your college experience.

I am a proactive person. I have a freshman in HS now playing varsity also. Knowing what I know now after collecting all the info I have from all areas I will still use NCSA for son #2 simply for the convenience and accessing of all the info in one location of schools,training and everything you need except the experience your son will need on the field to get to the next level. Both the parents and the athelete needs to be educated and it's fun to do it together.

And on the issue of too soon to post a video? From my experience from # 1 son which I didn't startto be proactive til he was a Junior in HS. I agree it would have been too soon to do a video of him as a freshman. ( But he is not a LHP) What a change they go through in another two years. But if you think your son shows early potential, the way I see it a 5'11" LHP that has a 3.5 and above GPA is what the coaches are really searching for. Why not give them a sneak preview and let them do what they do. They will evaluate the FUTURE potential of his talent and factor in how much $ they will save accademically. What could happen? They could say lets put him on our follow list? Lets put him on our camp mailout list? Worse case senario they see him and his profile. Because he is a great student and a LHP your son would be moved up on their follow list. They could compare his freshman year to his ,sophomore and Jr year to see if they like him more or less. But if you don't be proactive now you will have to work under a tighter time line later. But then again they say if he is good they will find him? Small town players have to do more in my humble opinion. Putting a video toghther is a fun part of the process. Have fun, learn together, grow together and the earlier you start involving him the more open and confident he will be when meeting coaches! Good Luck!!!

quote:

Originally posted by trstrstrs:
Should he go through every college that specializes in that degree and search out which have ball teams and are some place he would want to live. Then contact those coaches after this season? Then create a secondary list of schools which will lay a foundation for actuarial science next? I.E. Get a list of 20 "math" schools as his dream list and then get less selective after that?

Is that how the process works for the academic baseball player? He is a 3.7 gpa, top 10% in class and will likely be in the 26-29 act range.
Trs

That is exactly how it works. You control the search process by making up a list of schools that you think fit your son’s academic and baseball profile. Make up a list of approximately 30 schools and start working through their websites, here and other web resources. You will need to know what is the level of baseball skill your son has and match that up with the schools programs. You will have stretch schools for both baseball and academic.

I would go to a school camp of interest after your son’s Soph year. This will give him an idea on what a college program is like and how he competes. The “for sure” events for you should be the Stanford Camp his Junior year and the Arizona Fall Sr Classic, and make sure he plays in the Academic game. I would look into GPA or Headfirst events also.

Make up a profile of your son and send it to the recruiting coach for his target schools at the end of his Soph. summer so they know he exists and what his profile is. Toward the end of his Junior year send out his summer schedule to these colleges. Since you are from Wisconsin, schools are not coming to you, so you have to go to them. Play in a WWB tournament or two, and if possible get on a high profile team as these teams get colleges coming to them for players.

While all of this is well and good you better find out quickly where your son fits baseball skill wise. No offense, but schools don’t recruit kids from Wisconsin for baseball, hockey yes, baseball no. Because of where you live you are going to have to get out and travel a lot more than a kid from the warm weather states. If he can play then he will find a home, but if he can’t then you will be wasting a lot of time and money.

Good Luck!

BOF:

Ahh...the great question of where he fits. That is why I posted his stats and his potential, but no one has really told me if he is above average, average, or below average in his stats.

5'11" 175 lbs. and throwing 75 mph going into our summer high school league. Next year he will be spring ball and opens up trying out for a good legion team.

He is working with a pitching coach that believes he will be into the 80's possibly by next year.

With these stats, would small privates and small D3's be interested in him if he throws good command. Would they push academic grants his way with those stats being a LHP?

Thanks,

t

What grade is he?

Wisconsin is actually a very good baseball state. Some of their Legion programs were highly regarded in the past. They also have a few National Caliber Travel teams based out of the state. We run a spring and fall wood bat league for players in the state and we are constantly trying to find the best players there.

Many Wisconsin players end up at DI schools and smaller colleges. BTW, DIII baseball is very good there.

The other thing that some people don't understand is that if you're a talented player in Wisconsin you should not go unnoticed. First of all, there are a lot of real good baseball people in the state. Second, this is an area that gets scouted fairly well. There are MLB scouts that live in Wisconsin and just across the border (Chicago area) there is one of the largest concentration of MLB scouts in the country. They pretty much all have Wisconsin as part of their territory.

