My daughter intends to continue her softball into college. However, her bigger goal is to get a great college education leading to a degree in the medical field. It appears that D3 and NAIA programs allow students to place a greater emphasis on education while fielding very competitive teams during the season. How do D3 and NAIA softball coaches usually go about recruiting? Do players really need to be on a 18u gold team at a national to get noticed by these coaches at these programs? Are there some typical performance benchmarks of HS pitching prospects for good programs at the D3/NAIA level?
D3 and NAIA Recruiting
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It varies at D3 according to their academic profile. If a player is interested in a D3, or any school, they should let the coach know they are interested in a proactive way. Emails and filling out any online questionairre would be a good start. If a skills video is available on line, email the link to the coach. Let the coach know where and when you will be playing. No you don't have to be on a gold team at nationals to generate interest from a D3. Becoming a doctor or some other sort of high academic demand field can be accomplished playing D1 but it's a lot harder. The time commitment for playing a D3 sport is much lower by rule. Be sure you pick a school with a good record of placing their graduates in their first choice of med schools. Where in the country is she wanting to go to school?
Playing D3 is similar to playing in HS, in that you can just show up on the day practice starts for a tryout. If your DD has talent, there is a good chance she'll make the team.
BUT: the better approach is to contact the college your DD wants to play for and talk to the coach directly before she applies for entrance. If your DD has some softball credentials, then the coach will verbally tell her that she will likely be on the team. If your DD is real good, the coach may suggest some academic scholarships that are rarely used.
If you have decided to go D3, then you pick three colleges and go visit them. Go talk to the coach and see if the coach and the school is a fit. It is important to go somewhere your DD will get what she wants, not just somewhere to go play ball.
By "a good fit", she needs to think about things like whether she wants an urban campus or a campus in the Styx, a religious or secular school, a large or a small school, how far from home, etc. You need to approach this like she is shopping for some clothes, in that you just don't stumble around and pick up the first pair of jeans you find (well, maybe Krause does...), but you think about it first.
Depending upon your DD's athletic ability, GPA and SAT/ACT scores, you might find surprising opportunities. For example, Washington University in St. Louis, one of the top schools in the US, may have room for her. If her GPA and SAT are really good, then you might want to go for broke and check out the University of Chicago, one of the top 5 schools in the US.
Other D3 schools of note are St. Mary's, right next to Notre Dame. Hope College, located in Holland Michigan, can almost guarantee that your DD will get into med school--they have that part of their curriculum down to a science.
Don't be scared off by "religious schools". There are different degrees of religious entanglement. Some religious affiliated schools require attendance at church every day. Others don't. So, you have to talk to the students and staff about what "religious affiliation" means for that particular school.
So, go visit some schools and talk to some coaches. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
As to pitching, a girl I knew threw 55 MPH. (No matter what anyone tells you, 55 MPH isn't fast enough for D1. She played D1 for a year but couldn't get any PT.) She had a super, killer riseball and excellent control. She was a D3 all-american.
BUT: the better approach is to contact the college your DD wants to play for and talk to the coach directly before she applies for entrance. If your DD has some softball credentials, then the coach will verbally tell her that she will likely be on the team. If your DD is real good, the coach may suggest some academic scholarships that are rarely used.
If you have decided to go D3, then you pick three colleges and go visit them. Go talk to the coach and see if the coach and the school is a fit. It is important to go somewhere your DD will get what she wants, not just somewhere to go play ball.
By "a good fit", she needs to think about things like whether she wants an urban campus or a campus in the Styx, a religious or secular school, a large or a small school, how far from home, etc. You need to approach this like she is shopping for some clothes, in that you just don't stumble around and pick up the first pair of jeans you find (well, maybe Krause does...), but you think about it first.
Depending upon your DD's athletic ability, GPA and SAT/ACT scores, you might find surprising opportunities. For example, Washington University in St. Louis, one of the top schools in the US, may have room for her. If her GPA and SAT are really good, then you might want to go for broke and check out the University of Chicago, one of the top 5 schools in the US.
Other D3 schools of note are St. Mary's, right next to Notre Dame. Hope College, located in Holland Michigan, can almost guarantee that your DD will get into med school--they have that part of their curriculum down to a science.
Don't be scared off by "religious schools". There are different degrees of religious entanglement. Some religious affiliated schools require attendance at church every day. Others don't. So, you have to talk to the students and staff about what "religious affiliation" means for that particular school.
So, go visit some schools and talk to some coaches. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
As to pitching, a girl I knew threw 55 MPH. (No matter what anyone tells you, 55 MPH isn't fast enough for D1. She played D1 for a year but couldn't get any PT.) She had a super, killer riseball and excellent control. She was a D3 all-american.
My recommendation would be to choose the college, based upon education, FIRST. Then if softball is in the cards so be it. That way she hasn't limited her choices to a subset of all of the available colleges.
My daughter, like yours, is entering the medical field. She enrolls next month to become a doctor. She did this after graduating from a D1 softball program. So, no matter what you hear about D1 it's possible to get a good education at a very strong academic university in division 1.
