5 Major Mistakes In Recruiting - Avoid These!

Hey, team Alex here. Thanks for joining me. And in today's video, we're going to be talking about the five major mistakes that student athletes and their parents make going through this recruiting process. And hopefully this helps you avoid making those mistakes. And this can really be applied to any sport. I specialize in baseball. I'm a former Division 1 baseball coach with 11 years of experience. But you can apply this to any sport. So if you're watching this, you play football, basketball, soccer, or you know anybody, you can feel free to share this with anybody going through this recruiting process. I know most of my audience are baseball guys, but again, if you have a sister or brother going through this, you can use this as well because this applies to all of the sports. But there was something I wanted to share with you guys this past weekend that I read that brought back memories for me. And I used to love baseball cards. I collected baseball cards. I put them in a folder, put them in the, you know, they're each individual spot and collect all the players as I win. And I read and I read this kind of trivia this past weekend of when was the first baseball set created? So think about that. When was the first baseball set created? I'm gonna actually give you three options. You guessed and I will of course give you the answer. So Was it A, 1886, B, 1893 or C, C, 1906? Think about that for a second. All right, it is a. 1886 was the first baseball card set. And the first baseball card set was created by the company Old Judge Cigarettes. Yes, cigarettes. The baseball card set came in a box of cigarettes. And the reason the company made these baseball cards was to help the cigarette box be more stable and actually stay upright and try to garner more attention and more appeal to their product. But I'm sure they weren't even aware that they created a whole new industry of collectible cards. And the cool thing about their cards that there's only 12 cards in it and six of the players that were in it are hall of Famers. So super, super cool there. Alright, let's get in today's video and if you get anything from today's video, please smash that, like button that thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. I put out a weekly video on recruiting how to get better on and off the field. Okay, guys, let's get into it. All right, team, we're going to get into number one. And by the way, these are no particular order, all of these are important. You could be making number one or number five or Number three or a combination of these five. This recruiting process is super personalized, should be super personalized. It shouldn't be a blanket. Everybody kind of do the same thing. No, no, no, no. That is not the case at all. And that's for another video. But I'm going to kind of go into this and really it's going to be with the first one of how it's not personalized. But number one is the timing of getting in front of college coaches. Some student athletes are too early and some student athletes are too late. Let's get to talk about too early just really quickly, okay? Hey, if you are not developed maybe on the field or academically and just not ready to go or coming back from an injury, you shouldn't be getting in front of college coaches and getting eval as far as evaluation on their end. Meaning, hey, are you good enough to play for us now? You should be getting eval from credible coaches or somebody that knows what they're doing. Absolutely. To see where you can improve. But from a college coach is the schools that you're interested in, hey, you need to understand when you should be getting in front of them. And then there's too late student athletes. Some of these student athletes, they just, hey, they don't know what to be doing. It's not necessarily their fault. This is one category of too late. They just don't know what to be doing, or they think they should be waiting till the end of junior year or around junior year or senior year. It's just too late for a lot of these schools. And again, it depends on the schools. If you watch any of my channels, you'll be able to know that you can go back and watch some of those or reach out to me. If you guys ever have any questions, comment down below. But it's either too late, okay, or there's another category of like, hey, if I'm good enough, they'll find me. And absolutely, there. There's a. There's a section of players that if they're good enough, they'll be found. But by the way, if you're a senior, hey, you're not in that category. Usually those guys are getting recruited. Freshmen are sophomore year. As far as committing, okay. If you're a junior or senior, hey, we need to find better ways to get exposed and get in front of college coaches and finding that right, you know, college fit. So that is, number one, mistake. Number two is targeting the wrong schools. And what do I mean by that? There's two things that I want to Cover, you could be targeting the wrong schools because they're not recruiting your position. Maybe they're not in need of your position. Or it can have some factors involved. Maybe it's their current roster that they're just not in need depending on your year because they are fully loaded at that position. Or it could be the year before your recruiting class. So if you're a 2023, what did they do in the 2022 class? Or it could be even your current class. Maybe they've already recruited that position and they're not in need. And then the second thing is you're targeting the wrong schools because it doesn't fit your skill set for your position. That's super, super important. Now that all said, I want you to have a wide range of schools. That's the key word, wide range of schools. I want you to go after the best schools possible for you that you're interested in. Some of you guys are interested in Vandy, some of you guys are interested in Florida, some of you guys are interested in Texas or ucla. That is great. Those are the top programs in the country. And who am I to tell you not to go after that? I'm not nobody to tell you that. Okay? But that said, I can give you good direction off that or somebody that knows what they're doing. They give you a true evaluation of telling you how realistic is that? And that's why I said wide range. You want to go after, hey, some of you do want to go after the top schools but you should also be going after some mid level schools and some safe schools, okay? D1s, D2s, D3s. Junior college can be a good fit for a lot of guys. And of course there's naia. So think about that as you go and get a true unbiased eval. And this is dependent. Okay, so real quick example. If you're a right handed pitcher that throws 82 miles an hour and you're a senior, you're not going to play for Vanderbilt. I'm here to tell you that they're not going to recruit you. Okay? But if you throw 82 miles an hour as a freshman, there might be opportunity. They're going to watch you develop, they're going to watch you and see how you develop and what's your projectability, what's your body type, how's your actions, how your mechanics, all of these certain things that they're going to look on their list, okay, that there might be possibilities. So