How Do College Coaches Discover Players?
Do you wonder how college coaches find the players on their teams? Athletes come from all over the world, from big programs and small, and are off all shapes and sizes…how do the college coaches find them? And, how might they find YOU?
ONE Softball asked our college coach Think Tank–a selection of over 150 top college coaches, most from NCAA Division I–where they found most of the players who end up on their teams. We specifically asked:
How did you FIRST learn about the players in your program?
The five options were as follows and we asked them in rank order from most-typical spot to find players to least.
- Saw at a game: showcase, high school, travel ball, or tournament game of any kind
- Saw or worked with at a camp
- Used a 3rd party paid service in some way
- Learned from a travel ball or other coach/team representative
- Communication directly from the player
The responses indicate that coaches see players FIRST at a tournament or game of some sort and followup from there. The second most often listed response was at a camp. Surely there are many contacts of various types after that, many of which involve coaches, emails and text messages and more observations, but the clear response is that players catch a coach’s eye at the field.
The key then is to be playing on fields where the college coaches are. This is not an easy thing to guarantee, but use a solid set of questions for coaches–college and youth coaches–to work to be on the “right” fields as often as you can.
Note that these are the most often cited ways for the group of coaches we asked, but they also identified players in other ways, and you should do research to figure out what might be the best way for you to be seen by the coaches of the schools that might be a good fit for you.
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ONE Softball Staff
The ONE Softball editorial staff has decades of success in coaching and business. Coming from diverse backgrounds and experiences, the founders share one common goal: to help the softball community come together. We are excited to provide crucial resources for players, parents and coaches to succeed at every level.