Friday, Saturday, Sunday Night Lights
For college baseball coaches, these are the days that mark the true beginning of another summer. With regular college baseball seasons over, coaches and high school players disperse throughout the country; the former to find new players to carry on the traditions of their programs and the latter to showcase their talents for the seemingly countless keepers of radar guns and stopwatches.
There are many ways for coaches and players to connect during NCAA recruiting periods: personal inquiries, colleague recommendations, and a review of yearly statistics are only a few.
Don’t be fooled.
Every college program has a long list of players that they would like to get to know a whole lot better once they become eligible to receive mail, email, and phone calls. Summer tournaments and showcases put on by organizations such as Perfect Game and Premier Baseball provide the perfect venue for these two parties to begin a courtship that ultimately leads to a player’s signing a National Letter of Intent (NLI) during one of the official signing periods.
Our Air Force coaching staff had already visited northern California, Florida, and Minnesota, before I touched down in Houston, Texas, last week. Armed with a list of potential candidates for our program, I prepared to attend the annual Houston Heat Invitational Baseball Tournament, held just outside of the metro area in Brenham, Texas. The tournament officially ran from Friday through Sunday, and included 20 teams from Houston and surrounding areas. Texas is not lacking in baseball talent, and it is heavily recruited as such. It amazes me every year how many kids are already verbally committed to schools before they enter their senior year of high school. Coaches really need to have their fingers on the pulse of Texas high school baseball to be sure that they give themselves a chance at landing a few blue chip players.
At most tournaments, each day begins early, around 8 in the morning, when the first teams begin to stretch and throw before the first game. Parents are usually the first in the stands, as travel weary coaches and scouts amble into the park and exchange handshakes and laughs and prepare for a competition of their own.
Coaches either settle into a seat behind home plate, or stake their claim on a patch of chain-link fence near an on-deck circle. Then, the game begins, and everybody watching, watches. Some watch intently and scratch notes about every player they see, and some focus on those players they know will be a good fit for their school and program. Those coaches are the ones that have done their homework. With so many players to evaluate, there is really no such thing as being over-prepared. The more coaches know about guys before they see them, the better.
As the first games end, coaches scatter to attend games scheduled at other sites. The Heat tournament used three fields located within a five mile radius. This arrangement was atypical, but convenient, as most large tournaments use multiple fields that are often spread far apart. The late morning and early afternoon games took on a character identical to that of the first of the day, with more coaches, more players, more sun, and more bottled waters purchased from the concession stands. The late afternoon game represents the time of day when most everyone hits a wall. But as the sun fades and field lights begin to burn for the late evening and night games, coaches and players seem to get a second wind. There is something mystical about summer baseball at night, especially in Texas.
Henry Kissinger compared our country to others in pursuit of utopia. He felt that, “for other nations, utopia is a past never to be recovered; for Americans it is just beyond the horizon.” Baseball perfection is found, for some, beneath the buzzing light standards towering above diamonds on summer nights in America.
For college baseball coaches, these are the days that mark the true beginning of another summer. With regular college baseball seasons over, coaches and high school players disperse throughout the country; the former to find new players to carry on the traditions of their programs and the latter to showcase their talents for the seemingly countless keepers of radar guns and stopwatches.
There are many ways for coaches and players to connect during NCAA recruiting periods: personal inquiries, colleague recommendations, and a review of yearly statistics are only a few.
Don’t be fooled.
Every college program has a long list of players that they would like to get to know a whole lot better once they become eligible to receive mail, email, and phone calls. Summer tournaments and showcases put on by organizations such as Perfect Game and Premier Baseball provide the perfect venue for these two parties to begin a courtship that ultimately leads to a player’s signing a National Letter of Intent (NLI) during one of the official signing periods.
Our Air Force coaching staff had already visited northern California, Florida, and Minnesota, before I touched down in Houston, Texas, last week. Armed with a list of potential candidates for our program, I prepared to attend the annual Houston Heat Invitational Baseball Tournament, held just outside of the metro area in Brenham, Texas. The tournament officially ran from Friday through Sunday, and included 20 teams from Houston and surrounding areas. Texas is not lacking in baseball talent, and it is heavily recruited as such. It amazes me every year how many kids are already verbally committed to schools before they enter their senior year of high school. Coaches really need to have their fingers on the pulse of Texas high school baseball to be sure that they give themselves a chance at landing a few blue chip players.
At most tournaments, each day begins early, around 8 in the morning, when the first teams begin to stretch and throw before the first game. Parents are usually the first in the stands, as travel weary coaches and scouts amble into the park and exchange handshakes and laughs and prepare for a competition of their own.
Coaches either settle into a seat behind home plate, or stake their claim on a patch of chain-link fence near an on-deck circle. Then, the game begins, and everybody watching, watches. Some watch intently and scratch notes about every player they see, and some focus on those players they know will be a good fit for their school and program. Those coaches are the ones that have done their homework. With so many players to evaluate, there is really no such thing as being over-prepared. The more coaches know about guys before they see them, the better.
As the first games end, coaches scatter to attend games scheduled at other sites. The Heat tournament used three fields located within a five mile radius. This arrangement was atypical, but convenient, as most large tournaments use multiple fields that are often spread far apart. The late morning and early afternoon games took on a character identical to that of the first of the day, with more coaches, more players, more sun, and more bottled waters purchased from the concession stands. The late afternoon game represents the time of day when most everyone hits a wall. But as the sun fades and field lights begin to burn for the late evening and night games, coaches and players seem to get a second wind. There is something mystical about summer baseball at night, especially in Texas.
Henry Kissinger compared our country to others in pursuit of utopia. He felt that, “for other nations, utopia is a past never to be recovered; for Americans it is just beyond the horizon.” Baseball perfection is found, for some, beneath the buzzing light standards towering above diamonds on summer nights in America.
