Advice on Baseball Recruiting

Email recruiting questions to: recruiting@hsbaseballreport.com

Start the process early!

The sooner you start the recruiting process the better. Once you have decided that you are interested in playing collegiate sports, start to research various colleges. Some important factors include the size of the student body, location (urban/rural), size of individual classes, courses offered, distance, accessible airports, and financial aid if applicable. Ask yourself - At the end of the day, if you are not playing a sport at the school could you still be happy there?

Get organized

Create a list for all the colleges that are of any interest to you. Include the name of the college, coach's name, coach's email, mascot, and a reason you like the school.

College: University One
Coach: Coach Johnson
Coach Email: CoachJohnson@university.com
Mascot Cougars
Why you like the School: I like the school because...

This organization allows you to have the information from all the schools that interest you in one place. It will also allow you to quickly personalize e-mails to coaches by saying things like, "I am interested in your school because of the Political Science program you have" or signing the letter with "Go (insert mascot here)". If certain schools do not express any interest back or you decide they are not right for you, then you can simply take them off the list.

Summer Baseball

Are you competing on a competitive summer league baseball team? While it is not absolutely necessary, many scouts spend time at competitive baseball tournaments. Not only do college coaches like this experience, summer baseball leagues provide great repetition as you get to play a ton of baseball.

Start contacting coaches Your browser may not support display of this image. Once you have established your list, email each coach. There are many guidelines coaches must adhere to, but, REMEMBER that an athlete can contact a college coach at anytime. This first email should contain information including: - Who you are (name, height, weight, age, graduating class), - Where you go to school (school, city, state), -Individual baseball stats and honors, -Why that specific school interests you. Also, you can ask them to send you any information on their program and academics

Stay in contact Staying in contact with coaches is one of the most important elements in the recruiting process. Coaches will not always email you right back. Often, we hear of athletes who ask the coach if there is a good time the athlete can call the coach. Keep emailing the college coaches updates concerning your athletic and academic career. A good website that is FREE and allows you to upload athletic videos, statistics, schedules and pictures is www.sportsjungle.com. Before attending camps and showcases, it is always a good idea to create a profile and email your personal information, stats and videos to a coach ahead of time. If you can include a 3-5 skills video, this gives the coach the ability to evaluate your skills and look for at the events. Be sure to include your team name and your number.

For athletes who are further along in the recruiting process, you can always find a reason to follow up with a coach. Some sample questions include:

• How is the recruiting process going?
• Congratulations on the (insert example)...
• Coach, I wanted to quickly keep you posted on my progress...

Do your homework, Prepare questions and Ask them...

It's always a good idea to prepare a list of questions you want to ask coaches. I know it can be a little nerve-racking, but it is worth it. In the beginning, some questions could be:

• Coach, I understand your catcher is graduating next year. As you begin recruiting your next catcher, what do you look for?
• Can you talk to me about your student-athlete graduation rate?

As you advance in the recruiting process, a few sample questions include:

• Where do I stand on your depth chart?
• When will you make a final decision regarding roster spots for the season?

Visit Colleges

There are two types of visits: Official and Unofficial.

Athletes are allowed five Official visits in their senior season. The official visit means the school will pay for your travel where you are allowed to stay overnight for one night. They are allowed to pay for your ticket into a school sponsored athletic event and will pay for three meals while you are on the campus. If you are offered an official visit, the school is usually very interested you.

An unofficial visit means you and your parents will travel and visit a school and pay the expenses yourselves. This is a great opportunity for you to show a coach your commitment to the perspective school. Many times athletes and parents will call ahead to the coach and let them know of their travel plans. Coaches often will personally walk you around the campus or locker room if they have time.

Make your grades

Not every school will offer athletic scholarships. In fact, most baseball players receive some combination of athletic and academic scholarships. At Ivy League and Division III programs, the scholarships are based on financial need and your academic history. One of the reasons it is important to start the recruiting process early is that it gives you more time to decide what school is best for you. If you come to this decision early enough, then you can think about applying to the college early decision or early action. Most coaches/schools can give you an idea if you would get in early decision or early action by looking at your transcript and athletic capabilities

Baseball Scholarships

• The NCAA regulates how many scholarships each Division is allowed to provide.
     Division I: 11.78
     Division II: 9
     Division III: Academic
     Ivy League: Financial need
     NAIA: 12
  
  
• How do coaches offer scholarships?
  Let's use a Division II school for example. The coach has 9 athletic scholarships per team and thus will spread them out over 4 years. By dividing 4 years into 9 scholarships, the coach will have approximately 2.25 scholarships to award athletes per year. If the University cost $20,000 to attend for the year, the coach would have $45,000 to offer the incoming class ($20,000 x 2.25).
  
  Next, let's consider that a coach will need to recruit anywhere from 3-8 athletes per incoming class. You can quickly see that there is not a ton of athletic scholarship money available.
  
  
• How are your grades?
  Yes, it is true that athletes who make good grades and have above average SAT/ACT scores can earn academic scholarships. This is very common in baseball recruiting. Hypothetically, let's say the Division II coach needs 5 players for the incoming class and has $45,000 to offer in athletic money.
  
  Furthermore , this coach has narrowed his search to 2 catchers with very similar physical attributes. However, athlete 1 has a 2.6 GPA while athlete 2 maintains a 3.8 GPA and is eligible for $7,000 per year in academic money. The coach can offer the second athlete $8,000 in athletic and $7,000 in academic scholarships for a 75 percent scholarship.

Email recruiting questions to: recruiting@hsbaseballreport.com

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