Alex Swenson (former D1 coach and recruiter) explains how recent shifts—transfer portal activity, roster volatility, and extended JUCO eligibility—have made college recruiting harder for high-school baseball players and their parents. He offers practical, tactical advice: be proactive in outreach, target schools that need your position and fit athletically/academically, use a polished highlight video as a digital resume, prefer showcases/camps to tournaments for coach exposure, and stay resilient and open-minded about all collegiate levels.
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The college recruiting process has drastically changed, as you probably are aware. With all of the changes like the transfer portal and the chaos that has created to roster cuts now and then, it looks like potentially junior college players are going to get an extra year or two of eligibility, which all of these factors have just made it harder for the high school baseball player and their parents, frankly, to navigate this and to know what to do. It can be kind of overwhelming with all the different moving parts, especially if you haven't done this before, you don't know exactly what you are doing. It's good to have our own map and we're going to be talking about that today. And if you're new to my channel, my name is Alex Swenson. I'm A former Division 1 college coach, scout and recruiter with 11 years of experience. And now what I do is help high school baseball players and their parents navigate the college recruiting process and put them in the best possible position to play and at the next level. And I'm happy to say through my recruiting program, we've had more high school commits over the last couple months than any time through this. Over the about six years I've been doing this, especially with all of this new landscape of recruiting. So super excited. And basically what I do is help with the exposure process, getting noticed, getting seen, get on the radars of these college coaches, to the communication process, to to showcases and camps. I'm sure you guys get emails all the time, come to this and come to that and what's worth it, what's not. There's a lot out there that is not worth it. And also highlight video to showcase your son's best qualities as a player. And then also the premier athletes platform, having a profile on there which is really important for college baseball coaches and the high school athletes. All right. And if you have any questions you're interested in maybe potentially working with me, please visit my website down below. You can schedule a call and we can talk to see if this is a good fit going forward. So let's talk about how to navigate the new recruiting landscape. The first thing is we have to make sure that we are proactive. Not just sitting back and hoping to be found or just winging it and going to random tournaments and just relying on travel baseball, that is not the best way to go about it. We need to be proactive. We with our outreach and targeting the right schools. Which comes to number two, targeting the best fit for your son athletically, academically and finding schools that are recruiting your son's position. Not every school's in need of every position each year. So targeting the schools that are recruiting your son's position is going to be very, very important. Think of it as like job openings. You wouldn't apply to a job if they didn't have your specialty, right? You want to go after what the openings are. That's very important as we go through this. So targeting the right schools again, finding the right athletic standards that are going to fit your son. Because going after schools with not the right athletic standards, you're going to waste a lot of time and potentially fail at this recruiting process. Also, number three, leveraging a good highlight video. This can go a long way. Showcasing your son's best qualities as a player, highlighting what he's done well statistically, metrics, grades, of course. And this is a great way to send out. You could send a highlight video to 50 to 100 coaches and this can really get the ball rolling. And think of it as a digital resume, right? When if you apply to a job, the first thing is you need to send a resume. But the highlight video is that. And then you get in front of the person, you really sell yourself there. That is the best way as far as from an exposure to start going through this recruiting process and then showcases and camps, making sure that you are going to the right ones and that it's worth going to you guys. Again, get invites all the time. Come to this and come to that. Travel ball and tournaments are becoming obsolete now. It's not a good way. Think about this, right? Are college coaches showing up to your tournaments or even games likely? The answer is no. You think about it, right? Are you seeing a bunch of college scouts there at your games and at your tournaments? Again, likely it's no. It's not necessarily your fault or anything. It's just not the best way to go about this. Not the best way for college coaches to find you. What is it? It's showcases and camps now. Okay, showcases, camps where we're going to a showcase which is preferably two days. It has games and a pro style with it. And there's 20 to 50 college coaches there that we're getting exposure to over a weekend. A tournament is not going to give you that. Or a camp that's hey, looking for your position that fits you athletically and academically and that you've had some communication with these college coaches that that goes a long way and helps with this process. And lastly, stay resilient and stay open minded to the other levels. Why do I say resilient this recruiting process can be hard, all right. It can be pretty brutal. You can get nose, you can get ghosted, as the kids say these days, or just get silent treatment. You're not hearing anything right? Make sure you stay resilient and, and that you stay proactive going through this and then also open minded to the D3s, the D2s, even juco, if that makes sense. In NAIA, there's great baseball at all of these levels. And really what we're hoping for and trying to get, even though some athletes don't see this quite yet as far, especially in high school, is the overall college experience. Because a lot of people can get super and see the super shininess of all the D1s and you know how sexy that is. But what we're really trying to do is the overall experience and everything that you get to be and from being a college athlete, which is the brotherhood, right? The team environment, the leaderships, the ups and downs, the learning, resiliency going through this. That's what it's all about. So hey, stay resilient. If you have any questions, let me know. Take care.
