On this Blog and on my YouTube channel I will discuss the various challenges and strategies for High School baseball players to obtain college playing opportunities and scholarship monies.
I have been coaching High School Baseball since I graduated from college 35 years ago and I can tell you without question – There has never been a more difficult time for a High School player to obtain a baseball scholarship than right now.
The new NCAA rules that have kicked in after Covid have turned College Baseball recruiting into the Wild, Wild West. Never has it been this difficult for high school players to land opportunities at the collegiate level. The recruiting system has taken quite a turn over the past 2 years…and that turn has been on a 90 degree angle!
New NCAA rules have allowed for the free flow of players to attend various schools over the course of their four (or five or six with the covid rules) years of eligibility. The challenge for high school players to actually be recruited by four year colleges has grown exponentially.
The two big changes:
1. The ability for a Division 1 player to enter the transfer portal and be immediately eligible should he connect with another Division 1 program.
2. “Name, Image, Likeness” — known as NIL money — that is now in many cases being pooled by universities and given out en masse to players at various high level institutions throughout the country.
These changes have permitted coaches to rebuild and reload their programs by attracting experienced players from not only the Junior College ranks, but now also the four-year D1 ranks. Thus coaches have a tendency to hold onto scholarship money which would have gone to high school players in the past, and allocate that money towards transfer portal players who have a proven track record.
The business model works – but it makes it so much harder for high school players to secure a place to play at the collegiate level, especially at four year schools.
But do not be too dismayed. There are new challenges but that just means that the entire process has to be viewed and approached differently by high school players and their families.
So what should a HS player be doing these days to find and secure a college where he may be able to make the team and even attract scholarship money? There is no one size fits all answer. However, now more than ever, the player has to aggressively pursue opportunities in a variety of ways.
Yes, there are showcases, camps, recruiting services, travel tournaments, “uncommitted” showcase events and “all-state games” that are amongst the many events that you may feel as if you must attend or run the risk on missing out on “being seen”.
Obviously what might work for one person may not work for another…and if you try to do everything, you will incur a major cost and most likely will be very frustrated in the end.
The best advice we can give is that you must decide what works best for you by evaluating the following:
- Academic achievements in HS
- Academic goals in college
- Talent level
- Financial standing of your family
- Desire to be far from/close to home
- Realistic evaluation from someone you trust as to the collegiate level you should be targeting.
This will give you a chance to narrow things down and have a more focused plan moving forward. It’s all about learning yourself and giving yourself a focus of what levels you can target and then creating a sensible strategy on how to get there. Generally speaking, each level of collegiate baseball has its own unique set of scholarship limits, academic requirements, financial aid available and level of university athletic financial support.
On my next post we will discuss those various levels of college baseball and see some of the hidden ways to obtain money for school outside the realm of athletic scholarships, for any level of academic student.