I know there is no simple answer here, but I'm wondering what steps I can take to help my high school players who are getting emails from college coaches.
These are players who are interested in playing in college, but they have little to no travel experience and their parents aren't nearly as involved in their softball careers as what you're used to. I believe a few of these girls have the potential to play somewhere at that level, but until they play better competition now, I'm not sure where their ceilings are.
So, generally, what should I do when a girl comes to me and talks about wanting to play in college? I'm willing to do whatever I can to help them (and, on some level, play the role of the parent since I know in many cases the parents won't be able to do that).
More specifically, one of my players got two emails from a D3 coach in a nearby state. It appears these emails were mass emails, probably scraped from the NCSA site or something. I think it's unlikely this coach has ever even seen clips of her, though he could have if he had searched. The first was an introductory email, and the second was announcing that he was going to be at a local-ish college for a softball combine in June.
So does he actually have interest in her? Is this just a pitch to get girls to spend money on this combine? And are these combines worth money? The one he mentioned costs $100 and will have reps from 8 schools (most of which are on my list of schools whose talent level is about what I think my girls can handle).
These are players who are interested in playing in college, but they have little to no travel experience and their parents aren't nearly as involved in their softball careers as what you're used to. I believe a few of these girls have the potential to play somewhere at that level, but until they play better competition now, I'm not sure where their ceilings are.
So, generally, what should I do when a girl comes to me and talks about wanting to play in college? I'm willing to do whatever I can to help them (and, on some level, play the role of the parent since I know in many cases the parents won't be able to do that).
More specifically, one of my players got two emails from a D3 coach in a nearby state. It appears these emails were mass emails, probably scraped from the NCSA site or something. I think it's unlikely this coach has ever even seen clips of her, though he could have if he had searched. The first was an introductory email, and the second was announcing that he was going to be at a local-ish college for a softball combine in June.
So does he actually have interest in her? Is this just a pitch to get girls to spend money on this combine? And are these combines worth money? The one he mentioned costs $100 and will have reps from 8 schools (most of which are on my list of schools whose talent level is about what I think my girls can handle).