How do high school athletes commit SO EARLY?

If college coaches can't talk and communicate with high school baseball players until September 1st of their junior year, how is it sophomores and even freshmen commit so early? How is that possible? Well, we're going to get into that. We're going to get to the nuance in the gray areas of this in today's video. And if you're new to my channel, my name is Alex Swenson. I'm a former Division 1 college baseball coach, scout, and recruiter. And now what I do is I help talented high school baseball athletes go through this recruiting process, help them find the best college fit for them, help them find schools that are recruiting their position. That's super important because not every school's in need of every position every year and dive into that. But I also put out these videos as well on a weekly basis. So if you get anything from this video, please smash that, like, button that thumbs up right down here and subscribe to my channel. Again, I put out a weekly video on the recruiting process and just how to get better on and off the field. All right, let's dive in. So as of this recording, it is September 1, 2022, which is a big day in recruiting. You might be watching it on this date, but you also might be watching a little bit later into September, which is perfectly fine. It's a big month from a recruiting standpoint. And the reason for that is college coaches can now initiate contact with. With high school baseball players going into September 1st of their junior year. So basically, juniors, they can initiate the contact before this date. They cannot initiate contact. They cannot start the conversation for recruiting other than some gray areas which we're going to get into. But I want to kind of lay down the groundwork. So NCAA sets the rules, all these different rules in the recruiting, and one of them is, is for baseball, specifically in other sports as well, is college coach cannot initiate Division 1, and Division 2, in particular, cannot initiate contact until September 1st of the player's junior year. Okay. Now they can initiate contact. And if a college coach has to initiate contact with you, that's okay. It's good to be proactive in this process, make sure you're reaching out. But even before September 1st, you can reach out. You can be the initiator to college coaches. Okay. You can initiate that contact from that standpoint. Okay. Now, what are the gray areas to all this? How are these sophomores and freshmen committing so early if the college coaches can't talk to you or initiate that contact with you? Well, number one is college camps that owns Their own specific college camps. They can talk and communicate with you at those camps. That's a big thing. Especially going into the fall. We have a quiet period right now. The quiet period, remember, is college coaches cannot leave their campus and do in person recruiting or in person evaluations of the athlete. They can only do it on campus. Okay, now we're going to be getting into September, which we are right now of this time frame where we'll go into the contact period. We'll be able to go out and go to showcases and or tournaments, but it's very short window. And then in October we go back to the quiet period where they can only recruit on their campus. And again, this is where college camps are really important, especially the ones that you feel like it's a good fit for you, but they can talk to you there. So if you're a sophomore or you're a freshman, they can talk to you there, even offer you there. But you can also, before September one of your junior year, you can call coaches. Now college coaches aren't just. Their cell phones aren't just relatively available for anybody to call them. If they were, you know, they couldn't. Their phone wouldn't stop ringing. Right. Usually they tell a high school coach or summer travel ball coach or a travel coach or a person like me to tell a player that they like to call them at a certain time time. Because again, the player can initiate contact before September 1, and then the college coach can talk recruiting. As long as the player initiates that contact. That's where the ball gets rolling. So they could, they could set it up as like, hey, tell Johnny to call me at seven o'clock tonight and coach will be ready. Johnny calls, seven o', clock, they talk and they can talk free game from the recruiting standpoint. And then they could set up a fall every maybe two weeks or every other, you know, every once a month, depending on where they're at in the recruiting cycle. That's usually how it is done from that standpoint. So going into this fall especially make sure if you're definitely, even if you're a junior right now and college coaches can initiate, take a look at certain college camps, make sure they're recruiting your position. Also make sure it's a recommendation, really good fit athletically. There's so many good levels of college baseball from Division 1 to Division 2, Division 3. Make sure you're taking a look at this college camp so they can evaluate you. Some good things to look at for college camps is one you're gonna probably do A pro style. Most college camps do a pro style, but look for camps where you play a. You. You do a pro style, meaning you run a 60, you hit and you throw pro, but you want to play games as well. That's really, really important because game performance is obviously really important. And getting an evaluation off of a pro style workout, meaning running to 60, throwing a bullpen, taking ground balls and hitting, that's not a true, true evaluation. You need to see the player in game. So just be wary of that. From certain showcases. There's so many showcases and camps out there that you want to go to the right ones. There's a lot out there, and unfortunately, there's a lot of bad ones out there and you want to go to the right one. So take a look at that. So again, September 1st for the juniors out there, college coach can now initiate contact with you. And if they haven't initiated contact with you, that's okay. All right. You're still very much in the window of the recruiting process from all of the levels especially. Okay. So many people think that they're late in the game of recruiting because they aren't committed their junior year. That's just kind of honestly crazy. And that's where we are, though, these days. I can understand with social media and Twitter and all that commits that happen sophomore and freshman year, they're super loud, right? They're super loud. And you almost feel like everybody's committing, but I'm not committing. That's not the case. Around probably 70, 75% of all commits that play at the next level happen junior year, the summer after their junior year. So, hey, ease yourself into it. Make sure you're being proactive in this process. Target these camps this summer. Three key things that you can focus. And when I say summer, I meant fall. We're in the fall. Three key things, all right, is development, development, development. That has to be the foundation of this recruiting process. You have to develop your skills. Strength training should be right there alongside it. Get strong, work on your athleticism. And then also three, get in front of college coaches at their individual camps or in that window of the contact period. There's certain showcases that are good out there that a lot of college coaches are at. Honestly, fall ball. You guys might have heard me say, this really overrated travel ball is overrated, in my opinion, because it's just gotten way too big. There's way too many teams that don't add any value from a developmental standpoint and recruit standpoint. All right, my rant is over. If you have any questions, please comment down below and I will see you in the next video. Take care.