WELCOME!!! WHAT IS THIS BLOG ABOUT?

I am a parent of a Freshman player at a Midwest NAIA school who was able to assist my son to continue his baseball career after high school.

My goal is to share our experiences and detail the plan I put together to get my son the exposure he needed without him being a top talent or our family having the financial resources to play on the top summer teams or attend showcases.

I started the process of educating myself after my son's freshman year of high school and I started by asking myself and my son 5 basic questions. As my son progressed through high school I continued to ask the same questions as they provided us a foundation during the process.

Five questions
1. Does my son truly want to keep playing after high school?
2. Is he really willing to go anywhere to keep playing?
3. What is my financial budget to help him get the exposure needed?
4. Is your son doing what he needs to do in the classroom and on the field to maximize his opportunities?
5. How do I get the financial aid required to make this happen?

There were other questions that needed to be answered and I will address those in future blogs but will start with these 5 as a foundation.

Question 2 Is your son willing to go anywhere to keep playing?

Is your son willing to go anywhere to keep playing? This is also a very important question as to how serious you and your son are about playing college baseball.  It also opens up a significant number of opportunities with over 1600 colleges that have baseball programs. This includes NCAA div. 1,2,3,  NAIA, and NJCAA.

I revert back to our situation. Being an Arizona high school baseball player, there are limitations as to the choices of 4-year in state colleges that have a baseball program. In fact, in Arizona there are only four 4-year colleges that have baseball programs. Arizona State and University of Arizona at the D1 level, Grand Canyon at the D2 level and Arizona Christian at the NAIA level. The JUCO programs are strong in numbers and level of play. But, our focus was on a good academic 4-year school. Like in many areas the JUCOS in Arizona are very competitive. I've heard of 70-80 kids showing up in fall hoping to make the summer roster. You also see mid term transfers from D1s show up on a JUCO campus in January.  

In our case, my son knew he wanted to play college baseball. We were honest with ourselves on his level of talent. He wasn't going to be drafted out of high school and he wasn't going to a top D1 school.  Once I knew he wanted to go a 4-year school and that it could be potentially anywhere in the US if it was the right fit, all of sudden this looked like an attainable goal.

We targeted the Midwest because my wife had family there and if we were sending junior off to college we wanted some support system in place. I also looked at the number of colleges that played baseball compared to the overall population. I will use the state of Nebraska for example. There are 13 four year colleges that have baseball programs at various levels. If you consider the  small population of the state as a whole, along with the fact that most high schools outside of the Lincoln and Omaha area don't even play high school baseball, it seemed like a good place to start.

If your answer to this question is a 100% yes, you have a significant number of opportunities. The next step is to identify your geographic limitations, while keeping in mind the wider net you cast the more choices you will have.

If the answer to this question is NO. Then you really need to consider what your limitations are and look how your son's academic and athletic ability fit within those limitations. The answer may be that your son will not likely being playing after high school.

Again thanks for reading!!! I will post my next blog about my question #3.
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2 comments:

  1. bobbyaguhoFebruary 17, 2012 at 2:22 PM

    Did your son have a hard time adjusting to the midwest ? How hard was it for you and your wife to adjust ? I mean, not being at all his practices and games must have been hard !

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    Replies
    1. baseballrecruitingtipsFebruary 17, 2012 at 3:03 PM

      I think he adjusted pretty well. He came home for a weekend in October, again for Thanksgiving, and for 2 weeks over Christmas.
      The hardest thing as a parent as that he is recovering form Labrum surgery and he some other medical issues. Having so far away is hard. I have heard fom other parents that they never hear from their kids. I talk to my son every day. he usually calls me after practice or his physical therapy sessions.

      He is traveling to Oklahoma today and will likely see his 1st game action this weekend and I am not going to be there. That is tough.

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