Eight of the high school athletes we work we received this same exact email from a DI university in the Northeast. 

There's a lot going on here. At first glance we don't always see things when we are overwhelmed with excitement that -------- University reached out to us so let's break it down. 

1) "Thank you for your interest in ------- University."
This email came to each athlete through a free company recruiting account they had set up prior to joining our mentoring program. Only two of the eight athletes had ever actually reached out to the university. This is a red flag right away that this isn't actually recruiting interest from this coach. 

2) Over the years, we have seen numerous participants from our camps and clinics later become -------- student-athletes due to your direct participation and interaction with the ------ softball staff."
Yes, this is true. All top recruits go to a camp/clinic at a school prior to committing, but the clinic email they receive is much more personalized and attentive than a mass email that goes to everyone. Going deeper into ------ University, less than 20% of their roster is athletes from the Northeast, so is that really the area they are looking to recruit in or just the area they are looking to draw money to their clinic in?

3) Why did our athletes receive this clinic invite if they've never shown interest in
----- University?
Have you ever thought about what the "college coach side" of the company recruiting accounts look like? College coaches create a profile just like you do, and they obviously have the ability to communicate with you through that profile. When they create a mass email to send out, the recruiting company then gives them different options on who to send the email to. Examples include "send email to athletes who have favorited us" or "send email to all athletes in PA, NY, NJ, VA, MD with accounts." With a few clicks a college coach can send out the exact same email to thousands of athletes.

At the end of the day, camps and clinics are a small piece of the recruiting process. For ALL colleges from Power 5 to Junior College camps and clinics are fundraisers. You can camp and clinic your family into thousands of dollars of debt each year if you don't look more deeply into the invites you are receiving. True recruiting correspondence from an interested coach looks completely different than the email above! 

So what does a true recruiting email look like when they invite you to a camp or clinic?
1) Does the coach directly respond to an email you send them, instead of sending you a mass email randomly?
2) Has that coach communicated with your coaches or recruiting contacts about you? Due to the recent-ish change in NCAA rules (this happened in 2018, more info on that here.) college coaches cannot ask/give specific information about recruits but they can indicate if they are interested in an athlete or not! 
3) Have you seen that coach at your travel ball tournament games?
4) Do they invite you to participate in a campus tour as part of the clinic?

 
A lot of my 8th grade players and parents have been chatting with me lately about whether it’s time to focus on just softball. My answer? Heck no! There are SO MANY reasons it’s important for youth athletes AND high school athletes to play multiple sports. It’s so unfortunate that there are so many coaches who are pushing early specialization.
 
 
1) Sport specialization hurts you more than it helps you! When we only play one sport, we are only working certain muscle groups. Being in “softball shape” is completely different than “basketball, soccer, etc. shape.” As far as development as athletes go, playing multiple sports helps you develop more muscle groups and reduces your risk of injury!
 
2) Other sports actually help your softball skills rather than hurt them! Every single one of my pitchers who played basketball this year added 3-4mph after their basketball season. They were taking a weekly lesson and practicing at home here or there but were really taking time away from pitching and mechanics to focus on basketball!
 
3) If your first love is softball (which is totally okay!) it helps you appreciate the game more. When we play year-round, we don’t miss it. When we step away for a bit and focus on another sport, we appreciate softball more and work that much harder once we get back at it!  
 
4) Young athletes who are extremely gifted at their main sport, need to learn how to not be the best on their team at something. We learn just as many lessons from being uncomfortable learning new skills, learning to be a good teammate on the bench sometimes, and learning how to play a role! These are all skills that are often not learned when you are in the top third of talent on a team!
 
5) When all things are equal skill wise between two softball players, almost any college coach you ask will say they’d choose the multi-sport athlete over the softball only athlete. Why? That college coach knows the previously stated benefits of being a multi-sport athlete. Possibly even more important - that college coach knows that the multi-sport athlete took a break from softball and will be more likely to make it through their college career without injury!

College is expensive, and unfortunately is getting worse by the year. BUT many colleges, aren't really as expensive as they seem. The sticker price you see when you google "college x tuition" is not always what it would really cost you to attend said school. 

Example A-
Messiah University's total cost (including dorm, meal plan, etc.) for the 2020-2021 school year is $49,590. Yikes, right? Also remember, they are a Division III school so they do not offer athletic scholarships. If you dig a bit deeper into their financial aid (check it out here) you'll find that the average 2020-2021 freshman student received $27,614 in financial aid (grants, scholarships, etc.). This means that Messiah could possibly only cost you $21,976/year to attend. To compare - Shippensburg, a Pennsylvania state school about 45 minutes from Messiah, costs $22,540/year to attend for in state residents. 

