As we go through the process of trying to get your daughters recruited, I want to remind you that it is not ALL up to Team TFS, your Head Coach, or Coach B. There is still a process that each and everyone of you need to be doing from this point forward. This plan is not all inclusive just recommendations.
1. List dream school
2. List 5 division I schools
3. List 5 division II schools
4. List 5 division III schools(Do not offer Athletic Scholarships-Academic only)
5. Look at 5-10 NAIA and JR Colleges. These offer Athletic Scholarships that could be a prep school for your kid to get to a higher divison school.
DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET
6. Register your child at the NCAA eligibilty website (http://web1.ncaa.org/ECWR2/NCAA_EMS/NCAA.html). Keep that number handy you will use it alot.
7. Register your child at College Board (http://www.collegeboard.org/) This allows you to schedule your child for the SAT among giving you good advice about what to expect
8. Have you athlete take the ACT and SAT more than once. Recommendation Fall of their Junior Year, Spring of their Junior Year, and Fall of their Senior Year. At most colleges, a 30 on ACT is a full academic scholarship.
9. Utilize one or all three websites to stay in touch with college coaches:
www.berecruited.com Mainly used by some D1 coaches and alot of the D2 and below. Several of our athletes have had good success in marketing themselves and getting coaches to contact them.
www.showcasesoftball.com- Do not know of anyone using this one, but was told that more D1 look at this one. I cannot verify this info.
www.captainu.com/ - Do not know much about this one either. However, this one seems to be expensive
10. Not only use the websites above, make sure you send emails and write letters. Several athletes and parents have had numerous responses from letter writing and emailing.
11. Make sure you know when colleges can talk to your athlete. You may write 100 letters with no response. That is because the coach cannot talk to your athlete until a certain time. Also most coaches do not want to talk to the parents. They are not after you! They want your kid.
12. Attend as many of your schools on your list softball camps. There are camps in January and June.
13. If you are 16-18, you may want to see if the schools you are interested in are having open tryouts sometime in Late August or September.
14. 16-18 years of age, make sure you fill out a recruiting survey from every school you would like to attend. These can be found on the Schools Athletic page.
15. Also know your schools recruiting policy for athletic scholarships. UCLA wants to know that you are looking for an athletic scholarship 2 years before you graduate.
16. Make sure you keep all your athlete's stats. Most of the websites above want to know your stats. 8th grade on is my recommendation. But feel free to show what you want.
1. List dream school
2. List 5 division I schools
3. List 5 division II schools
4. List 5 division III schools(Do not offer Athletic Scholarships-Academic only)
5. Look at 5-10 NAIA and JR Colleges. These offer Athletic Scholarships that could be a prep school for your kid to get to a higher divison school.
DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET
6. Register your child at the NCAA eligibilty website (http://web1.ncaa.org/ECWR2/NCAA_EMS/NCAA.html). Keep that number handy you will use it alot.
7. Register your child at College Board (http://www.collegeboard.org/) This allows you to schedule your child for the SAT among giving you good advice about what to expect
8. Have you athlete take the ACT and SAT more than once. Recommendation Fall of their Junior Year, Spring of their Junior Year, and Fall of their Senior Year. At most colleges, a 30 on ACT is a full academic scholarship.
9. Utilize one or all three websites to stay in touch with college coaches:
www.berecruited.com Mainly used by some D1 coaches and alot of the D2 and below. Several of our athletes have had good success in marketing themselves and getting coaches to contact them.
www.showcasesoftball.com- Do not know of anyone using this one, but was told that more D1 look at this one. I cannot verify this info.
www.captainu.com/ - Do not know much about this one either. However, this one seems to be expensive
10. Not only use the websites above, make sure you send emails and write letters. Several athletes and parents have had numerous responses from letter writing and emailing.
11. Make sure you know when colleges can talk to your athlete. You may write 100 letters with no response. That is because the coach cannot talk to your athlete until a certain time. Also most coaches do not want to talk to the parents. They are not after you! They want your kid.
12. Attend as many of your schools on your list softball camps. There are camps in January and June.
13. If you are 16-18, you may want to see if the schools you are interested in are having open tryouts sometime in Late August or September.
14. 16-18 years of age, make sure you fill out a recruiting survey from every school you would like to attend. These can be found on the Schools Athletic page.
15. Also know your schools recruiting policy for athletic scholarships. UCLA wants to know that you are looking for an athletic scholarship 2 years before you graduate.
16. Make sure you keep all your athlete's stats. Most of the websites above want to know your stats. 8th grade on is my recommendation. But feel free to show what you want.
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The Fastpitch School Interview With TFS Student-Athlete Taylor Freeman
Coach Bastian recently interviewed Taylor Freeman, a TFS student-athlete from North Carolina. Taylor recently attended her first WCWS in Oklahoma City with her father. It was a profound learning and life changing experience for her. This interview covers her experiences at the WCWS, and what it meant to her as a fan, as well as what she learned from the experience as a player.
TF: Well, it was definitely an eye opening experience. It was something you can’t describe and something you can’t put into words, just something you have to see. It’s really the commitment that you have to understand and what it takes to get there. I’ve also learned that not everybody’s perfect, in order to get to college ball you don’t have to be errorless. That everybody makes mistakes and you can’t stress out about it. That’s what I learned a lot, is to not get mad about it and stress about it, to flush it.
