Recruiting mistakes

[Comp]

Of course coaches make recruiting mistakes, you just don't always hear about them.

Pitcher on my daughter's club team really wanted to play for her moms alma mater but come her senior year of highschool the coach told her she could walk on but would never play. Fast forward a year, my daughter's juco team is scrimmaging subject college. Pitcher the coach chose over subject pitcher is just flat horrible. No idea what coach thought he saw when recruiting. Fast forward again to 3-4 weeks into season and club ball coach gets a call from college coach looking for pitcher he passed on because he is in pitching trouble. Club ball coach tells college coach he didn't look very hard because girl he is looking for is a student at his college on a full academic ride. And that's the worst part, the girl was free to him and he chased her off. Girl ultimately told him to go pound sand, he had his chance to take her and passed. She never played ball again.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

I believe most P5 programs (at least the really good ones) would want a “finished” product, especially when it comes to pitchers. Sure they might tweak or fine tune things here or there but they want the ones who they know can get the job done from Day 1. They’ll take other pitchers who they might work with, but those are the ones who might get an inning here or there or pitch against the weaker teams. Do they sometimes make a mistake with taking a pitcher who they thought was a stud and turned out they weren’t? Absolutely! Or sometimes they’ll have a great freshman season and then burn out.

That's crazy that they want an 18 year-old girl to be a finished product. In baseball, pitchers don't peak until their late 20s, so expecting a freshman to be polished is crazy.

As for the mistakes, of course they make them. Announcers often talk about the speed of the game being the difference maker between the levels. You hear about guys that dominate at the AAA level, but they can't make it at the MLB level. They're referred to as quadruple A players. I'm sure a lot of girls are just like that. They can dominate at the travel level, but that next leap, especially at the P5 level, is too much.

 

[Vertigo]

That's crazy that they want an 18 year-old girl to be a finished product. In baseball, pitchers don't peak until their late 20s, so expecting a freshman to be polished is crazy.

Yeah I agree, but if you think about it, the majority of 18 y/o girls are full-grown women. They aren’t going to grow much more, if at all. Boys don’t stop growing (densifying) until they hit their 20’s. My college freshman ds looks like a ”boy” compared to the upperclassmen on his team and he’s 6’0. He just hasn’t filled out yet.

If you think about the best of the P5 pitchers in SB, I’d imagine most of them were starters as freshmen, or at least used often behind the #1. Also, keep in mind I’m talking about your best P5 teams here, not the bottom half.

ETA: Think about it - if the schools aren’t getting in the “polished” freshmen they feel can compete on Day 1, they‘ll just go to the portal.

 

[Gambler Bob]

Do coaches make mistakes when recruiting? How often? What happens to the players? Does it happen at P5 schools too?
Example: Coach recruits big strong player after watching her play well in TB. But when she get to college she simply cant hit 65 mph pitching. Or coach recruits pitcher throwing 65 mph but when she gets to college she gets lit up like a Christmas tree. Any stories?

Coaches absolutely make mistakes when recruiting at all levels of sports. Just look at every QB the Chicago Bears have had .

Few examples, Joe Burrow. Burrow barely ever played at Ohio St. before transferring to LSU and winning a National Championship. Sometimes you just need chance or a different atmosphere to showcase your talent.

Tom Brady was drafted in the 6th round of the NFL draft.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it can be very difficult to tell how good a recruit will be in many cases.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

Coaches absolutely make mistakes when recruiting at all levels of sports. Just look at every QB the Chicago Bears have had .

Few examples, Joe Burrow. Burrow barely ever played at Ohio St. before transferring to LSU and winning a National Championship. Sometimes you just need chance or a different atmosphere to showcase your talent.

Tom Brady was drafted in the 6th round of the NFL draft.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it can be very difficult to tell how good a recruit will be in many cases.

Walter Payton didn't play football until his junior year of HS.

 

[CoachJD]

Do coaches make mistakes when recruiting? How often? What happens to the players? Does it happen at P5 schools too?
Example: Coach recruits big strong player after watching her play well in TB. But when she get to college she simply cant hit 65 mph pitching. Or coach recruits pitcher throwing 65 mph but when she gets to college she gets lit up like a Christmas tree. Any stories?

Recruiting is based on talent evaluation.

Someone can be a very good coach, but not a great evaluator of talent. It's one of several coaching attributes, and there's no reason to think all coaches are good at it.

In fact, my guess is talent evaluation is the one aspect of coaching that a coach doesn't have to prove when they're getting their first college head coaching job. When it comes to recruiting, you need to show you can actually get the players you recruit to come to the school. But until you do it, nobody really knows if you know how to recognize who those players are. This is especially true if you're not Patty Gasso and you're not getting first crack at the players everyone knows are great. That's not to say she can't evaluate talent. But when you're getting all A+ talent it sorta doesn't matter which A+ talent you actually pick.

What's interesting about college sports is that the head coach is also doing the job of scout and general manager. I'm sure very few are great at all of it.

 

[RADcatcher]

Several long term travel coaches have said this of recent few years. Travel coaches that have longevity of connecting players with colleges that have what I would consider very good guidance ability.
This scenario happening with a few players on each of their teams....

That even though it has been spoken about to families how this journey will take place and have been directed to college and recruitment tools such as cost calculators and other important stuff...
That some families simply have not put in their own due diligence to understand the system and costs. That while TB players have sincere College attention and offers to follow through with. That families are in a stalled position of their own.
Things like thinking through going to college in other states or how much money could they afford out of pocket or other (what I would call Common Sense factors to think through.) They have not done. So while they have offers. The colleges can only wait so long and then are moving on to other candidates.
To the point where the college actually spoke with the coach of the travel ball team about moving on from the candidate. So the coach said to the family, look this coach is ready to look at other candidates if you're not interested in the position they will move on. Travel coaches sharing this and seeing the response is parents/players have deer in the headlight faces and no decisions being made.

Simply, the efforts of college coaches to try and get recruits is a big task. Part of that task is Dealing with a portion of families that are clearly unprepared.

 

[daywalkerdad]

Evaluating talent is hard at every level.
Most coaches look for 5 skills. In reality most great players leverage 1-2 elite skills.

 

[DonnyS]

Do coaches make mistakes when recruiting? How often? What happens to the players? Does it happen at P5 schools too?
Example: Coach recruits big strong player after watching her play well in TB. But when she get to college she simply cant hit 65 mph pitching. Or coach recruits pitcher throwing 65 mph but when she gets to college she gets lit up like a Christmas tree. Any stories?

Yes. DD played against teams with many committed players this summer/fall. Several, if not many, were less than impressive...but they played for a big name organization or had a lot of social media hype. I have to believe some wash out quick at the next level.

Experience/perspective: Mom and Dad ex-collegiate athletes. Probably worth at least $0.02. I experienced first hand great athletes wash out fast and above average athletes never make it past the first year.

 

[Strike2]

Evaluating athletic talent seems relatively easy compared to the evaluation of character. It's far harder to get the measure of someone's integrity and work ethic than how well they throw, run, or swing a bat. I've seen some epic misses in terms of character. In at least one instance, objectionable personality traits were on full display during an overnight campus visit, but the coaches somehow didn't notice. I've seen apparently talented players prioritize their social life over everything else, show up grossly out of shape, or even try to conceal a serious medical/mental problem.

There's a reason why so many players don't play out their eligibility, or even make it through the first year. It often has nothing to do with how good a player they were in HS.