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Recruiting College Baseball Players: The Most Effective Way to Recruit
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Inspiration

Why This Driving Question?
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While baseball is Americas greatest past time, and people know the game of baseball itself, often parents, teachers, counselors, and even coaches don't know the steps that can be taken for students to continue on playing and receive financial support.  As a high school baseball coach, I was able to place students in schools all around the country and they were able to play and get financial support.  I was frustrated by the process I saw around me at the lack of knowledge to take advantage of the colleges out there that can meet the needs of student athletes. 

Moving on to junior college, I had a similar experience. Because I don't have control over other schools and other people, I decided to put my focus on how to best communicate with four-year college coaches to successfully move my players on to the next level. The question was then born, what is the best way to share information about players to coaches so that they are able to see the whole player. 

When high school athletes go to junior college to continue their education and pursue the sport of baseball, they intend to move on from junior college to a four-year college or to go to play professionally and get drafted.  As junior college coaches, the goal is to place all sophomore players in one of those spots.  Often the goal is to find a four-year college that offers them scholarships to play at a high level of baseball and finish their schooling.  Colleges strive to place those students, and the question then becomes, what is the best way for college baseball players to be recruited? Is it to make connections with coaches, to email, call, have players observed, send video, or is it one of these, a few of these, or all of these ways of contacting other coaches and schools to move players on to the next level?  The aim/purpose of this study is to provide players with data to increase their chances of acceptance to college baseball programs. There is a need for a more efficient application process so that talented players are not overlooked. The research question for this study was: what is the most effective method of contacting coaches for players when applying to baseball programs at the college level?

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​Personal Experience/This Project:
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In 1991 my family moved from Southern California to Northern California, almost at the most crucial point of my athletic career. I quickly found out that who you know can unfortunately play a dramatic part in how far you go in athletics.  

After playing at an extremely high level of baseball my whole young career, I somehow managed to not make a little league team when I was 12 years old. Had it not been for my dad and his best friend that started an expansion team for all the players that didn’t get picked, I probably would have nothing to do with baseball.  Not only did that expansion team they formed win our league my 12-year-old year, but we won the state and the Little League All-Star team that had a majority of that team went on to play in the Little League World Series. It was at that moment that I understood how politics and marketing could help or prevent a player’s career.  

My struggle to make teams continued from 13 to 15, on into high school. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that my talents proved enough to get the opportunities that I deserved.  Thinking that because my talent was way above and beyond anyone else, I figured high school baseball and my coach would help me get into college to play baseball. Once again, I found out the hard way that this was not the case. I ended up at a junior college so that I could continue my dream of playing baseball at the next level. Not until college did the best player always get the opportunity to play. It was a huge relief that the only thing that stood in the way of me playing or not was myself.

​It is amazing to think that my baseball career went from not making a little league team to playing division I baseball and getting drafted by the Houston Astro’s in the 1999 amateur draft. My personal experience has led me to create this project hoping high school players hopefully reach their goal in finding a perfect fit to play college baseball.

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Research

Design Process

Support and Next Steps