At what year of High School would you say a mid major or power 5 conference D1 makes an offer , or at least heavy interest , should be shown before a player and their family can say it just isnt going to happen ? In a related question how likely do you think it is that mid major offer a girl that never plays at, or near the top of travel ball food chain ? For sake of discussion lets say mid major -- MAC and the player is a Ohio Player . Say the travel team isnt a top 20ish type team . Doesnt ever play Lasers , Rays , Outlaws or even ASA state . I guess its two unrelated questions but might stir some discussion. I dont know if there is any " normal" in recruiting anymore . My guess would be summer / fall heading into JR year of HS ?
I was told by our high school coach between Soph and Jr. Year. That's when it happened for my dd.
There are lots of factors and exceptions... What did they do to get recruited? Better be on a good travel ball organization! Better e mail coaches constantly. Cc travel and high school coaches... Better go to camps... and camps that have games not winter camps that just do drills and make money for the college... DO NOT waist money on Recruiting organizations, her travel coach and high school coaches do that work along with herself!!! What position they play is HUGE! My dd is a pitcher. Was offered full ride D-1 in OVC. Then after 2 years after verbaling and 6 months after signing her NLI the coach was fired and we reassessed where she wanted to go. Getting released was a pain in the behind!!!! After she was released she had over 25 schools legitimately interested in her.
She started getting 4-6 calls a day from college coaches... bad timing as a 32 ACT and 4.5 GPA did not trump missed academic scholarship deadlines of some schools!!! Missed out on Thousands of dollars!!!
But some schools didn't have deadlines and some schools upped there athletic scholarship money to off set it.
Bottom line she narrowed down her options to 6 schools ( 3 D-1; 2 D-2 and an NAIA) in 14 non stop days we traveled to 6 different colleges in 6 different States, visited them, met with the coaches, received similar offers from all 6 schools and she accepted a similar offer from Eastern Illinois University that she had at Tenn State.
Big relief to know college is paid for!!!
She turned down interest from several D-1 schools simply because of lack of time... and those schools were not in her top 6.
My point is we cramed two years worth of recruiting into two weeks and with only 1 month until fall classes started!!! I believe it all was a blessing from God and can NOT thank the high school coaches and opposing high school coach ENOUGH! As well as travel ball coaches and opposing travel ball coaches for assisting her and putting her in contact with so many opportunities!!! So it can happen at any time! But generally between Soph and Jr. year for the norm.
More advise? Pick a school where she would go to school even if she didn't play softball. Yes coach is important but I can't tell you how many girls I know that the coach left before they got there!!! Pick a school that has her major... pick a school where she just plain wants to go to for her education. If she continues her softball career it's a bonus that only last 4 more years... then there is no softball...
And just think, this kid didn't even make the list on here on 2016 & 2017 high school pitchers to watch!!!