Coach B:
So, big time learning experience. Interesting to hear your response. If
you
break the game down to the people and teams, coaches, and winning and
losing, are there specific areas that you now understand better about
the game?
TF:
Yeah, everything about it. The coaches and culture are completely different
than what I’ve experienced here in NC with Team TFS. The players are different
too. They’re much more high tech than I am. The teams are also different. They
act as one, and that’s what I haven’t been able to experience in travel ball,
where your team isn’t one big family, it’s kind of separated- that’s what the
culture here is in North Carolina. I haven’t been able to experience that whole family team
thing.
Coach B:
Interesting. Good stuff! If you take your physical ability and cerebral mental
abilities, do you think you can play the game at that level someday?
TF: I
hope so, yes.
Coach B:
Can you elaborate on what that means when I ask you that question about
separating the physical ability vs mental ability?
TF: I
have the physical ability to do it. It’s the mental part that I can’t get a
good concept of. That’s the part that I’m lacking in right now, and I am
learning as I go on.
Coach B:
What would you say is the biggest difference between the players there and you
that you can identify?
TF: I
get stressed out too easily, and I get mad, and I over think things way too
much. They just make it so simple- or they make it look so simple and
effortless.
Coach B:
I think the key word right there is that they might make it look simple, but
it’s not. Because as I sit here in front of you, I’ve dealt with several
players that are participating in the WCWS, and in talking with them, they
struggle just like you in the same areas as you with confidence, failure and
failure management, how do they get better, perform better and how do they peak
perform. I’m excited to hear you talk about how you saw that they’re not
perfect and make mistakes. Very interesting that they make it look so easy.
Interesting words to hear you say, because it’s not easy at all, but the
greatest players in the world do understand how to make the game easier and
play the game faster both physically and mentally.
Coach B:
There was a certain aspect of hitting that you got exposed to. You never had a
bat in your hands or got on the field, but you sat close enough to the pitchers
that you were able to analyze an aspect of hitting: timing, pitch location,
inside/outside, high/low and even spins, angles, creation of movement on a drop
ball/riseball, curve, cut screwball,
TF:
The past couple of weeks I’ve put it into my training. I’ve been recognizing
the pitches. So, it’s doesn’t feel new to me, because I’ve been using it so
much since then. it’s helped a lot because now it’s simpler to me than I
thought it was. It’s not just watching the pitch come in, it’s recognizing how
and where, and the timing, and it helps so much that I’ve been putting it into
my training lately.
Coach B:
Now this is kind of interesting for me as a coach and teacher, to hear your
response. Do you think it was good to take yourself out of the pressure to
succeed or fail at hitting, and to put you in the stands where there is no pressure
of succeeding or failing, and to try to think like a hitter in the college
world series? Has that opened up a Pandora’s Box to help you understand? I’m
interested to understand what was the learning moment where you understood.
When I use terms like pitch recognition or "Do you see the ball", what part do
you see riseball spin or drop spin. I’m interested to help you replicate or keep
developing. What was the light bulb moment that helped you learn?
TF: It
was just not worrying about what kind of pitch it is- curve, screw, drop. It’s
either low and inside, low and outside, high and inside/outside. That’s the
part that made it simpler for me. Instead of trying to figure out what kind of
pitch it was, it was “here it is coming high and inside or low and inside” and
that’s the part that really turned on the lightbulb.
Coach B:
So, that's outstanding for understanding your style. What you’re telling me is rather
than thinking about rise, drop, curve or screwball cutter, just up, down,
inside, outside.
TF: Yes.
Coach B:
One pitch we haven’t discussed...
TF:
Change up!
Coach B:
Change up-off speed.
TF: Laughing… That was the tricky one!
Coach B:
That’s always the tricky one, for even the best hitters in the world. But what
would you say your experiences were with that?
TF: I
can identify it better now than I did at first. I focused so much on where it
was going that I didn’t recognize the speed of it. That’s when I realized, ok,
I also need to recognize the speed of the pitch in order to figure out where
it’s going to go.
Coach B:
Very good. That’s something in our conversation now. I think the first
aspect of hitting; and I must say that you first have to learn to swing. You
have to learn the fundamentals of the swing, and be able to create an
understanding of the strike zone, inside/outside/up/down. But the first phase
of learning to be a hitter is understanding time and space is going to be
affected by speed. Sometimes in fastpitch softball the pitch comes at a high
rate of speed- 65-70mph, sometimes it comes at a slow rate of speed 40-45mph.
That can be a change up. Being able to recognize that it’s a slower ball or
faster ball is very valuable. That’s a big, big part of being a great hitter.
Can you elaborate anymore
on that? I’m a pitching coach also, along with teaching hitting and all aspects
of the game. I work with my pitchers all the time on being deceptive, being
sneaky and trying to fool the hitters. If you understand the game at the elite
level, the pitcher’s trying to fool the hitter and the hitter is trying to not
be fooled by the pitcher.
Anymore on the off-speed stuff?
TF:
I’m still trying to get ahold of it. It’s still a little bit tricky in my mind,
but I feel at the rate I’m going, I’m going to get it soon.
Coach B:
Good. Thank you!