D1 Coach tells truth about recruiting

Hey, how you doing? Alex here. Thank you so much for joining me. And in today's video, I'm going to be covering eight topics that I feel are important going through this college recruiting process that I have observed being a former Division 1 college coach, Scout and recruiter and now helping high school athletes and their parents go through this college recruiting process. So hopefully you take something away from this video. If you do, please smash that, like, button that thumbs up, which is right down here, and subscribe to my channel. I put out a weekly video on the recruiting process and how to just get better on and off the field. All right, let's get into it. Number one is it's hard to be seen. And you need to make sure you're going out of your way to get exposure to be seen, because it's hard to be seen. There's 483,000 high school baseball players in this country and not very many college recruiters. Okay. Max amount on a staff. There's three. Three coaches that are actually involved in the recruiting realm and that's max. Sometimes it's just two and sometimes it's just one coach that actually doing the majority of the recruiting. So they could only be so many places. They can only see so many players. So you need to be making sure that you are maximizing your exposure. We're going to talk a little bit about how to do that. But high school season is tough to be seen. And why is that the case? Because college coaches are actually playing in their season. Right, Right now, the timing of this recording, they're in the back stretch of their, their season and getting ready and going and hunting for playoffs. Okay. A lot of these teams are trying to secure spots in the playoffs or to get a, the best seed that they possibly can in their tournament. So, you know, they're, they're not that focused on recruiting. Even though recruiting is 24 7. They're also trying to win and keep their job, frankly. And because a lot of these programs, especially Division one, you don't. And at the high level, you don't win. You're not a coach for very long. Okay. And it's a tough thing because these college coaches are coaching a lot and really when it comes down to it, they're depending on 18 to 21 year olds to keep their job. So it is, it's pretty wild out there. But also the summer, fall and even winter time is the best time to be seen. So we're going into the summer. But the thing is, there's a lot of tournaments that Go on. But tournaments are actually not the best way to be seen. Why? Because there's so many tournaments out there. Coaches are spread thin. They're all spread all over across the place, and there's so many games at so many different locations that again, it's just all spread out. Usually showcases and camps are the best way to be seen. And you want to make sure when you're going to a showcase that you're trying to decide on a showcase that their college programs are confirmed there in that you know that which college coaches are going to be there. That is usually the most helpful to know because just because a college program is going to say that they're going to be there and maybe it's a great school. It could be a volunteer coach that there. That doesn't really have anything to do with the recruiting process. Now, I was a volunteer. I understand this, but also know how the game works on this side. The main recruiters is the recruiting coordinator, the other assistant coach, and even sometimes the head coach as well. Okay, so there's some nuance to all this, but making sure that it's actually the recruiting coordinator or the head coach or one of the recruiting assistants. Number two, for the majority of us, this is going to be really hard. The recruiting process is hard. Do you know what the success rate is to play at the next level from Division 1, Division 2, Division 3? It's 7%. And do you know what the success rate to play at Division 1? It's about 2.1 or 2.2%. So out of all those high school kids, 483,000 2.1% are going to go on and play at the Division 1 level, and that's around 2%, 2.1, 2.3, 2.4 for Division 2 and Division 3 as well, totaling around 7%. Okay. And that's not including JUCO or Naive together. That's about 10% for JUCO in NAIA schools. So this is hard. All right. The success rate is not very good. It's actually harder to play in college than it is to be a Navy SEAL. Navy SEALs is about 25% success rate to be a college athlete. I mean, you're 10% or 7%, depending on which level you're going to go after going through this and get used to being ignored, get used to being, saying no to. So if you're an athlete, that was like me. I got said no to so many times. I got ignored so many times. But I stayed the course. I stayed disciplined to what I needed to be doing. And doing the correct steps to go through this recruiting process. Number three is don't sit on the sidelines. Don't sit and just wait for somebody to come to you or hope that you're going to be found. Because remember, number one is it's really hard to be seen. It's hard to be found. You need to be proactive in this college recruiting process. You need to go and recruit these schools. You need to, again, be proactive and put yourself in situations where you're going to be in front of college coaches that are going to be a good fit for you. Number four is have somebody with experience help you with. Now, that might be your high school coach, that might be your summer ball coach. That might be somebody like me because I do this. But again, it doesn't have to be me. It could be your summer ball coach that they. They know what they're doing and they've helped a lot of guys go through this process and they know to go through the correct first steps. It's not just like, hey, you know, you'll be seen. No, you have a strategic plan of what you need to be doing. Because going at this blind is really, really tough, okay? Being a parent or a student athlete and just trying to do this on your own and not knowing certain information that is not available really, to just the general public, it's really tough, okay? And that could be stuff like who's recruiting your