Latest / Chasing Baseball Dreams / Episode #17 College Baseball Recruiting: What Coaches See vs. What Parents Live
Transcript
- Bobby Minor: welcome to Chasing Baseball Dreams. So this is something new that I'm doing. Every week I'm gonna start doing a solo episode. I'm gonna keep doing my featured interviewed podcast that I've been doing, but I'm also gonna do I'm gonna do a solo episode where I'm just gonna talk about something from my journey throughout baseball that hopefully is gonna speak to the baseball parents out there and help them. And and what I'm gonna talk about in this episode is something that I don't think a lot of people think about. So I know once you get into once you get into high school and you're choosing a travel ball team, one of the big things that's a deciding factor is so what's your success rate in sending players on to play at the collegiate level? Okay, that's like you know a a big thing that a lot of orgs are going to talk about. Like we had, you know, 100% of our graduating seniors this year are going to play baseball at the next level, whatever that may look like. And The and I've been on both sides of it. I mean I've coached a lot of players that I've helped with the recruiting process, and there's a lot of value in that. But what I want to talk about in this episode is it's different when you go through it as a parent. It's it's different. And because like a coach usually sees the recruiting process as a baseball decision. Okay? A parent has to live with everything attached to that decision. So like a coach might be thinking. Does this level fit the player? Does this team fit the player? Does this program fit the player? Does the coach like him? Is there an opportunity to play, a roster spot? But a parent is also thinking, is this school actually right for my son? Can we afford it? Because newsflash for a majority of players out there, if you're getting a 25% offer, that's probably a good offer, okay? now if you go the junior college route like my son did, you're gonna give yourself a much greater chance of getting 100%. But but you know, finances, like how far is it from home? I saw something online that said like 90% of players end up choosing a school within three hours of home. what happens if the coach leaves? That actually happened to my son this year. He so he's he he was a redshirt sophomore, so his his freshman year he redshirted. So he didn't lose any athletic eligibility, but he he he's gone the JUCO route for his first three years. And he transferred to a Division II school out in West Texas this year, two weeks before school starts, they get a message in their group text with the team from the coaches saying that the head coach and his assistant were both leaving to go to a school in Georgia. And so, like as a as a dad, like we I'm like, I don't even know what to say about that, like because We don't know what's gonna happen. we don't know, you know, how long is it gonna take for them to hire a coach, what's gonna happen once that coach comes in. And it turned out that they actually hired a new coach pretty quickly, really good guy, tons of high level JUCO experience, he was a really good coach, but but there's that kind of uncertainty, like what happens if the coach leaves? what happens if my son gets hurt? What happens if he doesn't play? Will he be happy there? Is he choosing it because he wants it or because Just somebody finally offered him something. So there's a whole a whole nother level of thoughts and decisions that go into it from the parent side. You know, that like a coach, you know, a coach is involved to me just in in a fraction of the entire process. But, you know, just some of the things that to me that are really, really different, is like the emotion is completely different. And I know coaches, I know a lot of coaches they care about their players and things like that. But you know, when you're when you're helping somebody else's player that's not your son, you can usually look at this at the situation pretty objectively. When it's your own son, every phone call, every text, every offer, every rejection, every silence, and change in interest hits differently. Because you want to be there for your son, you want to support your son, you want You want the best for your son, and it's just it's just different. you know, when you're a parent, you feel, you feel the waiting. Like a coach can tell a player, you know, be patient, keep working. The parent is sitting in the house with the kid who goes another week and nobody calls. And again, your heart's breaking for your son. You see the frustration, you see him checking his phone. You in s experience the uncertainty with him. You see his buddies, his teammates posting on social media that they got another offer. And you're wondering, like, what's wrong with my son? Like, why why isn't the phone ringing? Why isn't he getting these text messages? Why doesn't he have have any offers? And it's just it's just it's just different. as a parent, you see the financial side up close. Recruiting isn't just can he play here? A family may be comparing scholarship money, tuition. housing, travel, books, and what they're actually gonna owe. Because again, again, there's a really good chance that with all the money that he gets through you know academic aid, athletic aid, all those things like that, there's still going to be something left that you're gonna have to pay out of pocket. And you know as as a parent, like you're evaluating this baseball fit and and Like carrying the consequence of the financial decision where where a coach he can just help just help evaluate the baseball side. But as a parent, you're evaluating the baseball side and the financial side. Another thing that's different from a parent's point of view and a coach's point of view is you have to separate opportunity