Mr. Bucket Article Vol. II--College Recruiting By Grade

[Mr Bucket]

There Are a Sea Of College Coaches Out There

I am asked all the time, how does this college recruiting work? Who are the colleges looking at and at what ages?

My answer is always the same, it is about the world of Sharks. Sharks being the College Coaches, some bigger and can take any fish in the sea they want and others smaller and have to wait to feed/recruit. There is a pecking order of recruiting and you need to know how this works.

So how does this work?

Let’s start with the Biggest badest Great White Shark. The Great White comes to tournaments and such and takes whatever it wants. The Great White is the equivalent to the top D-1 coaches from the likes of the SEC, and Pac 12 (really Pac 9) for example. They get what they want. The Blue-Chip players are there for the taking. The 7th and 8th graders who are head and shoulders above the rest of their class, at least at this time. 9th graders are also in this class of what Great Whites want. The 9th graders have been watched by the Great Whites for a year or two to see if the Whites want them or not. Did they mature into something they would enjoy, er, have in their program.

Next is the very dangerous Mako Shark. As bad as the Great White but just not as big and has to back off when the Great Whites are around and take the next best available. The next best available Makos are also D-1s and are very good softball programs but not the SEC or Pac-12 type teams. If I may, the DePauls, Fullertons, James Madison, BYU’s of the college softball world. Great D-1 programs with great educations who are year after year in the D-1 NCAA tournament.
Who are they looking at? Mostly the 9th graders who got away from the Great Whites and certainly the 10th graders are big on the radar. Sadly for the 10th graders the Great Whites D-1s are mostly done with the 10th graders as they are out of scholarship money for that class and are now focusing on the new pups of 7th and 8th graders. But the D-1 Makos we are talking about are great universities with great softball programs.

We introduce two new sharks, the Reef Shark and the Dogfish Shark, These sharks are even smaller sharks but still carry a load or a great education. These sharks are the D-II and D-III colleges. 10th graders who have not signed yet are big on their radar. The 11th and 12th graders though are the players that they mostly feed for. The D-II colleges do not have the number of scholarships the D-Is have so they are pretty careful. The D-IIIs have no Athletic Scholarships so most D-IIIs hope the chance to play and many times a great education will attract players to their schools.

A note to be very aware of:

Most colleges have what is called Academic Money for those players/students with great grades. So take that to heart and study and get great grades and you can combine Athletic Scholarship Money with Academic Scholarship Money to make the cost of your education less on your family. In some cases combining the two can give you a full scholarship. Nice!

The last shark I want to introduce is one that is very different looking, the Hammerhead Shark. This division of colleges is call the NAIA and works differently with different rules. I will not go into all the differences at this time but know that the NAIA schools have scholarships to give and lots of them. They will be out in the waters as well as the other sharks looking for great talent. They will be looking for all age classes and give scholarships to the best they can attract.

So to sum up what I have tried to convey, college scholarship are given by perceived ability. From 7th grade to 12th grade. Just different levels of colleges looking at the different grade levels as fits their programs.

Aim high, but be realistic………………………………………….

Be careful playing up in age if your daughter is a big time D-1 candidate. You can get your daughter lost to bigger schools as the bigger schools are looking at the younger age divisions more and more these days.

Lastly, there are no rules or books on how college recruiting works. It is not an exact science. What I have said above does not always hold true. Juniors and seniors can get big time D-I scholarships but usually due to an injury or decommit of a college’s recruit. But the big question to parents and players is always ‘do I take a scholarship from a conceived lesser university that is on the table and offered or do I wait for the big D-I to offer’.

Good Luck To All

[NumeroUno]

Great write up

[Mark H]

Yes it is good. Might spend a bit more time discussing the elite academic institutions like the Ivies, West Point, Williams etc. They get to feed/recruit ahead of, in many cases, where their place in the athletic world would tend to suggest because of the education/prestige of the degree/future networking the school offers.