Here is a list of some of the Wisconsin players we are familiar with that were drafted, just in the past few years. Some of those below have already appeared in the Big Leagues. Obviously the college list is much much longer.

Tony Harper
Adam Frost
Jason Jaramillo
Jason Berken
Ryan Rohlinger
Thomas Zimmerman
Daryl Maday
Cal Stanke
Ryan Zink
Tyler Beranek
Dusty Brabender
Erik Cordier
Mark Hallberg
Craig Herrforth
Tony Butler
Ben Ihde
Scott Matyas
Wes Munson
Chris Roberts
Bill Schroeder
RJ Seidel
Collin Kuhn
Kurtis Muller
Andrew Paulauskas
Cullen Sexton
Ben Versnik
Cody Winiarski
Paul Hoenecke
Joel Effertz
Kevin James
Charlie Markson
David Peters
Brad Schreiber
Conor Fisk

First thing that all those kids had going for them was ability. Then they displayed that ability. The farthest south Jason Berken traveled to was Iowa before Clemson recruited him. He is now a 6 foot RHP for the Baltimore Orioles. He is from the small town of De Pere, WI. up by Green Bay.

If a player lacks the necessary ability to play at the next level, there's no reason to travel anywhere or display anything. There might still be a college baseball future, but it will be at a college where they will recruit just about anyone. Some of these can be very good academic schools, they just don't care who is on the baseball team.

While there are outstanding programs at every level, there really are some terrible college baseball programs out there, especially at the lower levels. Their coaches are recruiting students rather than student/baseball players. You don't need to showcase or play travel ball or hire a recruiting service, just find out who they are and give them a call.

OK I see from your other post he is a Soph this year. This is all my opinion so take it with a grain of salt.

For what it is worth mine was below. He was also stuck at 84-86 for a long time and then one day - bingo he was 87-89. This all happened last fall once he hit 88 for a righty the phone started to ring. Go figure. (he is also 6’4” and projects)

Fresh 75-78
Soph 80-82
Jr 83-85
Sr 87-89

As a Lefty if you can get him to 83-85 and he has a lot of movement on his ball he will find a home. If you get much below this you are going to have to “shoe horn” him into a program. I hate to say this but HS pitching stats don’t mean squat. The other thing that I hate to say is that the only other thing that matters most college coaches is velocity. So focus on it, all of the time every day. Get it into his head that this is all that matters. Stupid as it sounds it is true.

My son’s friend who is a Jr Lefty and throws 87-89 has committed to UCLA, so this gives you an idea on what is the range of velo for programs. (he is also 6’3 something)

Skill means nothing in D3 as far as how much money he gets. How much you make and how high his grades are (and test scores), are all that matter as far as how much $$ you get. Skill will obviously determine if he plays once your in of course.

So his life should be pretty straightforward. Grades and Velocity!

Here is what I would do if I were you.

1. Get his bu tt into the gym. Find a good workout program that builds strength, and power. He must be pretty stout if he is 175 at 5’11” so it is a good start. The program must be baseball oriented. Look through the strength and conditioning forum for help.

2. Go to Jaegersports.com and get some bands and purchase the “thrive on throwing CD” and get him long tossing ASAP. He should throw every day.

3. Work with a good pitching instructor. You will probably need several until you find a good one. For mine the key was when he was able to get his front foot down and have good stretch through his body, arm back and then explode to the plate. This finally happened when his muscle mass could support him. The guy from Seattle in the pitching forum has this figured out FWIW.

That’s it again... Grades and Velocity - Grades and Velocity - repeat after me - Grades and Velocity.


Good Luck!

one more time - Grades and Velocity.

BOF - he is a sophomore.

PG: I wish we were in the fox valley or metro milwaukee or madison area. We are a really small town area, although now that we are playing spring ball next year, he will have the opportunity to tryout for a larger city legion team who was top 3 in our state last year.

However, I haven't seen any small town players on that team, they were just the kids in the district that played.

Not sure if he'd have an opportunity to play for a traveling metro team, but I was trying to find info on your fall wood bat league on the PG site. We are 4 hrs. from Milwaukee and the Fox Valley (depere, appleton).

I am trying to be realistic that he is probably a small school player first with his current stats - hoping that he if he develops other things will open up for him.

I have seen a few players and parents around here, mostly football, project themselves way higher then they are and then become very disappointed at the level they play.