position? Are they in need? Are they in need? Are they even recruiting your class and your position there? So stuff just like that. Just get some help. Get some help going through. There's nothing wrong. It's actually, in my opinion, you're really hurting yourself if you're not getting help through this. Number five is actually the most important thing in this college recruiting process, and that is your skill development. You have to have a certain skill set to play at the next level. Now, the beautiful thing about this is there's all different skill sets at the next level. As you guys know, there's division one and there's tiers. I like to categorize them as in three tiers. You got the power fives, the highest level, the SEC, ACC, etc. You got the mid majors and you got some lower division ones. All of them amazing talent, but different skill sets. Then you got Division 2, then you got Division 3, and then you have NAIA and you have JUCO. All right? Again, all different skill sets. There's 1500 schools out there, and if you have a skill set under you and you're starter on your varsity and you're making an impact on your varsity team, more than likely there's going to be a spot for you to play. Now, it might not be at the Division 1 level, or it might be at the Division 1 level, but it also might be at the Division 3 level. And you being open minded about this and understanding your skill set, this is all about skillset. Understanding your skillset and developing your skill set and being realistic. You should have reach schools, schools that are, hey, a little bit out of reach, but you feel like you might be able to get there. And then you should have target schools, schools that are more realistic for you, right? From a skill set standpoint, academic standpoint, geographic standpoint, financial standpoint, socially, all these things, doing your research on that, and then some safe schools, safe schools that you feel like, hey, I feel really confident that I could play there. And real quick, the second most important thing in this recruiting process is, is you being proactive in this recruiting process, you attacking this recruiting process. Because if you don't work, really, for most often, this doesn't work well. All right? There's that small majority of kids, that small minority, I should say, of kids that go through this recruiting process and they get picked up really easy. Yes, it's easy. For them it is, all right? But for the majority of us, it's not going to be easy. Again, if you're an athlete like me, it's not going to be easy for you because I wasn't that standout athlete going through this recruiting process, all right? I wasn't like that 6,5 guy throwing 92 miles an hour as a freshman or sophomore, okay? I was not that guy. The sixth thing that I want to talk about is the weight room, and we just talked about the skill sets, okay? But the weight room can improve your skill sets almost faster than anything. You being consistent in the weight room, in developing your strength, developing your mobility, developing your cores and your legs can really help your skill set and get you stronger as far as just throwing and hitting and also being more stable in the field, working on your footwork. These things that you do in the weight room can improve your skill set dramatically. So lock in, not only focus on your skill set for your particular position, but really should be consistent and focused in the weight room. Number seven is target a lot of schools, guys. If you're just going after one or two schools, you're not giving yourself very good chances, right? But if you target 30, 40, 50 schools, you're maximizing your chances as much as you possibly can rather than just going one, two, three or five schools. Okay. And then this goes back to having somebody help you with experience. Target schools that are recruiting your position. A lot of people don't understand that not all the schools are recruiting all positions. The only position that really do that is like right handed pitcher and left handed pitcher. But they might be finished in that class. Right of right handed pitchers or left handed pitchers. They're just not in need of arms anymore. Maybe be in need of a catcher or a center fielder or a shortstop and they might not be in need of a catcher or a shortstop or a center fielder that year. Target the schools that are recruiting because the last thing that you want to go is go to a camp and they're not even recruiting your position. That's the last thing that you want to do. It's a waste of time and money. All right, so for focus on maximizing your school list and targeting schools that are recruiting your position. And number eight, last one is maximize your exposure with technology. Have a personal recruiting video that is going to help you and highlight your best qualities as a player, maybe even as a student. Flash your grades up there, your gpa, your test scores, if they're super good and highlight your best skills as a, as a. For. This is an example as a catcher. Okay, I'm going to highlight my, my catching skill set, my pop times and receiving and blocking really quickly and also my hitting. I don't need to highlight my running because you know, if I run really well, yes, go for it. But most catchers don't run really well, so we don't need to show our 60 time. Okay? So highlight your best skill sets and what you do well and highlight them in the beginning of the video so it catches the attention of the college coaches and make sure your video is short and, and sweet. All right, 92 minutes to 90 seconds. That's all you need, guys. And that's all the college coaches need to see you. And the purpose of this from exposures. Hey, I like what I see. They get engagement with you and then they, they come see you. That would be the next step because they need to see you live eventually. All right, team, hopefully you got something from this video. I was super pumped to do this one because I thought there was a lot of important topics that I wanted to cover. But again, thanks for staying this long. Smash that like button. Subscribe and I will see you in the next video.