from excitement. Okay. When a school shows interest in your son, it's easy to get excited because somebody wants him. And when my son was in high school, Julian, like I remember like, you know, especially junior year, you know, when when school started expressing interest and he started getting getting some offers and like I'm like, you know, dude, like you might want to consider this. You might want to take advantage of this offer. It's a good program and everything. And, you know, I was just kind of getting caught up in the excitement of it because I mean think about like, you know, Julian started playing when he was six and this is this is something that we had been working towards. I mean, for more than a decade. And so, you know, I had to learn to kind of just sit back and separate my excitement as a dad and be somebody there that can still be a resource and help help him walk through it more objectively if possible. and again, like as a coach, it's easy to say, Hey, hey, let's like let's slow down, let's evaluate the situation. As a parent, you're the one who has to actually do that while your son might already be picturing himself in that uniform, you know, and so it there's a lot more that has to be done as a parent. Also as a parent, you start looking harder at roster math. Okay? It's it's one thing to say a program likes a kid. It's another to ask who's already at his position, who's coming in with him, how many players they carry, who's returning, and what his realistic path to the field might be. You know, that's that's again As a dad, I did that with my son Julian. Like we there's a school that he was interested in. I think it was Long Beach State, and this might have been sophomore year. And one of the things that we did was like we went to the perfect game website and you can pull up how many commitments a school has by graduation year and by position. And we saw that they had already they already had, I wanna say like seven players committed, and obviously verbal commitments, but seven players committed to Long Beach State at shortstop for his grad year. And I'm like, okay, dude. If you're gonna be number eight, what do you think is gonna happen? They're not going to, you know, everybody's not everybody's not gonna get signed. You know, they're probably gonna wait and see what happens, and maybe two might get signed, but the other six are gonna be left scrambling. I think another thing that makes it different as a parent is, you know, you learn that that an offer, that's not the finish line. that's really to me the starting line. Because parents can spend years simply thinking that the goal is to get an offer, okay? But that's that's that is I again like to me that's really the starting point once you start getting the offers. Because like once you're actually in it, you realize that that the decision after the offer might be more important than getting the offer. and so that's another thing that that you have to think about. Whereas I feel like as a coach, you know, we're trying to put our players in a position to get offers. And I mean we we want them to sign, but that you know, I think for a coach that can be more the finish line, but for a family, for a parent, that's really the starting line. and then again, as a parent, you have to let your son sit with his own decision. as a coach, like you're advising a player. That's all that you really can do. As a parent, there's a temptation, and I know this firsthand, to to steer the decision. Because you know baseball and you want to protect your son. But he's the one that has to wake up there, go to class there, practice there, and he's the one that's gonna have to live with the decision ultimately. And I think that's one of the hardest things as a parent because I you see it. I feel like parents, we we, you know, I'm gonna say, you know, can baby players be overprotective. We want to shield them from any sort of adversity. And I mean ultimately we're gonna have to let our son own that decision. I e even even this year, you know, my son Julian made the decision to go to Sol Ross State, which is a division two school out in Alpine, Texas. I had a c I there's another school that made him a pretty good offer that was closer to home, that was an NAIA school, but a top fifty NAI program. And I was really trying to steer him there selfishly. I wanted I thought it was a good program, but also wanted him to be closer to home. But Ultimately it was his decision to make and I'm gonna have to let him own that decision. And I I think it's working out. I mean he's really happy there and likes the new coach and everything. Also as a as a parent, like you see what recruiting does to the parent the parent son relationship. You know, every conversation can become baseball related as a dad. Like, you know, did that coach text you? Did you email him? did you feel this out? What did he say? Have you heard anything? A coach doesn't have to manage the relationship at home. A parent does. And that's a very, very real thing. And it's you know, I mean The anxiety of it all is very, very real. And again, that's where a coach, coach doesn't have to live with that at home. But a parent does. And then As a parent, like you also you understand how difficult it is to know what a coach coach really means. there's a lot of you know, just there's just a lot of things like you know, coaches will say, college coaches will say, like, you know, we really like him. he's he's high on our board. We want to keep watching him. And those statements can mean very different things depending on the program and where they are in the process. And they can all be absolutely true. But they can all also be true and not mean anything. Like a school can have interest in your son, but it's not gonna go anywhere. And we went through that a lot, especially probably