What is Best Way to Link College Coaches to Players Info??

Sons' engagements with college coaches began with very succinct email introductions by our sons.  These were to schools/coaches from sons' target lists.

Some schools replied, some didn't. Those that replied typically asked sons to complete their online profile, I.e., the school's website prospect questionnaire.

Early in the process, we weren't deterred by non responses.

Sons also sent via US Mail a hard copy profile (one page) of personal, academic, and athletic info.  This was very concise summary information.  Some schools/coaches prefer hard copy vs. online info.  So those schools could open a hard copy file if they choose to.

Sons never used be recruited or NCSA web sites.  Sons sent video links much later in the process.

1) Establish your own web site. It really isn't that hard to do, and the cost is ridiculously low. Cost me $12 for the domain and a DIY web site builder from GoDaddy.

2) Link as much as you can, e.g., create a page for videos (and link it to YouTube). Link back to PG, to whatever.

3) Install Google Analytics (again, very easy), so that you can see who is visiting your web site (you can track it from city/state, so if you have a site visitor from Ann Arbor, MI, you've got a pretty damn good idea which school visited your web site).

4) THEN when you send emails, use a 3rd party email system that allows you to track who opened your emails, and who clicked through to your web site.

PM me and I'll show you joemktgson's web site so that you can get an idea.

We put together a video...shot at our local HS field in about an hour.  Sent it to 30+ D1& D2 schools...and to our surprise had 5 "real" responses in 12 hours.  We've gotten a response from over 50% with several asking for spring/summer schedules.  No cost....and about 2 hours total time in it.  My son was told today that D1 coaches don't use "recruiting services"...and the coach mentioned BeRecruited and Field Level by name. He said those types of sites post stats provided by the player/parent and they don't consider them reliable.  Told the kids that sites like PBR that actually post info/stats that they've obtained themselves at their own events  are much better.

My son got some good responses by just emailing coaches and embedding the link to his video.  We also included histravel  coach's contact info and he heard through his travel coach about college coaches who had potential interest after seeing his video.  Same coaches came to see him pitch in the summer after we sent out his schedule.  Low cost, personal touch fortunately worked for us.  We didn't need to invest big $ into others to help.

Being proactive is great! Love seeing people post that they went out and created profiles on their own and emailed a list of schools. Each school handles recruiting quite differently, but sometimes the coach will open that email and take a peak.. and that opportunity can possibly open that door. 

I have talked with many D1, D2, D3, NAIA, and JC coaches about how they go about the recruiting process, and the majority reply "networking" as being one of the big ways they find players. Each coach has others they reach out to is specific areas to see if any potential student athletes should be in their sights. Many recruiting sites (I shall leave nameless) charge too much money for the higher packages, and rely on an email system to get the word out. Essentially you pay for emails to get sent to coaches spam folders. 

This is a strong reason why my company expanded from the educational side of things and connecting with pro athletes, to building a 'baseball resume' so players can be seen by college coaches across the country. Our system essentially allows for players to make their profiles with academics, community service, summer team info, etc, and videos so that coaches can freely see players based on their need. The people involved in our site are college coaches and pro players that use direct networking to forward on players. Plus, many of our members can contact coaches and tell them how to easily access a players profile themselves. 

Anyway, there is no exact science to the way everyone gets seen. Really, being proactive as a student athlete, as a parent, taking care of academics, and being a good person really can go a long way. The baseball world is pretty small, and word can get out quite quick as long as an effort is being made. 

Thanks.  Great feedback by everyone.

Buckeye 2015.....nice feedback above as I was curious if the very short video/review from PBR, PG, etc... is sufficient/less biased to get the ball rolling with a targeted e-mail, although I am not clear which showcase organizations provide free access to all the videos without payment by the coaches.  It appears that PG and Baseball Factory do, but not sure about PBR?

PBR is free to coaches

Echoing the main point.  Be pro-active.  If you're a total stud and throwing 90mph as a sophomore they'll find you.  For the other 99.9% of the players, work to make yourself known.

Fill out their web questionnaires completely.  They do care about academics and why you're interested in their school in particular.

Have videos of your skills on the web for them to review.

Go to their summer camps if you're serious about attending that school.  They cost money and take time but you're guaranteed to get looked at.  It's hard for college coaches to catch one of your summer ball performances.  It will also give you a chance to see the facilities.

Use your high school coach to help make contact.  He won't lie for you or make up a story about how great you are, but if he thinks you'd fit at a particular school he should be able to help make contact.

