TulsaEliteGold wrote:If you & your players & their parents all do their homework, you can get your kids and team the same kind of respect as the teams who are the Good Ol' Boys as you call them. But you have to spend less time worrying about why things are how they are and more time on figuring out how to get your kids the same opportunities.
The Sheltons, Bancrofts, Graves, Adkins etc didnt get there by becoming instant success, someone had a vision of what they wanted and they busted their butts and built their team-teams-organizations into what they are today.
I do agree with Slade about figuring out how to make your team more competitive will attract a lot more coaches. If you want to attract a lot of coaches attention, figure out how to consistantly play deep into the Brackets at the Gold Qualifiers. The teams playing on Sundays in the Qualifiers are going to attract attention. Especially when you can do thsi at the Territory Qualfiers with 80-100+ teams and many, many coaches.
My reccomendation (for whatever its worth) is to focus on figureing out what works for YOUR TEAM. Dont' worry about all the negative stuff. I promise you if you build YOUR TEAM'S REPUTATION, the coaches will come no matter where you play. Heck, we play at 4 different complexes next weekend in Plano and I will gurantee you we will have Major D1 coaches at every game we play.
My Story-
I started my team in the fall of 2007, just 2 years ago, and can guarantee you that myself, my kids and their parents worked our butts off to get where we are today. We havn't qualified for Gold Nationals, for whatever reasons (mainly my rookie coaching mistake of trying to carry too small of a Roster to cover injuries & trying to depend on 1 dominant pitcher instead of a rotation) but I can guarantee you we have earned the respect of almost every team that has Qualified from our Region the past few years and built a reputation as a top team that can compete with anyone.
We have also proved that if you work hard and do the right things, your kids can get recruited by top schools. But it didnt happen by going to showcases hoping that some coach would happen to stop by and we didnt start off playing on the main fields. Our first year at Ronald McDonald, we didnt even know there was a main complex. We actually asked to keep all our games at 1 place so we wouldnt get lost. We were at the far away fields, but the TD gave us the address ahead of time and a schedule of our game times.... That's all I cared about. We also played in the Colorado Sparkler the first summer that everyone claims no major coaches attend, but we had Big 12 and SEC coaches at our games because they knew exactly where we were going to be playing.
Here we are 2 years later and have had the following recruits:
Callie Parsons 2011 D1 University of Oklahoma (Verbal)
Taylor Woodall 2011 D1 Oklahoma State University (Verbal)
Bailee Cartwright 2010 D1 Northwestern State University (Verbal)
Javen Henson 2010 D1 University of Oklahoma (Verbal)
Jeneva Nelson 2010 D1 Lipscomb University (Verbal)
Shelbi Redfearn 2010 D1 Baylor University (Verbal)
Tarra Underhill 2010 D1 University of Central Arkansas (Verbal)
Kelsie Armstrong 2009 D1 University of Central Arkansas
Amy Graham 2009 D1 Oklahoma State University
Stephanie Brewer 2009 D1 University of Arkansas
Hannah Martin 2009 D2 Drury University
Cayce Coleman 2009 D2 Northeastern State University
Faith Lund 2009 D2 University of Arkansas-Monticello
Christen Kirchner 2009 D2 Dominican College of NY
Katrina Loy 2009 NAIA Rogers State University
Kasey Britt 2008 D1 University of Central Arkansas
Shana Westover 2008 NJCAA D1 Chattanooga State Tech
Maddelyn Fraley 2008 NJCAA D1 Northeastern Oklahoma A&M
Kacie Ryal 2008 NJCAA D1 Northeastern Oklahoma A&M
Christa Johnson 2008 NJCAA D1 Carl Albert State College
This topic got off-topic by the curve ball of old school and the ensuing onslaught of daddy ball bashers, haters, ego's, etc..
Jeff you have done things the RIGHT WAY. Your team is a great team, a class act and you guys are headed in the right direction for sure. It's not all about qualifying, as we discussed before there where teams that didn't make it to Gold Nationals that had beaten teams that did. Just like you guys beat us in OKC at the HOF tournament. Both teams went deep in Tulsa, and then we drew each other right off the bat at the HOF. That's all part of the game.
I was giving my initial input on this topic to the coaches that feel like they will never be able to take that next step, or that always feel like they are getting the raw deal at the showcases.
And like I said, there is a good old boy network out there, there is a certain group that try's to sway the way people think that recruiting works. But my advice for the parents out there at any age group. Don't worry about that network of people, don't be afraid to challenge them if they tell you the only way to get a scholarship is through them. Seek out the best coaches that you can find, find coaches that will push your daughter, develop her skills and prepare her to play at the collegiate level. Good coaches are getting harder and harder to find, but they are out there.
Good luck!