sophomore to junior year and even junior year going into senior year, where you know, some pretty big name schools expressed interest. They said they really liked Julian, but it never it never it never went anywhere. And it again, it's very difficult because then when you start getting real interest from schools that really want him, it can be difficult sometimes to to move on and like sever yourself from these other schools that have a bigger name, bigger program that you think might be interested, but you don't know. And that can definitely definitely be something that you have to deal with as a parent. And then I would also say this way more than a coach will ever experience as a parent Like you experience the fear of making the wrong choice. Because again, as a parent, you're the one that's gonna have to live with it. Like a coach can recommend a school and then move on to helping the next player. A parent might spend months wondering whether they helped their son choose the right place. And that's a very, very real thing. Like I, man, I mean, like I think most parents, you want to do right by your son. You want, you know, if if he loves baseball, he's putting in the work, you want to see him play as long as he can. And you want to do right by your son. But I think we have, you know, unconscious biases and different things that all that factor into to the advice that we're giving our sons. And I mean sometimes we're fully aware of it, sometimes we're not. But you know, when it gets down to making a decision, like there is a very real fear of is this the right choice? Is this the best fit? What if this happens? A lot of things that are that are already talked about. And I think one of the biggest things that I could say about this is just makes the recruiting process different as a coach helping a player and as a parent, as a coach, you can know recruiting. As a parent, you learn what it will you learn what recruiting costs emotionally. And that's a big thing. And that that doesn't make the coach's experience less valuable. It just means that that the parents chair. It gives you a different view of the same process. And like I knew recruiting before my son went through it. I didn't understand what it felt like to be responsible for the decision. And that is a big, big thing. Like, you know, there's a lot of great coaches out there, a lot of great coaches that help their players with the recruiting process, but it's until you go through it as a parent and you experience it with your son, it's different. And so And what I'm not saying, I'm not saying that coaches don't understand the recruiting process unless they've had a son that's recruited. But what I will say is as a coach and a parent, going through it as a parent showed me parts of the process that I had never experienced from the coaching side. Things that I never thought about. And so, you know, when you're out there, if you have a son that's going through the recruiting process, there's there's a lot of wisdom. that can be gained by you know trusting your coaches and and choosing you know choosing a program based on the coaches and the success of of recruiting. Now I'm gonna tell you this and this is where if I wasn't who I was, I didn't have the experience that I had now, but I I had this bit of wisdom, I would I would much rather seek out the wisdom of a parent that's been through the process than a coach who has never had a son go through the process. And here's why. Like my son Julian, Julian played for some for some great for some great travel ball teams. Lots, I mean, you know, lots of D1 prospects, players that have been drafted since then and everything. I don't think playing for any of those teams helped him in the recruiting process at all. Now when he when he when he committed, they absolutely put it on their website. But I don't think that they helped at all. And if you've never heard me tell the story, the way Julian actually, Julian, the way Julian actually got recruited was he had some offers from some schools, was actually considering, strongly considering, a couple of the offers. And it was in May of his junior year of high school. They had just finished their baseball season. It was after school. Him and his brother were working out at a local gym here in Fort Worth. He had on his Pascal baseball t-shirt. The recruiting coordinator from another school that he had not talked to yet happened to be working out at that gym, happened to know who Julian was, saw his his Pascal t-shirt on, which is Pascal's the high school that he played that he went to here in Fort Worth, and went up and talked to him and said, Hey man, like we we love who you are as a player. We'd love to have you come and do a private workout. And so we scheduled a private workout. The following week, let him skip school and and we went went to this school, he did a private workout for the head coach and the recruiting coordinator. They gave us a tour of the school, we went into his office and they offered him a hundred a hundred percent on the spot. That's how he got recruited. It wasn't because of, you know, any of the travel ball coaches that he played for, all great guys, a lot of great coaches, but they just didn't help him in the recruiting process. It was really Him being in the right place at the right time and the guidance and direction of his dad, me. And so that's all that I'm saying. So I just wanted to share that. I hope that you have gotten something from it. If you have any questions at all, please leave them in the comments. I respond to every every comment that I get, every DM that I get. I am I am there to answer. And so there you go. I hope that you enjoyed it. I'm going to start doing something like this every week. So this is my very first solo episode of my chasing baseball dreams podcast. I will see ya next time.