Do summer baseball right

Summertime, we are getting closer and closer to summer, which is an exciting time and it also can be a nerve wracking time with all the planning and logistics that come with that. Totally understand that aspect of it. But it's also exciting time because you're watching your son or maybe you are the student athlete and you don't have to worry about schoolwork and you are just playing the game and training and focus on getting better, developing your skills and going through this recruiting process. And the purpose of this video is make sure we're getting the most out of summer from a recruiting process standpoint. My name is Alex Swenson. I'm a former Division 1 college coach, Scout and recruiter and now I'm here to help you or your son play at the next level. If you get anything from this video, please smash that like button that thumbs up right down here and subscribe to my channel. I put out a weekly video on recruiting and on the recruiting process and just helping you go through this journey if you will, finding the best college fit. All right, let's hop into it. If you are a sophomore or junior or athlete going into their senior year, this is the prime time for recruiting, alright? It is the hottest time of the year and we want to make sure we're maximizing our opportunities, right? Because college coaches are done with their season and they're done with their athletes coaching up their athletes in college and and those athletes are out playing summer baseball or out recovering during the summer and they're not worried about them. All they're worried about is recruiting. And in the college world, recruiting is the bloodline to the program, to their program, right? And they're out trying to find the best athletes for their program, trying to find the positions that they are need in their particular class that they're looking for. And again, we want to maximize our exposure from this and we want to do this through our video and we also want to do this by letting coaches know where we're going to be or go to them. Now when I say summertime, this is important, okay? I am including everything that comes with recruiting in the summertime. I'm not just talking about summer organizations, okay? Because summer organizations in my opinion are really overrated. Now with that said, there are definitely good ones out there, but there are bad ones out there. There's ones that have gotten just way, way, way too big. Hundreds and hundreds of players, thousands of players and they have all these teams and they're going to these tournaments and there's no college scouts there Right. And if you're going for recruiting purse, especially if you're a junior or a sophomore junior, and you're going for recruiting and there's no college scouts there, then what are we doing? Right. That's not, that's not. Help him from the recruiting. Now this, this can help from a skill development standpoint. Absolutely. You want to. Do you want to be keeping that on the forefront of your mind, skill development, because that's the most important part in the recruiting process. But you can also do that at home, right. You don't have to travel around the region or the country to get skill development. Right. You can play, do that at home, play local games with your trainers. Do you know, practice on your own. Hey, have pops work, work with you again, have trainers with you and then also go on the recruiting trail and get in front of these. So I'm talking about everything that includes summer baseball camps, showcases and tournaments and organizations. If you're watching this, you might be already very well linked up with an organization, and that's fine. Just make sure that these organizations are transparent with you of where you're going and, and do they know if college coaches are going to be at these events and you're going to know if you're a parent at least going to these events, you should be eyeballing, hey, are there college scouts out here watching our team and my son to again, maximize further. If they're not, then you might want to reconsider traveling all across the region, traveling all across the country and finding better solutions to maximize exposure to these college coaches, which are good showcases, right? Good showcases. Have college coaches at them and you know, the college coaches that are at them and they're the college coaches that actually have an impact on recruiting. There's college camps. You can go to these schools. Right. And making sure we're going to the camps that are the recruiting events, usually the prospect camps or the camps that have high school athletes that are invited to the camp. And usually when you go to a college camp, you want to make sure if you're going to go to that one because you can't go to all of them. Right. There's a lot of schools out there. You want to make sure you're going to the top three or top five that you are most interested from your target school list. Okay. And you want to make sure your target school list is maximized. It is a lot of schools. You narrow that on down. So if you're a sophomore, it might not make sense for you to go to a college camp right away. Unless you really advanced ahead in this recruiting process, your measurables, your physicality, your actions, your projectability is pretty high and you're kind of ready to go. But if you're not there yet, which I wasn't there when I was in high school, then it might not make sense for you to go to college camps, but maybe do a showcase to get on radars, play in tournaments, work on your skill development. But that's when I'm talking about, hey, the summer time. It's not just summer organizations, okay? And what I also want to go into is making sure coaches know where you're going to be, alright? Sending out your schedule, letting them know that either hey, I'm going to be here, I'm going to be at this showcase or I'm going to be at this tournament or I'm going to come to this, this camp and I'm going, coming to your camp, that is really, really important so coaches know where you're going to be. The next thing is when you're on this recruiting trail and recruiting hunt. This is super helpful for most athletes. It was for me and I've seen this, working with my guys is, hey, when you're out playing the game, when you're out at a showcase, when you're at a camp, do your best to forget about recruiting, totally forget about recruiting. Because if you're thinking recruiting, recruiting, recruiting, recruiting all the time, usually you're going to play really, really tense. You need to relax and play like you have nothing to lose, alright? Which frankly, it is the case. Guys, you know this recruiting and playing in college is amazing. It's amazing. And what I do for a living is help athletes go for that and help them play at the next level. But at the end of the day, you're going to have a much longer life after baseball than you do playing, playing in college. So you playing relaxed, you playing like you don't have anything to lose, all right? Is going to help you play better and help you honestly be more attracted to college coaches. Because there's players out there a lot and I sympathize with them because I was this earlier on in my career in high school because I was really tense. I was like, I have to perform, I have to do this, I have to make sure this rather than I'm out there playing my game. And then when you're off the field and hey, you are, you know, you're doing everything that you need to in the recruiting process off the field to make sure you maximize exposure. Your school is talking to college coaches, etc. Off field, yeah, you're doing that. But when you're going to step on the field, it's a. You're loosey goosey, all right? Like you have nothing to lose. You're playing aggressive, you're playing loose, you're having fun. That's where you want it. That's how you're going to maximize your summer experience as we go. And lastly, to wrap this video up, make sure you keep in video, okay? Mom or dad or brother or sister, uncle, grandma, grandfather, keep video. Because if you're a. If you're having a great summer, you have a great game, you have a great tournament, you have a great showcase, have captured that. So you can send that out to college coaches again to maximize exposure. Because not every college is going to be at your tournament. Not everybody's gonna be at your game. So we want to utilize technology, maximize exposure from that standpoint. Okay? So take video update your personal recruiting video. And if you haven't created a personal recruiting video, make sure you're creating a personal recruiting video as we go through this process. And hey, play loose, play with fun, play aggressive, and have a great summer.