My son went through the PBR fall program and showcases and it worked out wonderfully for us.  Your mileage may vary.

Cal

Buckeye 2015 - I've used FieldLevel as a coach for my kids and have had tremendous success. I currently have 513 college coaches in my network and get requests from D1 coaches all the time through the site.. And I post information about my players. FieldLevel is setup so that players can't post info about themselves

Most importantly, colleges just want to receive player recommendations from people they trust. It comes down to relationships. I've had success using FieldLevel because I have a great network of coaches and it allows me to recommend my kids.

Find a coach you trust and tap into his relationships to help you find the right fit

www.recruitmenow.org is a low cost website and has a national database of coaches and you can send up to 20 emails with one template to schools of interest. They have form letters, or you can create your own and every email has your son's page link attached.

You can also build a profile with awards, stats, profile bio and add videos for those coaches to watch. If the school or a coach clicks your link as a result of your email, and visits your page they are logged via their IP address and you can see how many times they visit and how many pages they view. Great tool at a bargain price of $49 annually and it will augment what you do independently to land your kid a scholarship. I would gladly pay the $49 just for the coaches database/emails and bulk email functions.

By the way, they won't try to "sell" you scouting services etc. I used this after talking with several friends and it was helpful in getting my son a D1 offer that he accepted. If there is one thing i learned form this process is to be patient and work you tail off for you son because no one else will. It just so happens the school who looked at his profile the most via this service is the one that landed him. Good luck!

I was able to set up a website for my 2016 that doesn't cost a penny and is great.  It looks professional, is easy to edit, and I was able to add code onto it so that I can see when and from where it gets accessed.  I can embed links into it (i.e. newspaper articles, youtube videos, upload photos, transcripts) and I can password protect certain areas (transcript page) if I don't want it available to everyone.  This is how I did it.

Webpage: www.wordpress.com this is a site that has a lot of free templates.  Some you have to pay for but the free ones are just as good.  I have different pages on the site and you can add and title them as you wish, Bio, Transcripts, Stats, Schedule, etc so whatever you want to put, just add another page. (When its free it has to include wordpress.com in the name, so it would be www.yoursonsname.wordpress.com.)  Once you get it setup, can even experiment with different templates to see which one you like the best.  Also, if you need help, just google for it.  There are tons of wordpress help articles out there.

Website analytics: Google analytics doesn't work on the free wordpress site so I found statcounter.com.  I setup my account and listed my site as my "project".  I was able to insert code into a widget on my website (I didn't know a thing about websites until I started this, but you quickly learn, plus statcounter support will give you step b step instructions for adding this to wordpress) and now, I check the stat counter site and if I see that my son's site has been accessed, I go to the "page load activity" area and it tells me location (sometimes I just get the city but alot of times I actually see the name of the school, it tells me what  pages were accessed and at what time.

Just my 2 cents!

Reaching the scouting and recruiting people...

Find a site that provides web traffic statistics.

Check all the websites you want information about.

Take into account specialization, keep in mind some recruiting websites cover many sports and baseball doesn't account for much of their traffic.  So then compare the traffic statistics for the organizations that specialize in amateur baseball.

BTW, our entire existence revolves around finding and identifying next level players.  We do not follow any of the recruiting services to find players.  However, some of the most well known Recruiting Services have tried very hard to partner with us. TIFWIW

Just curious... Has anyone out there ever heard a top DI coach claim he uses recruiting services?  

There are a few new recruiting businesses out there that might be valuable.  They operate much different than a typical recruiting service.  They simply work with the player and parents providing important information and advice that can help the player navigate through the process.  They also give advise regarding expectations at the next level.

Most important... It's about talent.  If the talent is there, it is about academics and makeup.  What difference does it make how many college emails you have if you can't play at any of them. Bottom line... They need to see you play.  If they like you, you will not have to do anything else. For obvious reasons it is best when several of them like you.

So all the other stuff is fine if someone wants to do it.  However, in the end it all depends on someone seeing and recognizing the players ability. Video is helpful, but just not enough in most cases.

Great insight PGStaff.

I can tell you this, your son may have the talent to play D1 ball and not have the "projectible" measureables. He may not be on "The" premier showcase team, but be very good. In those cases,  i beleive having access to emails, sending video and have a repository for that communication is worthy. I may be talking about Outliers here and i know PGStaff covered the "realism" of the expectations and requirement of talent but plenty of kid are outliers just look at the PG 2015 uncommitted list. 

It absolutely doesnt hurt when your kid hits 93-94 to irradicate the necessity for all of the above as PG mentioned.