Numero Uno,
I completely appreciate all you have done for the Travel Softball Community. You were also a huge part of my daughter achieving college success through softball and for that I will always be thankful.
I never respond to post, but the simple ones above truly bothered me.
Being sarcastic, travel ball is not ALL about the money. There is actually still 20% of what's going on out here still giving its best to guide these young ladies in the right direction in order to obtain a college education. The other 80% that is making a living off of what these young ladies are trying to achieve, have screwed the system up so bad that these poor kids can not take off a well needed two months out of the year, because these people can not afford to be without pay for those two months. It's truly Sad!
In regards to the college emails. A player or even a team sending out a 1,000 emails before a showcase is ridiculous! Once again, technology has developed something for LAZY PEOPLE that will allow them, as you said, "to send 1600 emails in a few minutes." What is the purpose? Here's what ends up taking place. Dixie State shows up to your game to see your 2016 Shortstop Nancy Jones. The head Coach from Dixie says, "I received an email from Nancy Jones, we are in need of a 2016 Shortstop." You in return say, "Great, she is playing there right now." The coach ask, "What major is she interested in?" You say,"Architecture, she really wants to pursue a career in Architecture." Coach says, "Our college has nothing to do with Architecture, she obviously did not do her research on our majors and just wasted my time in coming here!"
What is accomplished? Email #347 just pissed off a head college coach. Great Job!
Our players only send out 15-20 emails. The first thing that takes place is we research the colleges they are interested in to assure that the school has the major or majors needed to pursue their career choice. Second we contact the college coach to see if they are in need of our players position and grad year. Once this is achieved, the email and phone call communication is in full force. When the college coach shows up to see are player compete, we cross our fingers say our prayers and hope the performance end goes well, because that is all that is left to close the deal.
Something I've been enjoying these days is when I'm introduced to the parent of a 9th or 10th grade player which just verballed and the parent is wearing all of the colleges gear. I smile and say Congratulations, you must be very proud and excited. Then I ask, "What major is she going to pursue?" They typically answer, "We have no idea, she so young still." I than ask, "What happens in her junior or senior year if she decides on a career path she would like to go after and her college does not have the major needed?" Answer, "We never thought about that!" Final comment, Nice hat and sweatshirt, good luck with that!"
You spoke of field location. It is most important. Our team will average 20-30 colleges per showcase. In October at the Breast Cancer Awareness Showcase we had the pleasure of being placed at Saddleback College. Because of the 35 mile one way drive from the main fields, the majority of college coaches said they would just see us at the Pre Thanksgiving. We had a total of four colleges in the two days. One to see a player that she had committed.
Than after advertising the entire fall that we would be attending the Pre Thanksgiving and submitting our entry fee in September, we were notified on October 26th that we had not been accepted to participate. Yes panic set in!
After spending numerous hours on the phone we were fortunately invited to attend a Firecracker Event being held at Marina High School. Using our system, our girls and myself went to work sending our emails and making phone calls. We were blessed to be in the same 15 mile radius as all of the main games going on with the Pre Thanksgiving and we ended up with 31 Colleges seeing us play in the two days and 24 of those directly from our emails and phone calls.
Since travel ball has become such a money making lifestyle, why don't the organizations putting on these events charge a Premium to Play on the main fields. They could easily increase there profits 30%. Start with the nucleus of where things are and lower the price the further you are away. When this takes place, I would appreciate being placed on some decent fields and a little break on my entry fee.
On a final serious note:
The importance of all of this is to see these young ladies being directed on the proper path toward an amazing career. The success of our players starts with the order they prioritize things. Family, Education, Softball. We teach them that Family and Education are life long. Softball is a tool to help achieve your education. Even though it is an amazing sport, it will soon be a memory. Hopefully a great one!
If you want to put a smile on a college coaches face, start off by showing them strong GPA's and SAT/ACT Scores. Our girls have a team GPA of 3.9 and many SAT Scores in the 1800's to 2000's. This has been achieved through lots of hard work, dedication and proper research, assuring our players are not wasting time on the wrong things. We would like to share these helpful choice making websites that we use by visiting our website at
http://www.couragestudentathlete.com. At the bottom of the Front Page these websites are available.
Best of luck in your journey,
Courage Softball