College Exposure !!!

[PEPPERS]

DD college team had 4 walk-on players and coach kept one who was a pitcher,DD advised the walk-on has good stuff and she just played HS and local ball and never was seen much out side of her local area. DD belives this pitchers is going to be one of the top pitches on the team and make some good contributions.

 

[starsnuffer]

If you have a talented squad, it's very likely that a "big organization" will take your squad under their wing, so you can wear their jerseys, get the "big name" exposure and entry into the showcases. Relationships are everything in this sport, use your relationship capital built up over the years and pull some strings.

-W

 

[GOINGDEEP]

I think you may be going about the showcases wrong. If your team is new/unknown ( however you want to classify it ) I'd be looking at more local expo showcases in the small to medium range of colleges attending. I've found out this year with DD you don't have to go play at the top 5 national expos to get good offers. If that's your "thing" or you feel you are in that 1% who can play AND keep your grades up at one of the top 10 softball program schools, by all means go for it. If you live in Kentucky and want to play in Cali, Texas, Washington, New York,....................your probably going to need to hit the larger expos.

The smaller state expos have tons ( 25-100 ) colleges of all sizes ( Juco, NAIA to D1 ) in attendance. They are looking for players!! Even at 25 colleges looking to fill 3 slots that's 75 girls who can possibly get offers, and good ones at that, if you have the grades to stack scholarships.

If you as a coach are trying to help your kids get a paid ( or mostly paid for ) college education, you don't have to travel 500 miles away to reach that goal. There should be plenty of colleges in your own back yard who need to fill rosters. Will you see these schools playing the championship game of the WCWS, probably not. Just like you probably won't see your son playing in MLB.

What it boils down to is the education. Matching the offer of a scholarship to the college that best suits YOUR needs. Maybe it's the degree you're looking at, maybe you want to live at home and go to college, maybe you want to get as far away from home as you can, maybe your family can't afford the expenses involved past the paid tuition, maybe you don't want to repay student loans until you're 30, the list goes on for miles.

Look, we live in a little po dunk town of 5000 total residents. So far in the last year ( just from HS ball and small to medium state expos ) I've had 2 commit to D1's ( big east and sec ) one signs in Nov the other is a junior, one got a full ride to NAIA playing this year, 2 others signed NAIA a couple weeks ago, 2 others committed to Juco and sign in January, several others are filtering through offers and are undecided at the moment. Long story short, not all my girls WANT to play softball in college, some just want a normal college experience. But so far everyone who DOES want to play at SOME college level is getting that opportunity.

Like most have said SIGN UP EARLY, our big state expo ( 100 colleges ) is in July of 2013, registration starts next month. Get your name on those lists of expos ASAP.

Good luck, it's not as hard as you might think. I learned a lot this year.

 

[Greenmonsters]

I think GD is on track for the majority of girls that want to play in college. Realistically, for most that doesn't include top DIs. If the players take the initiative to make their interest known to specific colleges and the team plays in tournaments in the region where those colleges are located, most girls will get seen by the coaches they contacted and will find a home that is mutually rewarding. No need to travel to CO, CA, or FL if your schools of interest are local, in the upper mid-west, TN, New England etc.

A showcase TB team needs to make clear who their target audience is and focus on getting exposure to those schools. This often can be successfully accomplished without a national tournament and travel schedule.

 

[joemcq51]

I am by no means a college exposure expert. So lets look at what you are trying to accomplish. Do you have a team of D1 talent that can compete with the best teams in the country? If you have to think about it, you probably don't. With that said, you should build your exposure schedule accordingly. Why would you spend tens of thousands of dollars to travel to Colorado or California or even Florida, if your girls are going to be on secondary fields against weaker competition? You should look to find the best exposure tournaments in the area where a majority of your girls are interested in going to school. You will find that these tournaments don't fill up nearly as fast. So what if Alabama isn't going to be there. There are probably 20 schools in your state that have softball that wii be there. If you find your team is starting to get a lot of attention, you could try and get into one of the bigger showcases in a year or two. I have a feeling that a team that breaks the top 10 in ASA Nationals, will have some doors opened that other teams don't. If you never get to that level, you just ask around. Play the best exposure tournaments that you can drive to and get in. I would rather play 3 or 4 exposure's in front of my state schools that are actually interested in my kids, than 1 huge one acroos country that I have no shot of getting my kids recruited at. If you do have a kid that is good enough to get signed in an event like that, she will get plenty of offers locally. JMHO

 

[CarolinaGirl11]

If you consider joining a "big organization", make sure the organization has the best interest of ALL the teams in the organization at heart. In some cases, you get to wear the team logo, but only those girls on the "A" team are marketed by the individual(s) within the organization with college coach connections (and this is critical!). I've seen it go both ways. If the big organization does not have the best interest of ALL the teams in the organization at heart, even if you get into the more "local" exposure events, you will be playing weaker competition on secondary fields....where very few college coaches will be in attendance.

 

[Perfect Circle]

I still say, don't count on anyone doing it for you...make a great skills video, and send it (youtube link)to all the coaches a week before all the events. Send it to all D123 coaches. Then see who you hear from, then plan on being at the tryout, and walk-on. At least have this plan in your mind. Thats the way you got on that team, don't count on them carry you.

 

[glf0845]

Have your recruiting liaison call the college coaches on the players lists and recommend them. Invite them personally to tourneys, showcases, friendlies and even practices. If you don't have a liaison do it yourself until you get one. It is about relationships. We had a rule on my DD's team that if you didn't do your emails then you did not play that weekend. All correspondences had to be cc'd to the coaches and liaison.

 

[justwannaplay]

Thanks for all the replies. We are located in the North East. I have encouraged all my girls to make skills videos .
I will consider the local tournamens. The girls give me a list of schools they are interested in and I research showcases with colleges attending .I also have profile sheets I carry with me for coaches. It's just frustrating when you can't just call up and say I have two position players what's you looking for etc... The high profile teams have this connection ....

Thanks again to all the responses....

JWP

 

[InsidePitch]

NE as in New England? If you are, check out the RI Thunder tourney, New England's Finest. They have a lot of schools represented.

Also look into the Riseball camps held in NJ. DD went to one this year and if the coaches working the camp weren't enough, there were at least 20 other coaches hanging around to check out players that had contacted them about being at the camp. Plus it's a good camp and no I don't work for them.