We were at the NFCA Convention last week and heard from many sources that a proposal to stop Fall Recruiting was a hot topic… and judging from responses from the softball community, “hot” may not be strong enough to describe the passion this issue has invoked.
On Monday in an article titled: NFCA Convention: The Most Controversial Topic from Last Week’s Meetings in San Antonio Was…, Extra Inning Softball touched on the issue and asked those in the sport to share their opinion.
Oh yes, they did… and below you’ll read just a representative sampling of the responses—many of them not included here were quite heated!—that we’ve received over the last 48 hours.
So heated is the subject, in fact, that the idea of college coaches being prevented from going out in the Fall to look at prospective student-athletes led one top softball figure to comment:
“It’s by far the most controversial topic in many years.”
As with many an argued issue, there are a lot of questions about recruiting in the fall.
For example, we’ve had some reach out and say that one reason to stop fall recruiting would be so college coaches could hold events, such as camps, on their campuses. However, several others have stated that they wouldn’t be allowed to do their own camps, anyway.
And is it a legislative issue? Or more of a logistics one?
Further, would it be good for softball to give young travel-ball aged players more time in the fall to rest physically and maybe mentally or do other things (i.e. school sports or activities)?
Or would it reduce exposure between coach and recruit and hurt those who are looking to be seen by scouts get a fastpitch scholarship?
Again, there is no shortage of opinions regarding Fall Recruiting and we will continue to monitor how it evolves.
As always, if you would like to share your thoughts, feel free to reach out via e-mail at: brentt.eads@extrainningsoftball.com.
Brentt Eads, President & Executive Editor
Extra Inning Softball
*****
Hello, just read your article.
As both a travel ball coach and high school coach from a small rural high school in Virginia, it hurts at the high school level too when players skip out on volleyball and basketball to attend fall softball.
I know of several girls that opted to focus on softball because of feeling the need to not play another sport so they could practice, play, and/or attend camps.
My daughter was one of those. She was a multi-sport athlete playing volleyball, running cross country, basketball and softball. She is a freshman this year at Eastside High School in rural Southwest Virginia. The population of the school is less than 400 so there are limited numbers participating as it is!
I have coached and run a travel organization for the past seven years. Most recently I moved my oldest girls to the Unity organization. This move was to get them more opportunities for them that our smaller organization perhaps would not have been able to offer.
Unfortunately, club sports are hurting smaller schools and causing an exodus from playing school sports. Most recently Chilhowie High School was unable to field a girls basketball team. I do not know the reason there was not enough girls to field a team, but I feel part of that could perhaps have been due to softball!
There needs to be more guidelines and limits placed on fall recruiting… it is hurting the pockets of parents and lining the pockets of tournament directors!
We want our daughters to have opportunities and to get the chance to fulfill their dreams; however, at what expense?
Marcus Sartin, Ed.D.
Assistant Coach at Eastside High in Coeburn, Va.
*****
I have coached travel ball for several years now and I 100 percent agree with eliminating fall recruiting!
Travel softball has become such a money grab in tournament fees, organization fees, stay to play etc. that it has sucked the fun out of the game for a lot of kids and coaches.
As a coach, you feel guilty for not putting your team in so-called showcases to give the kids all the opportunities possible but also feel guilty for asking parents of the financial burden, which is a choice, I know, but some very talented athletes can’t make it work!
I’ve seen a lot of athletes that maybe can’t afford to be put on a ranking list, fly all over the country for tournaments etc… be left in the shadows or not selected over a player that they are much more talented than just because of the financial side of the game.
Tournament directors and organizations hand pick who plays where at these so-called showcases, not allowing every team/player the same equal opportunity!
Just my two cents!
Name withheld
Head Coach
Louisville, Ky.
*****
Softball is a sport that can bring a lot of joy to athletes but as a parent of a kid in the recruiting process right now. My observation is that there is no consistent logic to the recruiting process.
No two people will provide the same advice and recruiting stories are widely variant.
Do camps matter? Some will swear that they do and others will state with conviction that they are just money grabs for the college programs. Some kids are “invited” to camps. Some kids get offers at or just after a camp. Some kids never go to a camp and get offers just the same.
Do you need a recruiting service? The answer is, of course yes, if you ask a representative of any recruiting service. I have never heard a college coach say that a recruiting service was needed. I have heard some say that they are not helpful. What I do observe is that certain representatives of certain recruiting services have specific relationships with college programs that are helpful and they will get a kid recruited at the schools they have relationships with.
As a potential student-athlete, is it who you play for or is it where you play and how you play?
I observe that certain travel ball organizations and then certain coaches within those organizations are given way more credibility in the recruiting process than others. In other words, what they say about their potential student-athletes matters more than what other organizations and other coaches say. Some coaches have specific relationships with a specific set of coaches; you can see the pipeline from travel team to college programs.
A group of PSAs (prospect student-athletes) at a tournament can play great and be ignored if they are not on a team that has the ears of the coaches. So, who you play for is important. This creates perverse incentives. The “top” teams recruit the best players from teams that don’t have the coaches’ ears and parents and players jump to those top teams because we all observe the same thing: who you are playing for is important. This means the talent developers at the younger ages don’t keep their talent. There are some exceptions, of course, and I am blessed to know a few.
So, what are coaches looking at and looking for when they are actively recruiting? Or, are they just talking to the people they trust and using what they see to confirm their own already formed positive or negative bias?
It’s already a relatively small amount of time that active recruiting is allowed. Eliminating the fall recruiting season would seem to favor the bigger programs with more money who are more able to spread out their assistants in what would be an even shorter recruiting window AND it would drive up the incentive to go to camps at even more expense to parents whilst the cost of playing softball remains constant – which is constantly high for kids who are trying to get colleges to notice them.
So, if the fall recruiting season is eliminated, then I suggest the following:
- Move Sept. 1 to June 15 so coaches can talk to PSAs when they are recruiting and so these same athletes know something about where they stand before their junior year of high school starts. I suggest this ought to be the case regardless of whether Fall recruiting is eliminated or not. Div II starts June 15. Why is Div. 1 waiting for September 1?
- Increase official visits for high school juniors. If college coaches want more time at home and less time on the recruiting trail and if they want more juniors to come to camps as opposed to watching them play, then pay for the visit–at least then we know we are spending our time and money on something more than a hope.
- Finally, if falls gets eliminated, can we eliminate the pure showcase format for good? Specifically, I mean the 5, 6, or 7 GG showcase without any bracket play or games that mean something if you win.
The format incentivize selfish play and herd mentality. By that I mean, as a parent, should I chase that team that get my daughter into the “Top 25” showcase event? Will the super pool be good enough? Or is it just the regular A pool in the showcase (which will charge the same premium to attend)? Chase the Herd!
Bracket play at least gives teams an opportunity to win and to rise and to thus be noticed. The question is, how does team success happen? For many teams trying to get the attention of the coaches, it means recruiting the best talent from other teams in order to win and thus qualify for the premium fields at showcases.
Just one parent’s view…
Aaron Taliaferro
Parent of a current prospective recruit
*****
The travel community is pissed that coaches feel that way.
Many said they would tell their players to only attend college campus camps/clinics for one or two weeks in the summer and a few in the winter.
It’s by far the most controversial topic in many years. It reeks of Power 5 dominance.
Name withheld
Event producer