Example B- 
Mount St. Mary's University's total cost (including dorm, meal plan, etc.) for the 2020-2021 school year is $57,280. They are a DI school, so they do offer athletic scholarship. IF a DI school is fully funded (most in the Northeast are not) they have 12 scholarships to split up between an average roster of 20-25 athletes so you cannot rely on athletic scholarship even at DI or DII schools! The class of 2023 at Mt St Mary's University has an average financial aid package of $30,866, which could possibly bring the cost for you down to $26,414. (Check it out here.) 

The moral of the story? Consistent good grades and solid test scores (SAT or ACT) matter more than your athletic ability when looking for scholarship money to help pay for college. This was true before COVID, during COVID, and will still be true after COVID! 

Data analysis is awesome, and overwhelming, and insane all at once! We recently added Rapsodo Pitching to our tool box and are absolutely loving the way our pitchers are responding to it and rising to the challenge! 

BUT it has also come with a lot of conversations about what data really means about our pitching and how effective we are. We are noticing this the most when we work on change ups! Often, Rapsodo considers change ups to have poor spin efficiency and doesn't count them as strikes. Our pitchers immediately go to the place of "ugh, that was a bad one." In reality, their change up was hidden well in their motion, and was a perfect speed floating over the plate finishing low - it's EFFECTIVE in real life even if Rapsodo says it isn't perfect. Data is great, but must be combined with the "human" side of pitching to help pitchers become next level. If we only relied on data and what's on paper we wouldn't bother playing the game at all, we'd just give the win to the team with better stats before we even stepped on the field! 

Here's another great example on how data can skew the way we view things. This is an absolutely FANTASTIC curve ball from 2025 RHP Bailey Livermore (Yes, you read that right..she's only in 8th grade!) at 55mph, with 97% spin efficiency and 11.5 inches of break it's one of the best curve balls we've seen since setting up Rapsodo! BUT this is her best curve ball, not her consistent curve ball. Right now, her curve consistently sits at 53-54 mph and breaks 4-5 inches. Can she get to where this is her consistent curve? Absolutely. Is she there yet? Nope, but we'll continue to work at it! Data is great and gives athletes new heights to strive for, but we have to remember that we aren't who we are on our best day OR our worst day. The consistent pitcher we are sits in the middle of those two days! We often share and showcase our best, rather than who we are day in and day out! This is important to remember when we see stats and new speed/spin records thrown around on social media! 

When we communicate with college coaches we share our pitchers' best data and their consistent data. We do the same thing when high school coaches and travel ball coaches reach out to see how their pitcher is doing in lessons. It's important for all coaches to see who you are day in and day out, while also seeing the potential you have if you continue working hard! ​

Heck yeah I'm a "1-2 pitch" person! Chatting with a new-ish lesson family today and I took so much pride in the fact that this is part of my reputation in our Central PA softball community. And no, I don't mean liking the 1-2 count....like you only need 1-2 solid spin pitches! 

There is this insane push for pitchers to be learning every spin pitch in the book. Every time I meet a 12 year old with 3+ spin pitches my heart sinks. We are doing these young pitchers such a disservice by continually pushing new spin pitches before they're ready just to keep parents paying for lessons and athletes happy. Perfecting pitching is repetitive, fundamental, and sometimes straight up boring. It takes YEARS to truly master a pitch. 

If college and professional pitchers are relying on one fantastic spin pitch with 1-2 solid supporting spin pitches, why in the world does a middle school or high school pitcher need 5 spin pitches? Being a jack of all trades and master of none just hurts pitchers (especially pitchers who want to play in college). As a college coach, I looked for something my current staff didn't have. For example - if I have a great rise ball pitcher, curve ball pitcher, and a pitcher who changed speeds well I was on the hunt for a great drop ball pitcher to compliment the pitchers I already had on staff. More often than not, when I couldn't tell what a pitcher's go to pitch was while watching them I moved on from recruiting that pitcher. 

How are you making your best spin pitch better and multidimensional? THAT is the question we as coaches and athletes should be asking rather than what spin pitch can I learn next. Learning is not mastering. What does mastering a spin pitch look like? If your drop ball is your go to can you cut both corners with it, throw it 2 balls off the plate, off speed, break it waist down, and break it knees down? If you curveball is your go to can you throw it back door, cutting the outside corner, and off speed? 