On one side, it might be bad to not have D1 expectations for your kid, but on the other hand, if he gets a good education at a reasonable price - and still gets to travel and play ball at a small level, it may be all my son is looking for. That part of the equation is up to him and how hard he wants to work at it.

Thx for the input, let me know if there is a link for a fall bat wood league please.

t

PG,
Good thing you stepped in about recruiting baseball players because I was going to point out Berky.

BTW, excellent post.

Hello - welcome to the hsbbweb!!!

The advice in this thread is unbelievably good!

I can offer some advice here on the academic side.

Basically, from what I know, an actuarial path is a statistics path that involves hard core mathematics. My brother graduated from Bowling Green here in Ohio with a degree in Economics. He got accepted into both Carnegie Mellon and Ohio State for their Phd Statistics programs.

My understanding, talking to him, is that this field of study requires a Masters if not ideally a Phd. He has his Phd from Ohio State and he is a VP for Chase Bank and has made a very nice living for himself and family. He specializes in the techinical side of banking involving complex algorithms and financial enginineering. Although I am very proud of him, my point was to let you know that in this field, the main thing for the first four years is to first do very well with the GPA and secondly do very well in higher-level math. The name of the undergraduate degree and the school where attending is not so important as long as those two criteria are met. I guess my ultimate point is that if this is the field your son has chosen, he is looking at an advanced degree at the very least if he wants to make a career out of it. He will certainly want to go to a name school imho for the advanced studies.

All the best to him in the future!

quote:

Originally posted by azallan:
But if you think your son shows early potential, the way I see it a 5'11" LHP that has a 3.5 and above GPA is what the coaches are really searching for. Why not give them a sneak preview and let them do what they do. They will evaluate the FUTURE potential of his talent and factor in how much $ they will save accademically. What could happen? They could say lets put him on our follow list? Lets put him on our camp mailout list? Worse case senario they see him and his profile. Because he is a great student and a LHP your son would be moved up on their follow list. They could compare his freshman year to his ,sophomore and Jr year to see if they like him more or less.

I am not sure I agree with the advice being given above.
Did a college coach actually give you that info, about what they care more about is grades than ability? That just because he is LHP they will follow his progress? Many college coaches CANNOT evaluate future potential, I guess that is most likely why the rely on scouting services (like PG) for that information. I would imagine even the best coaches in the country ask for opinions.

Do yourself a favor, unless you have someone who is very qualified to evaluate your son's future potential, keep working on what he has been (mechaincs) and get in on a good conditioning strength program along with long toss, and when the time is right, have him evaluated.
Do understand that the time may or may not ever be right, you keep asking about potential and none of us here is qualified to answer that question.

Your son seems ot know wha the wants to do, that is unusual, follow that path, explore the school possililites but keep in mind that some course of study doesn't always fit in the baseball schedule.

JMO.

BTW, what does one of these "consults" do? Have they ever seen your son play?

How can you consult someone on which path to take (where you might get a chance to have your education paid for and continue the game), if you can't evaluate their talent or potential?

Probably a no brainer that yoor son has academic potential, it's the baseball potential that is most needed to get attention.

JMO.

NCSA wanted to do a consult with my son also. They told us all about their success rate in getting kids scholarships. They could hardly contain themselves when I told them he is a 4.0 student, 6'5" 200# RHP with good success as a sophomore. I decided right then that we probably didn't need to spend the money for their help. We figured we could probably use that money to get him into showcases, travel ball, etc. So far, so good!

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:
BTW, what does one of these "consults" do?

1. They hold up a piece of glass and see if he is breathing.

2. They verify your checking balance has enough in it.

1. Good, 2. Good

Yep he's qualified.

Thanks to all of the candid replies. It sounds as if he needs to keep working hard and getting instruction. It also sounds like lets see where he is after this season and next summer and then start looking at the PG stuff his junior year if he is touching 80 mph by that time and has good command.