there's different timings of this depending on if You're a freshman, you're a sophomore, you're junior, and you're senior. And seniors still have opportunities to go places. It just might not be Vanderbilt, guys, okay? It just might not be Vanderbilt. So that take that into consideration as you go. Mistake number three is playing on the wrong baseball organizations or playing summer ball in general or fall ball or winter ball, going to the wrong camps, going to the wrong showcases, going to the wrong tournaments, and basically just wasting time and money in that area. So what do I mean by all that, by the way? There are some great organizations out there, but the unfortunate thing is there's a lot of bad organizations out there that just have. Frankly, there's too many kids, way too many teams, and they promise things that just aren't realistic because they have thousands of kids. And I did a video about this in the past of why summer baseball doesn't make sense for most kids. If you are not on the top team, it usually does not make sense. It's not worth it, okay? Because the top team is getting all of the attention. All the other teams are really just not getting the attention. And you, you probably know this. If you. On a summer organization or fall organization or winter organization, I mean, what's happening at your games? Are there college scouts there? If the answer is no, okay. It probably doesn't make a lot of sense. Now there are. And this goes into depending on what you're doing this for, okay? If you're doing this for development, to get games, get abs, get swings, okay? That makes sense. Play locally. Okay? Play locally or play an organization that you trust. And coaches that are good coaching is super important in this process, especially as a high school. One of the. I talk to college coaches all the time and they ask is like, they. They need better coaching or they need to be. They. The student athlete also needs to seek out better coaching because a lot of these summer teams and tournaments, it's just like they're out there playing games, but they're not learning how to play the game, if that makes sense. Now, getting your abs, throwing, that's all valuable for development. But are you taking something in? Are you actually learning? Are you enforcing bad habits? Right. That's super important. Then there's on the other side, showcases, camps and tournaments that are good as far as that you can go into and get recruited, okay? But there's also bad ones out there as well. So just making sure you do your homework on this organization and understand what. What are you doing this for? Are you doing this for development? Are you doing this for recruiting. A lot of the development should be done practicing on your own, going with a coach one on one or in a small group setting and working on your skills for your particular position. Pitching lessons, catching lessons, hitting lessons, that developmental thing is super big. But then also games. As far as how are your coaches evaluating that as you go. So that's number three mistake. Number four is parents involvement in the recruiting process and parents behavior. So what do I mean by that Is parents involvement? They're doing everything for their son or their daughter in the recruiting process. They're reaching out to college coaches and parents. You should never reach out to college coaches now. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be involved and help your son or daughter go through this and edit their their drafts of their emails, etc. From there. But you shouldn't be writing or trying to communicate with college coaches. I'm going to put this to you just straight up front. College coaches do not want to talk to you. They do not want to talk to parents. You guys are super biased. There's been a lot of horror stories with parents and college coaches and all they want to do is deal with the student athlete when they're ready to commit an offer. They are way more open to parents and talking them through going over the black and white of what all that looks like. But they just want to deal with the student athlete and they want to see engagement from the student athlete. They want to see proactiveness. It shows a sign of maturity. Bringing a guy in for four years is a big deal and they don't want a parent on top of them over them helicopter parents going through that because it doesn't help them much. There's not good signs and studies showing that that helps the athlete much or the person much at all. And then behavior like what are you doing at the game? Are you yelling through the fence? Are you right behind the dugout talking to Johnny and tell him this and that? Are you over talking to the coach and talking strategy even though you're trying not to and be in disguise and everything like that. That really turns off coaches. Let the student athlete play. Let the student athlete be proactive. Have somebody help you, right? If you're not sure what to be doing in this recruitment process, have somebody help you. Whether it's me or somebody else, have somebody help you go through this recruiting process. And again doesn't mean that you are completely out of the picture, but let the student athlete go through this and let them learn and go by the correct steps in the recruiting process and help them. All right? There's just too many do it for you parents. Like I'm going to do everything for you and not do it with you or help guide them through this recruiting process. And last but not least, mistake number five, and that is doing stupid things on social media. Guys, please, please, please be smart on social media. Make sure that you're not posting anything or retweeting or resharing that paints any negative light on yourself, okay? Or it gives these coaches a red flag where it kind of turns them off, it pauses them or worst case scenario, makes them go in a different direction. Character. And what you're doing on social media is just, you know, unfortunately now a part of the recruiting process because there's been too many mistakes and too many red flags of people and student athletes going through this. So be really, really smart and make sure that you're also using social media to your advantage because Twitter is actually, Twitter is probably the best out of all those that I mentioned that can help your recruiting. Okay? Make sure you utilizing Twitter and reaching out, putting your personal recruiting video on there, etc. Some of the top things that you do well, your top attributes going through that, that can, that can help a lot. Guys, I hope you got something from this video. Hopefully this makes you think and helps you avoid making any of these mistakes. If you have any questions or comments or want to contact me, please go down below. You can go in the description, you can get a hold of me there and you can also comment. If there's anything that you want me to cover, please let me know. A lot of the videos that I do is from you, all about comments and questions for me to cover. So I'm happy, happy to do that and I'm here just to help as much as I possibly can. And don't forget to smash that like button and subscribe to my channel. I'll see you in the next video. Take care.