Yes he does. Good guy. Really knows the system and tries to look out for his players but your right it's madness so hopefully with his voice and some others this will pass and it will slow down.
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NCAA LaCrosse model for Softball
- Thread starter Rich B
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- Feb 6, 2017
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Question...why would you let your daughter commit to a school as an 8th grader or freshman? If your daughter is good enough to be offered a scholarship as an 8th grader, then she will presumably be talented enough as a sophomore or junior. Even if it was your daughter’s dream school, as an eighth grader or freshman, there wouldn’t be a single girl on the college team who would be there when your daughter got to school. So she would be committing to a team where she doesn’t know a single player who would play with her.
I’m not being critical, I’m honestly wondering what coaches are saying about why this is so needed and why parents think they need to make a decision as an middle schooler or freshman.
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- Feb 6, 2017
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Is it really that big of a change? I don’t see anything that will prevent coaches from offering kids early.
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The same conversation I have had with several D1 coaches at various showcases is why (paraphrased)
Me: Hi coach, I am with team X. Great to see you here. We have some great talent - what are you looking for'
Coach: Well we are finished with 2019, so we are really looking at 2020 and 2021 P & SS's.
It isn't every coach, but it is enough. And Coaches making a big deal (and they do) of verballing 7th and 8th graders make every parent or kid wanting to go to that school panic.
And this one with a Dad who just had his 3rd DD commit to a D1 college as a pitcher as a 2018. She wasn't sure she wanted to and was a bit later developing, so really didn't start seriously recruit until after her junior season. Note: one of his DD's won games in a WCWS and the other had a career in D1 where she threw close to 700 innings so they were no slouches.
Me: Congrats to X. heard she committed to Y college. Still you have been through this before.
Dad: It was worse this time than with the other two. She is the best of the three but early recruiting has stopped her getting some of the opportunities to recruit at the larger schools that her sisters did. It really restricted what schools we ended up looking at.
So yeah...
---- not saying this is right or wrong or anything... just this is the mindset a lot of parents have when it comes to recruiting ---
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Well obviously I can't say this because I haven't had to live it yet...and hopefully I will not because of this new rule so others here may be able to answer this from experience but looking forward I would say the answer is fear. Not that she won't be good enough three years later but that she'll have been replaced by kids whose parents didn't hold the line and there won't be spots or money left if you don't make that commitment when offered. Especially if it's your daughter's dream school. We play in an organization where nearly everyone has verballed by the end of 2nd year 14s which for my daughter would be 8th and 9th grade. As her mom I think that waiting will be better and make it more likely that her dream in 8th grade is the same in 11th grade and this rule let's me breath that I'm not holding her back and taking a choice away from her. I hope others will chime in here who had to make the choice.
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- Nov 29, 2009
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The coaches can not have any contact with the players or their family until Sept of their Jr. year in HS. Doesn't mean there aren't ways around that. But there wont be anything made public.
- Jun 22, 2008
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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
If Oregon offered a verbal to my DD next year (freshman - which they have been known to do), yes, we would accept. It's her dream school and softball program, and she loves the campus and environment of that part of the world. I have talked to the coaches, current and former players, parents, and have visited the facilities. Their program, the culture they have created, and the quality of players they recruit (not just as skilled ball players, but as kind and gracious humans) is something I would be very happy to have my DD involved with.
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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.
- Feb 12, 2014
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Back in the late 1970s, free agency was introduced to Major League Baseball. Some teams, like the Yankees embraced the new rules and went out and paid top dollar for the best players available. The Cincinnati Reds didn't like the rule and swore that they would not sign any free agents. Essentially, they made the decision as an organization to play by the old set of rules and ignore the new set. Pete Rose leaves for the Phillies. Don Gullet leaves for the Yankees. The best NL franchise of the 70s allowed itself to be gutted, and as a result, they were among the very worst teams in all of MLB during the early and mid 1980s.
I guess what I'm saying it this - I may not like the rules but I won't make my daughter play by a set of rules that will hurt her in comparison to the rules everyone else is playing by. I won't be the Cincinnati Reds in this particular analogy. My DD is a freshman and if her dream school offers her tomorrow (and yes, we are familiar with the campus, coaching staff, and academics of this school) then she will be proudly making a verbal commitment.