It looks like I am jumping the gun as far as his potential because you just cant project it.

yes, ncsa was "excited" that my son qualified to there program. At this point, from the opinions here, and not playing any strong competition or showcases - it sounds like he is an average player at the moment. Hopefully that will motivate him to work a bit harder over the next year.

t

One more suggestion to heighten your son's level of interest(and yours) on college and college baseball.
There are a ton of DIII games in Wisconsin this month. There are post season tourneys and regionals.
They culminate in the DIII CWS in Appleton at the end of the month.
Might be a nice place for parents and a son to sit, watch a game and for both of you to see the talent levels, what he might need to get done on the upside, provide some reassurance he can see himself on that field, and watch how much fun baseball can be at the college level when 50 players are there and not one because he is receiving baseball money to play.
I know for our son, and many others, getting them to college games to see where they might be and realize they had the ability created quite a lot of motivation to get there, along with the belief they could play there.
Good luck to you and your son.
You are receiving some great support from many folks who have a lot of great experience in the process.
Welcome to the HSBBW.

trstrstrs

Do you have any way of benchmarking where your son is at as a pitcher - leaving velocity aside for a moment?

We live in a town with a population of 12,000. We play for a team just over an hour away just north of Toronto. There's about a dozen teams in his 15u loop and the total population base for that would be about 3 million people.

He is a Varsity pitcher for our small town High School. We play against High Schools about a half hour south of us that are much stronger. Still I would say my son would have an ERA <1 facing his own HS Varsity team. The 15U hitters in Toronto would be far superior to that. He has also faced hitters from southern states and pitched against older guys. He has worked quite hard at choreographing his pick-off moves to all bases. Last summer as a 14U, the highest number I saw off a Juggs was 74 mph. I found opportunities last summer to put him into two different games at 3 innings apiece. They were against semi-elite 16U teams each of them coached by former MLB guys. These guys were used to low-80's pitching. In the first game, he had one earned run and two pick-off's. In the second, no earned runs and one pick-off.

Can you get your son to university camps, or travel team try outs, or somewhere where he can benchmark himself as a pitcher against quality hitters from larger population bases? No matter what the outcome, there is value in learning where the bar is at with the best hitters. You take your lumps and you go home and work.

I would look at some of the various showcase/camps from Blue Chip, Demarini Tops96, etc. where there is no rating. The Demarini one in Easton, PA has a really good range of schools. It's two days and there are games. It's instructional, so he's going to interact with a number of good pitching coaches (I researched which ones were pitching coaches). I would look at the other pitchers and determine how he stacks up and what work needs to be done as a pitcher.

Infield dad: thx, that is a good idea.

Notlong: I would say he isn't polished in regards to command yet. I.E. very good movement on fastball and a nasty slider, but doesn't have the command he should have. He certainly doesn't sound as polished as your son.

I think after this and my previous thread, he needs to decide to make some strides going into our summer high school season. I think we will have about 26 games on the schedule - and then hopefully we will find a good fall ball league for him to compete in and see where he needs to be.

I think the camps will come next summer after he works strength, and I'll try to get him some winter pitching camps to attend as well.

like i said initially, wow, a great board to belong too.

t

trstrstrs

You mentioned you have a pitching coach. Try to get a lesson (likely outdoors) where the pitching coach is working on some of those polish items. My son was lucky enough to work with a travel organization this winter that really worked on specific things, down to the footwork of coming off the mound in various scenarios. This summer he has a coach who handed out three pages on offensive and defensive signals – something to do on the one-hour drive. The 26 games this summer is a perfect opportunity to practice these things.

My son’s big assignment for this summer is reducing time-between-pitches. In past years, he has been a bit of a drama queen out there. He’ll strut around. If a hitter backs out, he’ll break off and step off, as soon as the hitter is back in. He’ll stare at a guy forever. He’ll go to first four times with a strut and routine in between. He’s only been called on this a couple of times but, this year I am encouraging him to develop a reputation as a quick worker.

I’d work on the body and work on the mechanics, as planned. Others may disagree but, I’d say work on the polish items just as hard. If he’s a sophomore now, he has this summer and next to get this stuff in order.

t,
I am going to be honest with you, a LHP with only 2 pitches without command or velo (why a slurve), needs to really concentrate on improvement, I would really not worry about the showcases, tournies, etc at this time.

If what you say is true, don't throw your money away at this time, depsite the info you have been given, concentrate on what needs to be done (significant imporvement in skills) before anything else.

Keep in mind that some of the advice given here is from parents that are either just beginning or going through the process, and haven no idea what your situation is, sometimes parents go a bit overboeard when they don't have to, something we've seen a lot of lately. If you can do it and afford it, fine, but be careful. College is expensive, and saving for that shouldbe your first consideration.

JMO.

quote:

Originally posted by TPM:
t,
I am going to be honest with you, a LHP with only 2 pitches without command or velo (why a slurve), needs to really concentrate on improvement, I would really not worry about the showcases, tournies, etc at this time.