If you're set on D3 or NAIA then there are some advantages, softball-wise. However, they are very different. D3's can't give athletic scholarships but if the coach is very interested in your daughter, the coach can make sure your daughter is taken care of financially. As was mentioned above, there's little or no activity in the fall semester. She can play another sport if she likes. However, the spring can be just as busy as any other division with many teams playing 40 or more games.
NAIA can be more like D1. The softball can be very intense and is all during the school year. My daughter played travel ball with a player who played at an NAIA school here in So Cal and their fall practices were longer and more intense than are permitted at the D1 level. They can offer full athletic scholarships also. And, there are no restrictions on when a coach can contact you so some of the NAIA coaches can talk your head off at exposure tournaments.
Good luck to her where ever she may end up. And, remember: Academics first!
My daughter, like yours, is entering the medical field. She enrolls next month to become a doctor. She did this after graduating from a D1 softball program. So, no matter what you hear about D1 it's possible to get a good education at a very strong academic university in division 1.
If you're set on D3 or NAIA then there are some advantages, softball-wise. However, they are very different. D3's can't give athletic scholarships but if the coach is very interested in your daughter, the coach can make sure your daughter is taken care of financially. As was mentioned above, there's little or no activity in the fall semester. She can play another sport if she likes. However, the spring can be just as busy as any other division with many teams playing 40 or more games.
NAIA can be more like D1. The softball can be very intense and is all during the school year. My daughter played travel ball with a player who played at an NAIA school here in So Cal and their fall practices were longer and more intense than are permitted at the D1 level. They can offer full athletic scholarships also. And, there are no restrictions on when a coach can contact you so some of the NAIA coaches can talk your head off at exposure tournaments.
Good luck to her where ever she may end up. And, remember: Academics first!
That's true. It's just a much bigger challenge. There are plenty of D1 athletes in all sports who went in with the idea of majoring in one thing and switched to something easier when it became too difficult to balance everything. As you point out, there are those who have made it work too.
I think most students change majors at least once. I did, my wife did. Going to college is such an eye opening experience and you see so many new things that you've never heard about before that changing majors is common. I changed school also because the school I was attending didn't have the major I ultimately wanted.
Depending upon what the student wants to do in grad school a tough undergrad experience is a good test as to whether they can be successful in grad school. Taking an easy major doesn't do one any favors if they want to live the life of a post grad major in a tough school.
I've always told my kids that the decisions they make between the ages of 17 and 22 are the most important decisions they will make in their life. Those decisions set the direction for the rest of their lives.
Yes but my point is, maintaining the gpa you need to get into your first choice of med schools taking a pre med course of study is challenging for most non athlete students. Adding the time and travel demands of a D1 sport is a major addition to the challenge. Not that it can't be done, but a student needs to carefully consider themselves and their goals versus the challenges as they consider their choices.
I had one DD play D1 softball and another play D3 basketball. The one who played D3 basketball was able to devote a lot more time to studies than the D1 player. For the basketball player, it was three hours a day devoted to hoops. For my D1 player, it was three hours a day for studies.
Some girls do well academically at D1 schools. Most don't.
Some girls do well academically at D1 schools. Most don't.
Mark, you give excellent advice. The primary focus must always be the grades and to graduate. Also, the undergrad school can be a very critical choice. A 3.0 at a very strong academic school can be just as valuable as a 4.0 at one that doesn't have a reputation for academics when applying to grad school. A well known academic D1 school carries a lot more weight than a small, relatively unknown D3 type school. I use the following example at my own peril and it's just an example and may not represent reality, so don't jump all over the exmple: A 3.0 at LMU will carry more weight than a 4.0 at California Lutheran University. I can use this example because I know both universities well. My daughter got her B.S. at LMU, I got my MBA at CLU. (I did, however get my B.S. at UCLA.)
Sluggers, there are strong academic oriented schools that have athletics and there are strong athletic oriented schools that have academics. All schools will tell you that they believe that academics come first but many don't deliver on that claim. Some schools, like Tennessee, even offer 5-year scholarships to softball players sending a strong message that academics are secondary and softball is primary.
If academics are what the student is seeking then the student would be wise to find out which schools really do live up to the claim that they are academic oriented.
My daughter's Women's Open coach likes to joke that his daughter went to college to play softball (she was a Pac-10 player) and found out, to her dismay, that she had to attend class also. She eventually got her degree but, thankfully for her, she went to a school that didn't emphasize academics.
Sluggers, there are strong academic oriented schools that have athletics and there are strong athletic oriented schools that have academics. All schools will tell you that they believe that academics come first but many don't deliver on that claim. Some schools, like Tennessee, even offer 5-year scholarships to softball players sending a strong message that academics are secondary and softball is primary.
If academics are what the student is seeking then the student would be wise to find out which schools really do live up to the claim that they are academic oriented.
My daughter's Women's Open coach likes to joke that his daughter went to college to play softball (she was a Pac-10 player) and found out, to her dismay, that she had to attend class also. She eventually got her degree but, thankfully for her, she went to a school that didn't emphasize academics.
The grad schools know who is who and their academic strength no matter how small or large, well known name or obscure unknown. All you have to know is, how many of their pre meds, pre laws or whatever you plan to be, get in their first choice med or law school etc. What the average incoming SAT or ACT score is useful information as well. You can find a school of any D rating or size to fit your academic needs.
