OnDeck, Fastpitch Recruits, Captain U, NCSA, Game Day, Headfirst, Riseball - HELP

[girliesmom]

Here's my 2 bits. My dd and I sat down for a phone session with NCSA. What they offered sounded good. I liked the look of their website plus some of the tools they offered us. When we first spoke with NCSA, although DD was just starting out in her sophomore year, she had already started reaching out to college coaches and they were starting to make contact with her. What we found was that we didn't need help with "trying to figure out which schools in which state DD wanted to go to". We were already past that stage. We were also pass the stage where we needed someone to tell DD what to do in order to get a coaches' attention or how to get on their radar. We had already narrowed down our list of schools and were already writing coaches and getting responses (note DD's focus is academic D3s). Seeing that we were doing much of the legwork ourselves already, we decided against NCSA.

A couple of months later, we joined CSC (Collegiate Softball Connection) with Cathi Aradi. We've been with her for 6+ months now and continue to be very happy with her services. 1.) She specializes solely in Softball. 2.) DD had a fairly narrow list of schools she's interested in (I don't recommend this for most - but this is what DD wanted so we are supporting her with her decision) and felt that Cathi could really help us with our quest. 3.) She's available for very specific questions and directions 24/7 and responds literally immediately. 4.) The cost for her service is a fraction of NCSA. These were the reasons why we joined. Within 6 weeks of joining CSC, DD received unsolicited interest from half a dozen schools - which tells me that Cathi markets her kids very well.

I'm not sure if we would have gotten this from NCSA. Maybe we would, maybe we wouldn't. Regardless, that's not what we consider valuable in Cathi's services. I love the fact that I can call her / email her / text her with questions (regardless how stupid they are) during my waking hours and am able to get a response immediately. She doesn't have a fancy website like NCSA but that's okay. She has a great reputation with college coaches and has successfully placed kids at schools at a fraction of the price.

 

[kjmpa]

DD HS class of 2014 signed up with NCSA. Negotiated fee with us. If you use Naviance at your HS we used it in a similar way, with added sport info which was helpful. We did have one coach indicate she was not interested - so a D3 national championship coach interacted with it. DD had been to her camps, etc. I actually called them this week because my DD, in her junior year in college, is looking for a new school. The site isn't set up for that, which is fine. I was impressed that the recruiting coach was still with the organization and had moved up the ladder there. They offered to talk with my daughter regarding her current situation which I thought was great. Definitely not a fly by night organization. They made it very clear before signing up that all the real work is done by the player and talked to my DD directly about that. Heard about NCSA from Rick Wire Dynamite Sports who came to our HS.

If your DD is shy, I wouldn't spend money on recruiting services. Coaches know when it's the parents doing the work and will move on - uh, good coaches will move on. Having a travel team representative out there getting your DD's profile in coaches hands helps to.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Orange Socks]

Follow up from my post. That kid from DD's team that went on an official visit this past weekend accepted an offer. The dad told that me that they never saw her play live at a showcase, no live videos, nothing and she wasn't asked to bring her gear for a workout either. He said that the coaches liked her enough from her skills video that was posted on her NCSA site that they offered her. I'll have to ask about the volume of emails sent over the past year, but Wow! If you don't have a skills video, you better make one...now.

 

[Coach JV]

Ask yourself this:

Is my DD able to compose a quality email, research which schools are a good fit for her
and use a telephone? Most recruiters I am familiar with do exactly that. Save the $$ for
a family vacation and have her self advocate. There are plenty of college coaches that
completely disregard contact from some or all recruiting services. Coaches are interested in
players as individuals and how they might fit into the particular college team culture at
their school. How can coaches gain this knowledge from a recruiting service?

 

[TamiAz]

My dd did On Deck and we feel it was a big waste of money.. We also used http://www.fastpitchscout.com and that has been worth every penny. We do all the work, but using FastPitch scout has made it simple. I don't think it's well known, but it's awesome. It's $150 for six months and it has ton of features, which made emailing and researching school fairly easy. My husband shot and edited all the video posted on her site.

We also looked at a couple of recruiting companies and we are so glad we did not go that route. They were just way to expensive. My daughter received a lot of attention without using them..We just had to do the work.

 

[Twinsfan007]

I was wondering Tami if you could elaborate as to why you think OnDeck wasn't for you. Did something happen?

