6 Recruiting Pitfalls to Avoid (So You're Not Miserable)

Hey, team Alex here. Thanks for joining me. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about the six pitfalls of the college baseball recruiting process. So you avoid these pitfalls and so you are not miserable going through this. I went through this college recruiting process and I did a few of these things and I was miserable. I did these things until I had somebody actually help me come and turn it around. So hopefully this helps you. And if you're new to my channel, my name is Alex Switzerland. I'm a former Division 1 college baseball coach, scout and and recruiter with 11 years of experience. And now what I do is help high school baseball players and their parents navigate this college recruiting process and put them in the best possible position to play at the next level. I had such a great experience being a college student athlete, in particular a baseball player. It changed my life in so many ways and helped me prepare for life after baseball. Now I'm just trying to give that back to as many guys as I possibly can. So if you get anything from this video, please smash that, like, button that thumbs up right down here. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, put out a weekly video and also podcasts as well so you can find me on premier athletes with podcasts. So if you like this, please subscribe and write a review as we go. But let's hop right into it. So the number one thing to avoid so you are not miserable going through this college recruiting process. So this is one of six, so stay with me here. Is constantly comparing yourself to players. I see players do this and I also see parents and I get that. I'm a parent as well. But we want to make sure we have blinders on going through this college recruiting process. You ever see horses race and you'll see that those jockeys will put things over their eyes so they can only see right in front of them. There's no distractions. It blocks the distractions and blocks the other horses that are running the the race so they can focus on where they need to go and what they need to do. That is how we have to go about this college recruiting process. Because what does it do to compare yourself to other athletes in a negative light? Because I typically see I'm better than that player. How did he commit to this school? That does no good. You can compare yourself to players on how to get better, right? What is that player doing that I could do better or what? What is that player doing wrong to make sure I avoid those things? There is some benefit to that, but I'm Talking specifically of recruiting, you see it on social media. You have commitments here, commitments there. Keep your blinders on and focus on the foundation of the college recruiting process, which is skill development, academics, weight training and mental performance. Again, focus just on this and then the pyramid of the recruiting process. And if you follow my channel, you know about the pyramid and kind of the steps to go through this recruiting process. But the foundation is the most important part. Okay, don't compare yourself. All right? Number two, zero proactivity with reaching out to schools. And I see a lot of this as hoping to be found. I hope that a school will find me. Guys, hope is not a good strategy. I understand this. I did some of this and I was just sitting there on my front porch with crickets hoping. Again, hope is not a good strategy. You want to be proactive. That is a good strategy. And, and there's also other mindsets out there that, hey, if I'm good enough, they will find me. Also a bad strategy for literally 98, 99% of us because yeah, if you throw 95 miles an hour and you're the Gatorade player of the year and hit 15 home runs in a high school season, sure they're going to find you. But most of us, I was not that. All right? And most of us are not that. And good players get missed every single year going through this college recruiting process. And you don't want to get missed. One of the big things that gets missed is you just sit back and hope to be found. Number three, obsessed with power five schools. This is what I've seen. You want to make sure you avoid this obsessed with power 5 or even D1 or bust mentality. Make sure you're not just focused on the Vanderbilts of the world, the Florida's of the world, the LSU's, the Stanfords, the Arizonas, they're great schools. I coached at a great school. It was amazing, alright, but there's other amazing schools out there as well that may not get the limelight, but are great big baseball programs. Great schools compete really well and beat these bigger schools. So make sure that you are looking at all the levels. Mid majors, division two and division three. NAI and juco, okay, this goes to number four. Will not follow up with smaller schools or will not even reach out to smaller schools. And following up in this college baseball recruiting process is so important. Sending one message to a school and you don't hear back and you just shut it down is not the way. That is not uncommon. These coaches are really, really busy and I've had guys go through my program, they followed up four or five times, and then, boom, things sparked right away. And next thing you know, they're on the phone. Next thing you know, they're on a college visit. Next thing you know, they have an offer. Next thing you know, they're committed. It's boom. It happened that fast. It's slow, slow, slow. It's process, process, process, process. Things happen very fast as we go through this. So making sure we're following up with college coaches. Number five, don't love the game enough. Meaning, I've seen this. This is one instance of it. They are doing and they're trying to commit to a school more for the status of the game, of being committed rather than the love of the game and actually trying to help the team win. Right? Their team, their high school team or their college team, they're doing this all for status, a kind of limelight type of stuff, kind of the braggadocious type of things. That is not the way that's how you're going to be miserable during this college recruiting process. You need to ask yourself, why do you want to play college baseball? And let that guide you through this. And then that comes to number six, is the parents, and lovingly, a lot of ways lovingly are pushing their kids more than what the kids actually want to do. You've seen this probably in, you know, travel ball and all that. We've seen some crazy things in travel ball with parents and things like that. And there's a lot of great parents, but there are some, you know, crazy parents out there as well. And parents are pushing the players more than the player wants to actually play and might that player might just be better off being just a student and going to college and have to play college. So sitting down and having an honest conversation with your parents, or if you're a parent watching this with the player, is this really what they want? Because we want to help them, guide them and direct them of things that they really want to do. And yes, not everything's going to be easy. Things get hard and that's okay. It's part of life. But they got to be able to want to do it and do it for the love of the game and ask themselves, do they love this game and why do they want to play at the next level? So if you would add anything, please comment down below. That is my one through six pitfalls that you want to avoid. So you are not miserable going through this college recruiting process. Anything you would add, comment down below. Reach out to me if you have any questions or need any help going through this, and I'll see you on the next video. Take care.