I am a huge fan of pitchers working up and down in the zone rather than side to side...I'm basically on a one woman mission to create more up down pitchers in the world! Think of Cat Osterman who is known for her drop ball, or Kelly Barnhill known for her rise ball. Their best pitch is so dominating that most people don't even think about the fact that they throw other pitches! When in doubt, change planes and change speeds! 

Should you learn multiple spin pitches? Absolutely. Once our pitchers master their mechanics, hitting spots, and throwing a consistent change up we then introduce a spin pitch. Notice I don't do this based on age, but on ability and mastery! This winter I taught a 6th grader her first spin pitch based on her progress, and "reset" a high school freshman for 6 months of mechanical work before we reintroduced her two spin pitches. Generally, we work on a spin pitch for about a year (give or take again based on ability) before introducing a second. After having two, that's usually where we start to work on taking the better of the two pitches and making it multidimensional.

I use "usually, generally, and based on ability" a lot when discussing timelines for learning spin pitches because EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT. I repeat, EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT. You cannot compare your own progress and journey to that of others. At the end of the day, focus on your own progress and what you can be the most successful at! 

With college softball back on TV this weekend, there are SO many things we are chatting with our athletes and colleagues about! There are two games that stand out to me from this weekend, and they might be overlooked by many. 

Dixie State opened their season with a 6-5 loss to Washington after leading 1-0 in the 3rd, and 5-4 in the 7th before falling 6-5 in the bottom of the 7th. Never heard of Dixie State? They JUST transitioned from DII to DI for the 2021 season and held their own against a #2 ranked, consistently top 25/WCWS bound Washington. 

UTEP opened their season with a 29-0 loss to Oklahoma. OU took a 13-0 lead in the 1st inning and never looked back. Never heard of UTEP? They are a mid-major DI team who traditionally has struggled. With a new coach as of December of 2019, and 16 underclassmen on the roster, UTEP can easily be considered the underdog here. Should Oklahoma beat UTEP? Yes. Would anyone have guessed it would be 29-0? Probably not. 

On the surface, these two games don't have much in common - 5 inning blow out, and a 7 inning nail biter. BUT they show that any team can do anything on any given day. On paper, Dixie State never should have been in the game with Washington. On paper, Oklahoma would win but wasn't expected to break a home run record and plate 29 runs. Any team can do anything on any given day. 

Whether it's a college, high school, or travel ball there are some absolutes: 
1) There are teams who work harder than others. 
2) There are teams with more talent than others. 
3) There are teams with better scouting reports, and more strategic coaches than others. 
4) There are teams with more depth than others. 

If games were won and lost based these absolutes, why would we bother playing the game at all? I often hear from lesson clients comments like "Oh, well ------ pitched. I'm not surprised our team didn't win." or "Yeah, I guess I hit well but ------- team isn't good so it doesn't matter as much we were going to win anyways." Whether you're playing a team you deem more talented than yours, or a team you feel you should easily beat - what you think really doesn't carry much weight. Any team that shows up can win/lose on any given day. There are too many factors that go into a softball game to decided who will win/lose that have nothing to do with what an athlete thinks - the weather, which players are hot that day, a timely placed error here or there, the umpire's strike zone, I could go on and on. Show up, play the game you love to the best of your ability, and let the score fall where it may! 

Ping, Ping, Ping. For many recruits, it seems like their email is constantly going off with email invitations for this clinic and that camp. Suddenly, eyes get wide and families rush to sign up for the event because X University is interested in THEM! 

On the other end of that email, there is a (probably very underpaid) assistant coach spending hours scouring through team websites, recruiting sheets, and tournament booklets to make a "camp database." This database probably has your name, your graduation year, and your email - that's it. She/he then mass emails hundreds of athletes in their region to invite them to the event! Many times they have never seen you play. 

Why does this happen? Money. Almost all (minus the top "Power-5") softball programs use camps and clinics as a fundraiser. The more of you that show up, the money more goes into their account. Coaches are in a catch 22 - many of them have a minimum fundraising number to hit as part of their job so they push the ethics of inviting you (even though they aren't really recruiting you) aside to keep their own job. So how do they do this? Kill two birds with one stone, host a clinic where you can bring in your top recruits while also filling the rest of the clinic with athletes who will pay to supplement their budget. 

How do you and your family decide which camps and clinics are worth your time when the coach on the other end is sending the same email to hundreds of other athletes?

