I have had people tell me they want to go to organization X because they were told if they go there, their daughter will be able to go D1.
If your saying Earlywine, and Lehotak said they are only looking at specific organizations I believe you - But most girls in OH/PA and Most girls even in your organization aren't going to Mizzou - or Penn State or Ohio State or Pitt - they are going to Mid-Majors, D2's or D3's if at all.
Great athletes should aspire to play at the highest level that they can achieve and that's why these named organizations have a place - I just want to make it clear that is not the only path to a scholarship.
Cobb, I appreciate the clarification. I know for a fact you are right about players being convinced they HAVE to go to certain organizations to play college softball, but as you say that is simply not true. I think what most of the true "named" organizations cater to are girls who primarily have set their focus at quality NCAA D1 teams at solid academic institutions. I think to no one's surprise the best way to get to that end point is to work both hard and work smart. Part of being smart may include a player looking at her target institutions to see if she saw trends in organizations who were placing kids into those programs. I would look at maybe playing for one of them if the opportunity was available. I don't think anymore needs to be made of that in this thread, just that it is part of working smartly to achieve your goal.
I also want to clarify that I was passing on a near direct quote from Earlywine ONLY, and that there was not a lot of paraphrasing going on there. Other schools who I have had personal conversations with or have heard speak at camps will tell you that intentional or not they prefer kids who play certain schedules, with certain orgs, and have certain measurables. No one ever says "we will ONLY take kids" who meet those criteria. BUT, everyone knows most universities don't have the recruiting budget for softball to go track down every potential D1 kid, in every corner of the US who wrote to them and went to camp. Rather, the majority will use their budget wisely and go to "high-payoff" tournaments with "high-payoff" teams and try to select a "high-payoff" type player with "high-payoff" measureables. Emails and camps will always be a part of the process, but nowhere near the entire process. That is always going to be the most likely scenario of NCAA D1 scholarship players.
In regards to Lehotak, I certainly would not presume I speak for her and she was not present at the camp I am referencing with Penn State and Marshall. What I am talking about is a D1 camp this winter where both programs were part of a group discussion (for the entire camp and parents) with multiple other D1 and D2 schools. As often gets asked, they were answering a question about what makes a player stand out in their eyes. In general, there were a few things that nearly all programs shared as important to them and I think I have reproduced that here fairly accurately.
I do agree with you also that in the end there is always more than one way to get to your goal. But, among the few roads that do take you there, some offer you better percentages of arriving at your destination.
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