NCAA LaCrosse model for Softball

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Dec 12, 2012
1,668
0
On the bucket
Stop right there. No NCAA school can offer a player a scholarship as an 8th grader. There can be a lot of talk and BS, but until an NLI is available, no scholarship is available to that player and that cannot be done until their junior year. A coach or school rep stating or insinuating a player will receive a scholarship prior to that is like a politician promising something s/he hasn't the authority to provide

Yet it happens almost every day.
 

marriard

Not lost - just no idea where I am
Oct 2, 2011
4,312
113
Florida
The statement in bold is really the only thing I do not get about early recruiting. If I were a coach I don't think I would be able to verbal a kid that is so far away from the product that I would be receiving. I guess I do not get how someone can project a child of that age with any type of accuracy. I am not sure if they are looking at how they compare to their piers or not but early bloomers seem to be the ones that get the verbals for the top schools at a very young age compared to the late bloomers, so I have to think of it that way. I don't think that I have ever seen a 8th grader or 9th for that matter good enough to walk onto a Top 10 college team and be able to play right away. I just hate that something out of the kids control of when they go/finish puberty may stop them from missing out on playing for their dream school.

So look at it from the coaches view point... forget the WCWS teams and similar. They can do what they want and people will overlook their actions no matter because of who they are.

As a coach there is a limited pool of talent and I have a limited amount of $$$. My coaching peers are taking players from this pool earlier and earlier. If I wait, then I feel I am risk of this talent being gone, so I feel forced to do what everyone else is doing. I therefore go get as big of a piece of the pie as I can with the expectation that I will lose a few anyway through stopping playing, loss of interest, academics, financially can't make up the difference, injury, etc, etc... I don't have to be right on my projection of who they will be in 3-4 years all the time - just some of the time.

Also in general girls are maturing earlier than boys, so a lot of the really early commits are already physically mature or close to it so it isn't as big of a leap as many think in a lot of cases. We play a lot of the teams in Florida with very early commits on - those girls are in general huge and their teams are generally much larger physically than our older team.

But having made a commitment to some kid and probably been keeping in contact and invested time and resources for a couple of years so I am invested, Or maybe I like to keep my promises, or I don't want to get a reputation for dumping commits because I am not a WCWS team. And hey, this might be something better available but I have something already committed to and that is already in my pocket. Do I want to risk it? Also I get LOTS of email and contacts, so if I can ignore juniors/seniors then I can cut my work load.

That said, the more I think about this proposed solution, the dumber it sounds.

Basically the coaches want it both ways. They still want kids of any age to be able to come to their camps so they can wrack up the cash (and it is the recruiting loophole in the proposal - lots of wink, wink, pinkie promises for when you are junior), while at the same time they want to reduce their current recruiting process. And they want the NCAA to police it. And at least now I can decide WHICH camps make the most sense to attend because coaches can express an interest - proposal is supposed to stop that - so how is a player meant to know what makes sense to attend?

This years recruiting rule changes were already ugly. The only benefit was for the coaches - everyone else - parents, players, teams all suffered for it.
[MENTION=10413]riseball[/MENTION] 's - 'offers are binding, make them when you want' proposal is superior in every way. It is simple and doesn't require policing or other BS to make it happen. You want to commit a 5th grader? Go right ahead, just remember you are committed to her no matter what.
 
Last edited:
Apr 24, 2017
203
28
Georgia
Basically they want the coaches want it both ways. They still want kids of any age to be able to come to their camps so they can wrack up the cash (and it is the recruiting loophole in the proposal - lots of wink, wink, pinkie promises for when you are junior), while at the same time they want to reduce their current recruiting process. And they want the NCAA to police it. And at least now I can decide WHICH camps make the most sense to attend because coaches can express an interest - proposal is supposed to stop that - so how is a player meant to know what makes sense to attend?

This years recruiting rule changes were already ugly. The only benefit was for the coaches - everyone else - parents, players, teams all suffered for it.
[MENTION=10413]riseball[/MENTION] 's - 'offers are binding, make them when you want' proposal is superior in every way. It is simple and doesn't require policing or other BS to make it happen. You want to commit a 5th grader? Go right ahead, just remember you are committed to her no matter what.

THIS is exactly where we are. [MENTION=5070]marriard[/MENTION] and [MENTION=10413]riseball[/MENTION] are right here. Just make commitments binding, and most of your problems with early recruiting are going to immediately go away. Coaches will be much more careful about who they extend an offer to if they are obligated to follow through on said offer. And this sounds like a gimmick to me as well; so you attend years and years of prospect camps at MANY schools instead of a select few where you know there is interest both ways. Huge money grab, as they can still verbally commit these girls whenever they would like through a liason. That is what they are doing for the most part anyway, right? Main difference is they can't talk to them at all with the new rules, versus being able to talk to them in person currently. Oh and BTW, my Instagram feed is FULL of coaches committing girls in the 8th-9th grade the last two weeks. They know the change is coming and they are filling up their 2022-2023 roster just as fast as they can. This change MAY slow recruiting just a bit until they figure out a new system. Make commitments binding, and let the NCAA levy penalties for breaking these contracts. Unless there is a major injury or something similar, it should be binding for the first year of college to alleviate the problems we have now.
 

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