If you are a 2021/2022 graduate (2023+ keep scrolling!) coaches from every division can communicate with you, so why are you only hearing from them with a clinic invite? Why are they not reaching out in response to your emails? Why aren't they requesting to set up a phone call, visit to campus, etc? When a coach can communicate with you, and the only communication you hear from them is a clinic invite - that should be a red flag!  

Are you a 2023 or younger? ​This gets a bit harder for you, because the only communication DII (until June 15th after sophomore year) and DI (until Sept 1 of junior year) can have with you is to give you clinic information. (DIII, NAIA, and Junior College do not have communication rules and can communicate with you at any time regardless of age.) We suggest working through this list to decide if the school(s) hosting the clinic are a good fit for you and worth your time/money! 

As COVID-19 continues to impact our lives, many teams are not practicing consistently, or really at all depending on where you are in the country. These are some of my favorite at home bullpen workouts for pitchers! All that's required is a net, and a "number screen" (both are hyperlinked below). No coach, no catcher, no problem!

"Earning Points
Pitch 20 pitches, track which numbers you hit on the screen and add them together, pitch three rounds and try to beat your total each round (with 7/8/9 being the low targets, the lower in the zone you stay the more successful you are!)
 
Earning/Losing Points
Throw 20 pitches, track which numbers you hit on the screen. 1 (high outside), 3 (high inside), 7 (low outside), and 9 (low inside) are all added to your total. Any other numbers you hit (down the middle or belt high) you subtract from the total. Throw three rounds and try to beat your total each round.
 
Hitting spots
Write 1, 3, 7, 9 each 5 times on a slip of paper and put them in a hat/bag/etc. Pull out a number and pitch a pitch (fast, change, or spin pitch) to that spot. Continue until you’ve used all slips.
 
Hitting spots
Write 1, 3, 7, 9 each 5 times on a slip of paper and put them in a hat/bag/etc. Pull out a  number and pitch a pitch (fast, change, or spin pitch) to that spot. Pitch to a specific number of batters (usually 8-12). For example, pull out a 7 for the first pitch of the AB, throw a low outside fastball for a strike to make it 0-1, pull out a 9 and throw a low inside change, etc. work through counts for each batter.
 
Perfect Sequences
Work through the following “perfect” sequences. For example, if the sequence is inside fastball, change up, curve you need to throw a “perfect” of each to move onto the next sequence. If you throw a perfect fastball but miss the change then finish through the sequence with the curve and start over until you hit all three perfectly in a row. (Change/add spin pitches to fit your own needs!) 
                        1) Inside High Fastball, Curve, Change
                        2) Outside Low Fastball, Change, Inside Low Fastball
                        3) Curve, Change, Outside Low Fastball
                        4) Change, Inside High Fastball, Outside Low Fastball
                        5) Outside Low Fastball, Curve, Change
 
Finish the Count
Write 0-0, 0-1, 0-2, 1-1, 1-2, 2-0, 2-1, 2-2, 3-0, 3-1, 3-2 on slips of paper and put them in a hat/bag/etc. Pull out a count and "finish" that count until you strike out/walk the batter.

Success doesn’t always equate to throwing strikes. The amount of times in a lesson that I say “I don’t care if you throw strikes right now” might shock some. The reality is, if it’s a new drill or a new way of doing something, how can we expect to throw strikes right away? Giving young pitchers, or really any age pitcher who is learning something new, a way to define their success OTHER THAN by throwing strikes is how most grow best. (Success is throwing straight right now, success is driving your leg out this far, success is speeding up your arm circle, etc.) Letting them feel uncomfortable and aiding them as they work through things in lessons gives them the confidence to continue to work on new things at home and at practice! Most of the time, when you focus on a piece of your mechanics that you need to improve you naturally start to throw more strikes as you become more comfortable with it!
 
One of my favorite examples of this is when we work on creating stronger leg drive. Generally, the first thing that happens when we use our legs more is that we pitch the ball high. (When you drive out more, your body stays naturally taller, which creates a “later” snap that you then have to adjust to snap a bit lower/sooner in your motion.) Do we stop using our legs just to throw strikes? Or do we continue to work on using our legs and then adjusting our snap to bring the ball back into the zone? Of course, we’re going to continue to use create stronger leg drive to increase speed, we almost always “get a little worse before we get better” when we’re trying something new. Until we get comfortable with the uncomfortable our accuracy will be a bit off.
 