If what you say is true, don't throw your money away at this time, depsite the info you have been given, concentrate on what needs to be done (significant imporvement in skills) before anything else.

Keep in mind that some of the advice given here is from parents that are either just beginning or going through the process, and haven no idea what your situation is, sometimes parents go a bit overboeard when they don't have to, something we've seen a lot of lately. If you can do it and afford it, fine, but be careful. College is expensive, and saving for that shouldbe your first consideration.

JMO.

Notso: thanks again for the input, very helpful.

TPM: Yes, I think this year needs to be a foundation year for him to see where it takes him. Time to work with the pitching coach and develop those three pitches. If he does this over the next year, then perhaps we will invest the money during his junior season. I appreciate all of the candid responses as I think it simplifies this summer's objectives for us.

t

I apologize for my last post, I meant to ask why a slider? Seems to me that there are some pitches that will serve him better to work on at this time.

JMO.

TPM:

Not sure. We were told in 14U to stay away from the curve and focus more on the slider I guess. Isn't that a lot less stressful on the elbow?

His slider is pretty good when it is working for him. His pitching mentor really wants to work loose grip for his tailing 2 seamer and really wants him to work the change up as he won't be overpowering any of the better teams we see.

t

We have just had a really big discussion here in another forum regarding that (what's good or what's bad about using a cb or slider early) so not going to get into it at this time. But at 14 your son should have been throwing a change up already, the other stuff should come after.

JMO.

TPM:

Could you reference that thread? That would be great as I'd love to read what people say about that. My son does have a change btw, but we are working on more movement on it. He does not throw it with command yet, which is what we are looking for.

t

quote:

Originally posted by PGStaff:
Wisconsin is actually a very good baseball state. Some of their Legion programs were highly regarded in the past. They also have a few National Caliber Travel teams based out of the state. We run a spring and fall wood bat league for players in the state and we are constantly trying to find the best players there.

Many Wisconsin players end up at DI schools and smaller colleges. BTW, DIII baseball is very good there.

The other thing that some people don't understand is that if you're a talented player in Wisconsin you should not go unnoticed. First of all, there are a lot of real good baseball people in the state. Second, this is an area that gets scouted fairly well. There are MLB scouts that live in Wisconsin and just across the border (Chicago area) there is one of the largest concentration of MLB scouts in the country. They pretty much all have Wisconsin as part of their territory.

Here is a list of some of the Wisconsin players we are familiar with that were drafted, just in the past few years. Some of those below have already appeared in the Big Leagues. Obviously the college list is much much longer.

Tony Harper
Adam Frost
Jason Jaramillo
Jason Berken
Ryan Rohlinger
Thomas Zimmerman
Daryl Maday
Cal Stanke
Ryan Zink
Tyler Beranek
Dusty Brabender
Erik Cordier
Mark Hallberg
Craig Herrforth
Tony Butler
Ben Ihde
Scott Matyas
Wes Munson
Chris Roberts
Bill Schroeder
RJ Seidel
Collin Kuhn
Kurtis Muller
Andrew Paulauskas
Cullen Sexton
Ben Versnik
Cody Winiarski
Paul Hoenecke
Joel Effertz
Kevin James
Charlie Markson
David Peters
Brad Schreiber
Conor Fisk

First thing that all those kids had going for them was ability. Then they displayed that ability. The farthest south Jason Berken traveled to was Iowa before Clemson recruited him. He is now a 6 foot RHP for the Baltimore Orioles. He is from the small town of De Pere, WI. up by Green Bay.

If a player lacks the necessary ability to play at the next level, there's no reason to travel anywhere or display anything. There might still be a college baseball future, but it will be at a college where they will recruit just about anyone. Some of these can be very good academic schools, they just don't care who is on the baseball team.

While there are outstanding programs at every level, there really are some terrible college baseball programs out there, especially at the lower levels. Their coaches are recruiting students rather than student/baseball players. You don't need to showcase or play travel ball or hire a recruiting service, just find out who they are and give them a call.

PG - Could you provide me with some (or point me in the right direction) information on the fall league you guys run in Pewaukee/Lannon? My son will be entering 9th grade in the fall. He and two of his travel teammates are interested in participating in the league. Also, it's only on Sunday's correct? Are there practice days? We're interested in in PG for this because 2 of the three will be playing a fall sport (one running CC and the other playing football). Can we sign up the three together? If we were able to come up with a team of our own, could we sign up as a whole team?