 

[TamiAz]

I was wondering Tami if you could elaborate as to why you think OnDeck wasn't for you. Did something happen?

Our daughter is a RHP/3B, she is a very good athlete that has made each team she has played on better. At game speed, she stands out as an athlete you would want on your team.

On Deck's measurements for all categories of performance are arbitrary. Meaning, there is one guy standing there watching your kid...giving your kid a rating on fielding catching, pitching, infield, outfield, etc, etc. The guy doing the measurement may give your kid a 4 out of 5, whilst another observer would say your kid is a 5 out of 5. Its all subjective. There are a couple of objective measures, like bat speed (Zepp) and running speed. Otherwise, its a measuring system that is subjective.

Secondly, the Jamboree is a worse than any clinic your kid would attend. They have a row of four pitchers, pitching to four catchers for 5 pitches at a time. There are kids everywhere and kids stacked deep in every position. Then, the kids rotate to another field. There is no way for your kid to break out, stand out in this type of system. They are, of course, rated all over again with the measurements at the Jamboree to see if there is any improvement (again, subjective measures). There were certainly college coaches observing, but it appeared to us that they came to watch recruits they were already interested in. This was also true for our daughter - a university that was following her showed up to watch her for about 20min, then moved on.

Our own college recruiting journey is now complete. In our journey, we have not heard from any parent "my kid got recruited by participating in OnDeck". Instead - as with our own journey - our kiddo chose states that she would like to live in (with an aversion for anywhere that snows too much) and we found colleges in those states that she would like to attend. We then developed an email campaign, with results based email content (this how my team did, this is how I did) and video of our kid pitching, playing 3b and hitting. From that campaign, we developed a healthy college following and our daughter has colleges interested in from almost every state she would consider going to college in.

OnDeck has NOT factored into anything we have done. Nor do we know anyone that will say OnDeck resulted in their kid getting the type of exposure that led to recruitment. Of course, this is OUR experience.....but seems to be a similar experience with those that we are playing with that are recruited.

My advise would be:
- Develop a list of states that your kiddo would like to go to school in.
- Identify the schools she would like to attend and initiate regular contact with those schools (we did this every two weeks).....even if we didn't have video.
- When schools begin to respond (within NCAA rules), continue the contact with that school / with your coaches and then attend a camp with that school. The key is ensuring that the college KNOWS who your kiddo is before they come to camp and that there is some type of mutual interest.
- When you get a response, or know a college is interested, be all over it and email / call on a regular basis. They may not be able to talk directly to you or respond, but they will know who you are and will look for you at tournaments (this is what we experienced).

We learned, through the outlay of some big $$, that OnDeck and many pay/hosted services didn't do anything for us. That was our experience, yours may be different.....I hope.

 

[Twinsfan007]

Thanks for the response. I agree with your advice at the end. I guess I'm on the other side of the fence because for our team it's really helped. We had a girl get invited to a jamboree and that's where her recruitment took off, with Big 10, Big East, WCC, etc. schools showing interest in her. She ended up committing to the school she dreamed of. I agree that I think it's a case by case basis. I will say however, that I believe that if you want to go Power-5 D1 this is one of your best opportunities to get on alot of coaches radars, especially if you get invited to the Zoom into June or Colorado Jamborees.

 

[longball00]

Bottom line is, what works for one person, may not work for others. It all comes down to the player doing a lot of work on their own,and the parents investigating where they need their player to be as far as camps/exposure tournaments. Then it comes down to luck, being in the right place at the right time, and surrounding yourself with people who have tons of contacts. OnDeck (Jamboree portion) was a big part of DD's recruiting. As I said before, after the first one, she had a lot of interest, and received plenty of emails/ TB Coach calls with camp invites. The second one she got the offer she had dreamed of on the spot, and verballed the following week on her visit. It worked for us, may not for others.
Being at the right Showcases also plays a big part. Find out what coaches on DD's list are going to be there, and send them the schedule etc. After the second Jamboree, DD had emailed her schedule to her list, before she went on her visit, and coaches are still coming to watch. It's a fun/crazy ride, but the hard work the player and parents put into it helps smooth it out.

 

[wjdempkowski]

Check out this webpage: Real Talk: The Truth About Recruiting – Coach Lisle Hitting