My Athletes Wanted Story
My recruiting story is different because it’s not my personal story but my daughter’s story. So this is from a parent’s perspective.
I was watching my 12-year old daughter play shortstop for her U14 softball team during one of her tournament games. The entire season, it dawned on me that my daughter was a better athlete than anyone else on the team. And she was playing with girls 2 grade levels ahead of her. Why else would the coach play her at shortstop? Why else would the coach bat her 3rd or 4th in the lineup? So I started thinking maybe this is a way to have my daughter get her education paid for. Then it happened. A sharply hit ground ball hit up the middle by the opposing team’s number 3 hitter. Quick as a flash, my daughter ranges over 5 steps, stretches her glove out, stabs the ball, and, in one motion while on the move, transfers the ball to her throwing hand and throws a strike to the first baseman; retiring the batter by about 4 steps. WOW!! Did you see that, I asked all of the other parents around me. They all confirmed what I saw with my own two eyes. (Or maybe they were just being nice.) So that’s when I decided that my daughter was going to play college softball. She had no clue until years later that I put that plan in motion for her.
So I started asking questions. Are there different levels of travel softball? Where do college coaches find talent? What does it take to get my daughter recruited? How should I act when my daughter has a bad game? How should I act when she has a good one? What lessons do I need to provide for her? Is all of the expense worth it? What are my daughter’s goals? More importantly, how can I guide her to set the right goals? I must admit, I didn’t do a very good job because I was a bit over-bearing. I’m sure that there were times my daughter thought I was a nut-case. I’m sure there were times that her coaches felt the same way about me. I wish I’d had a guide. I didn’t. Fortunately, in spite of my ignorance on the subject, my daughter turned out just fine. More importantly, she continued playing her sport in college. She will never have any thoughts of, “could I play?” Equally important, she’s at her perfect fit school. She’s attending the 16th ranked academic college in the country. As they told us new families during freshman orientation, graduates walk out after four years with a certain intellectual swagger. More important to me, she attends a college that costs over $50,000 per year that I haven’t written a check to yet. So how did she find this school?
She embraced the recruiting process. By understanding and applying a few principals, she achieved recruiting success. She received recruiting information from 145 different programs. She narrowed those down to about 25 colleges that had real, genuine interest in her. She again narrowed those to 3 colleges that offered financial aid to play. And, she chose the best fit for her. She’s entering her senior year playing D1 softball. She was elected one of the captains as a junior and led her team by batting .418. She will be studying in London her first semester senior year. She has interviewed already with top Wall Street firms. I couldn’t be prouder.
-Keith Babb
