We continue to build towards Sunday, Sept. 1 which will be a significant day for high school junior softball players hoping to find out where they stand in the eyes of college coaches.
Here’s another viewpoint on this big day when committed players hope to solidify their status and those still looking for the right school learn where they actually stand in the process.
Check out our previous article “What I Think Will Happen With Early Recruiting on September 1” by clicking HERE.
To all players, parents and coaches: please email us on Sept. 1 and beyond when you find your “dream school” and commit so we can add/confirm the info in the Extra Inning Softball Signing/Verbal Database which is updated regularly. Email us at: [email protected].
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Little Suzie just started her junior year of high school and is a promising softball player who’s done everything “right:” plays for a good travel ball team, goes to camps as she can afford and takes personal lessons to improve her skills.
As August wraps up and melts into September, her softball support system knows that the next few hours, days and weeks will be critical in establishing her options for playing college softball.
She anxiously waits for her phone to ring as the clock approaches midnight on September 1st. The talented athlete checks her phone repeatedly to make sure it’s on.
The first day of September is only minutes away. Tick, tock, tick, tock… finally, it’s midnight—let the recruiting madness begin!
But Suzie’s phone doesn’t ring. She continues to hope, even pray for a call, but the call never comes. At this point, she’d be happy with a text, maybe even an e-mail. Instead, she eventually forces herself to sleep, questioning her future more than she ever has before.
Midnight on September 1st represents the first opportunity college softball coaches can contact high school juniors—which at this point is the Class of 2021—outside of a college camp setting.
September 1st is long-awaited day by college coaches who scramble to speak with their 2021 commits who they haven’t spoken to since the recruiting rules changed in April of 2018.
This is the day they gauge the current interest of their top commits.
Do they still have a deal? Are the kids as excited as they were when they committed? Does anything feel off? Can they schedule an official visit?
The biggest fear for a college coach must be to have some other coach swoop in and steal their once-committed athletes.
And the questions are there for the recruits as well.