Don’t be afraid to throw balls (especially at lessons where it’s more about the process than the product anyways!) – throwing a “bad pitch” teaches us more than throwing a “good pitch” does! Encourage youth athletes to work their way through their mechanics and start to truly feel what their body is doing. I love pitching/doing drills with your eyes closed for this! Once pitchers can feel what their mechanics are supposed to do instead of being solely focused on throwing strikes that is where true growth comes from!
 
In the work I do with lesson athletes, winter is my absolute favorite time of the year! While I love getting updates, videos, and etcetera from their Fall and Spring/Summer games – winter is where I can make the biggest difference for them as a coach. Winter is when we can stop worrying about how we are performing in games and completely focus on enhancing their skills and pushing them to be their best selves once the Spring/Summer season starts up again!

It’s that time of year again – college programs are starting to plan and advertise their fall clinics! You can expect to receive even more invites (to in person, and now virtual clinics too!) this year than usual due to COVID-19 budget cuts – almost every program across the country uses camps and clinics as fundraisers in a regular year and even more so now. Unfortunately, many programs see this as a “necessary evil” to supplement their budgets and will send email invites that families can see as recruiting interest.
 
Just because you receive an email invite to a clinic DOES NOT mean you are being recruited by that school. Look over these three somewhat similar clinic invite emails to see the varying level of interest from “College Coach XYZ” who is sending them.  Even though they are all “inviting you to attend their clinic” you can easily tell who they are really recruiting. Are they inviting you to the clinic to boost their fundraising money, to evaluate you and see if they should up their interest in you (this really does happen, especially now with virtual recruiting this past summer), or are they already extremely interested in you?
 
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Hi Sally!
 
I hope you had a great summer softball season; it was a crazy one wasn’t it? We were able to see you play virtually, and we would like to invite you to our fall skills clinic! Our clinic is a great way to get to know our staff, and see how we run a college practice here at XYZ University!
 
You can register online here: ------------. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]. We can’t wait to see you soon!
 
Go XYZ!
Coach --------.
 
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Hi Sally!
 
I hope you had a great summer softball season; it was a crazy one wasn’t it? We were able to see you play virtually at ABC tournament versus DEF team. Our staff was extremely impressed with your quality at bats, as well as your play diving into the 5/6 hole! We would like to invite you to our fall skills clinic! Our clinic is a great way to get to know our staff and players, as well as see how we run a college practice here at XYZ University! We are offering a campus tour for families after the clinic as well, if you’re interested in joining us on the tour please let me know!
 
You can register online here: ------------. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]. We can’t wait to see you soon!
 
Go XYZ!
Coach --------.
 
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Hi Sally! 
 
I hope you had a great summer softball season; it was a crazy one wasn’t it? We were able to see you play virtually at ABC tournament versus DEF team. Our staff was extremely impressed with your quality at bats, as well as your play diving into the 5/6 hole! We are currently looking to add a middle infielder to our 2022 class. After seeing that you are interested in studying psychology on your profile, we could be a great fit for you academically. Psychology is one of our top majors on campus, and we currently have 7 softball players majoring in it!
 
I wanted to reach out to invite you to our upcoming skills clinic. Attending a clinic is a great way to get to know our staff and players, as well as see how we run a college practice here at XYZ University! While the clinic will be on a Saturday, we would love to set up an unofficial visit for you and your family that Friday. You can tour campus, meet with our coaching staff, sit in on a class, meet with admissions/and financial aid counselors.
 
After seeing you play this summer our coaching staff believes that you have the potential to make an impact for our team. I would love to set up a time to chat with you on the phone about what we can offer you here at XYZ both athletically and academically. Feel free to shoot me a text at (000)111-2222 and we can set up a time that works for us both! 
 
Go XYZ!
Coach ---------.
 
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How to  differentiate what real recruiting interest looks like:
1) Have you heard from them BEFORE the clinic invite email? This is a big one – generally if a coach only reaches out to you to invite you to a clinic they aren’t really recruiting you.

2) Is there anything about the email that is directed towards you as an individual past the “Hi Sally!” greeting?

3) Does the email discuss where the coach saw you play or details about your play? Have they done research on you (found you on your travel team website, looked at social media, etc.) to know your academic needs?

4) Is there an action the coach wants you to take other than attending the clinic? Send your unofficial transcript? Send them times that would work to talk on the phone? 

5) If you respond asking questions or ask to set up a call, do they get back to you in a timely fashion? If you ask to set up an unofficial visit do they respond vaguely that they’ll get back to you with some dates or do they seem excited to get you to campus?