by CatWoman » Mon Feb 21, 2011 9:21 pm
One of the ways we were able to figure out which coaches were interested was to start tracking who was there when DD was in the game playing. Unless your travel coach tells you, you really don't know which coach is watching which players unless you have a parent saying that they recently spoke with Coach X and they said they were coming to watch their daughter. I found that most people keep that to themselves but there will always be a couple of parents that want everyone to know. This, then makes every other parent insecure (trust me).
DD started out with a list of 12 schools and then generally sent out about 10 emails with her schedule before every weekend to coaches she was either in contact with or that she was interested in. We always used the same reference line with her name, team, year, and position. In the beginning, we also inserted a photo of her playing at the top of the email and right away would say something that was unique about her. In my DD's case, it was her size, otherwise you might put in batting average, speed, etc. After every game, DD would either email or call a coach's cell phone number if she had it and thank them for coming (regardless if we knew they were there to see her or not). After she returned a questionnaire to the school, she would make a follow-up call to see if they received it. She would email ahead of time to let them know she would be calling at a particular time. We were able to gauge their interest by whether anyone picked up the phone or not. If no one picked up the phone, she left a message of when she would call back. Often, the coach would then contact her travel ball coach and arrange a time for her to call for a conversation. When DD first started making phone calls, I would eavesdrop and cringe at the coaches having to endure some of the conversations but as time went on, she became really good at talking and we found it to be an extremely valuable process. This process worked well for her.