Wisconsin Baseball,

Email staff@perfectgame.org
or kgardner@perfectgame.org

It just dawned on me that this thread is actually about NCSA.

Most people know that I don't have a high regard for recruiting services. To be honest I don't have a high regard for showcases either. However, like everything else there are always the good, the bad and the ugly.

In our opinion, based on the feedback we recieve and knowledge of different organizations, NCSA would be considered one of the best of the recruiting services, if not THE very best.

It's just that often when an organization falls into a certain category or industry, it gets labeled based on that industry rather than by its own operation.

Just felt like clearing that up. We know some of the people at NCSA and respect them.

My experience with NCSA was similar. I don't remember how I initially contacted them, I think it was just following a web link advertisement, anyway when I got the email for a telephone interview I realized it was a sales pitch for a paid recruiting service. I let them know right away that due to our parameters for potential schools ie: within 3 hours of home, competitive D3 baseball, academically suitable etc the pool of potential schools was easily identified and we didn't need a recruiting service and I did not want to waste their time since I wasn't a potential customer. They suggested the interview anyway.
I anticipated the interview to be similar to one of those time share presentations instead we had a 45 minute conversation where the "counselor" asked my son lots of questions and made some very, very good suggestions on what we should be doing. Not ONCE did he ever try and sell NCSA's services to us. He made clear he was always available if we decided we needed his help but never pushed his service.
I was very pleased. If our situation were different and we were looking for scholarship $$$ or schools out of our vicinity I would not hesitate to utilize them.

quote:

Originally posted by trstrstrs:
TPM:

Could you reference that thread? That would be great as I'd love to read what people say about that. My son does have a change btw, but we are working on more movement on it. He does not throw it with command yet, which is what we are looking for.

t

It's in pre-high school forum, 10U pitcher curveballs.

Regarding NCSA, We were approached by them and listen to the spiel. I thought, as many do that if you can fog a mirror they will accept you and your dollars.
In the end we decided to participate and are glad we did. Our son has been making use of the service seminars, researching schools, and say what you want-they certainly are proactive with keeping in touch via email and promptly responding to any questions.

Having to plan out what he does and when is also paying dividends as it gets him practice juggling his schedule as he will have to learn that skill be fore he goes to college even if he doesnt play ball.

I am looking forward to uploading video and entering more stats this fall after he finishes his rehab from TJ surgery!

All good comments for sure. Yes, NCSA was very professional on the phone and did get my son thinking differently.

But, my son needs to make a decision on how far he wants/needs to travel for baseball/college. If he does want to travel farther, I think it may be of value for organizational reasons and research.

However, like Speedsdad son, I have a sneaky suspicion he doesn't want to go out over 4 hours from home. And, his field of study is pretty specific to certain colleges as well.

Nevertheless, he has to improve significantly to get some serious looks over the next few years. That is the bottom line after spending some time on this forum and listening to advice given here - ALL APPRECIATED =)

PG - Thanks! I'll send an email today.

Can anyone put a number to the NCSA "partnership"? I hear things like $700 to sign up, and that it will ultimately end up in the thousands.

I also heard a lot on this board, and in other materials, that it is not always necessary. We have friends whose daughter can likely play DI s****r and they are considering it. I'm trying to help them be cautious. They don't seem to have a resource like we have here.

2013:

Three levels - these are approx. $$ as I cant recall exactly - $795, $1250, and I think $2495. With each level you get more ability to change and post videos that they teach you to do.

Honestly, if I were to do this program, I would do the minimum level because their search features and ability to see what positions specific coaches are looking for is interesting. After post this thread, i realize that my son isn't at a "reruitable" level yet, so a video at this point would be over doing it.

Also, I think NCSA would benefit a kid that is willing to go anywhere to play. I am not sure my son is ready to do that yet. I am contacting coaches on my own now from the schools that have the field of study he is looking at and are withing 4 hrs from here. I have gotten about 3 responses out of the 5 coaches I emailed - they were all polite and told me what they are looking for in lefties.

I think for the most part, if my son does hit the 80's in velocity over the next two years - we/he will be able to contact coaches, send them a workout video, and some stats from a few showcases. I think we can do that all ourselves for the price of their $1250 membership level.

This board and its thoughtful comments has been really helpful.

t