Crack of the Bat

by Blaine Clemmens

 

Follow Up #2: Anti-showcase High School Baseball Coaches

 

A friend of mine mentioned to me that there is more than one side of this situation to consider, that not all is rosy in the showcase world for everyone.  The main thing he wanted to make was that there are some high school coaches who are tremendous assets to their players’ futures, with or without showcases.  I agree with him. 

 

As my friend and I were going back and forth in an email exchange, I got the feeling that he thought I was anti high school coaches… because of the nature of this discussion.  Nope… I am only anti-high school coaches that are a detriment to the future opportunities of their players.

 

There is no doubt that high school coaches can and many do make wonderfully positive contributions to their players.  I have recently received many more emails from parents relating their experiences with high school coaches as it relates to the future opportunities of their baseball playing children.  Some of the emails are very positive in regard to the role the high school coach has played, but most seem to be negative.  I suppose that is normal to get more bad news than good, because as a society we generally point out only bad things and rarely point out the good things done by others.  Let me share some of my own personal thoughts.

 

With a 10 month old son, I think more about high school sports now than I ever did and with a different perspective.  I think high school sports should play a HUGE role in the development of the total person, and at the programs that have good coaching and good people doing the coaching, it goes beyond even that. 

 

The tough thing when it comes to high school sports as exposure avenues for college opportunities (let's face it, we are talking about opportunities at D1 schools) is that because of how the college coaches now go about recruiting/scouting, the high school-centric model does not really work in most areas of the country.  If more high school coaches simply understood that because the college coaches have their spring seasons at the same time, with 56 games and practices taking up six out of every seven days in a week, they just do not have the time to frequently go off campus scouting. 

 

I am aware that no one spends more time around the kids from mid-late August through early June than the high school coaches.  Maybe except for those players that play summer and fall ball extensively with a club team, then I would say that the some club coaches spend more time with the players, especially when you include travel and workout time. 

 

Those coaches who spend that amount of time around the players have more or less become important only as "character/make-up witnesses" for the players.  Only local D1 programs can really see any of the local high school players during the spring because of their own schedule (mentioned earlier).  Let’s also understand that most D1 coaches only trust their own eyes when it comes to evaluating a player.  The evaluations of a high school coach and most summer coaches given to a college coach about a player they may not have seen, when it comes to that player’s ability, is just not that highly valued by them.  Why?  There are a lot of reasons and I will get to that much more in depth in a later article.

I think a perfect world (pertaining to this subject) would involve more high school coaches being involved with their players during the summer and knowing more about what is going on once the high school season ends.  There are some high school coaches that coach the spring team, then coach the summer team (sometimes it is Connie Mack or Legion), travel with the players to all the tourneys, allow the players to attend a few showcases without ruining the fabric of the team concept of the game that is SO important to the game, and then is with the players all fall too. 
 
That is a HUGE time commitment and most coaches have families, their own kids, etc. so they just cannot do it, nor should they really be expected to do so.  I wish more of the high school coaches had good relationships with the local summer/travel/club coaches and vice versa.  I wish they worked in conjunction with each other, for the benefit of the players. 

 

I wish more high coaches would take the time to come out to a showcase like PG National and see what is going on, the talent on the field, the level of competition the players’ face, the college guys in the stands, the attention paid to the players by the PG scouts.  I wish they would talk to the college coaches in the stands... talk to the parents in the stands... talk to the players… find out why they are all there. 
 
On the flip side, I wish more summer/club/travel coaches would spend time getting to know more about the local high coaches.  I wish they took the opportunity to learn about those coaches and their role as molders of young men.  I wish they could gain an appreciation for what the good high school coaches do in the daily development of the players as young men. 

 

I wish we (PG) could devote more time developing more relationships with high school coaches and not just focus on the club coaches that can help identify the right players for our events.  I know why we focus on the club/travel coaches but I wish we could involve all the coaches.  I believe that we all have an important role to play in this and you know what, all of those roles should intersect at the player, who is the most important part of it all.
 
I personally have had conversations and email exchanges with some highly respected and successful high school coaches that dislike the existence of showcases and club/travel/showcase baseball teams.  The conversations I have about this subject with those that still oppose showcases/travel baseball are always interesting and I see them as learning opportunities.  Though some of those conversations can get a bit testy, I continue to respect those men because they are willing to engage in discussion, which generally leads to being more well-informed.

 

My frustration with that anti-showcase point of view has come from not understanding why they don’t see the positives that to me are so clear.  At times that frustration has gotten in the way of learning exactly why those coaches feel the way they do and stopped me from working to bridge the gaps that exists.  Like my friend told me, there is more than one side to this.  I think that generally, I have considered the differing points of view but because of my professional background, I have been influenced mostly by my own experiences.  That has caused me to not always consider the experiences that I have NOT had.

 

Having been a D1 recruiting coordinator and now having worked on the showcase/tournament side of the business, it is easy for me to see many of the obvious ways showcases are beneficial, particularly for the D1 programs and the thousands of prospective student athletes that we have been involved with and helped over the years. 

 

I have come to realize that in most cases, the high school coaches with negative attitudes toward showcases (and even club/travel baseball) feel the way they do because they have not hade the opportunity to gain a full awareness of what positive role we (PG) play for the players, for the college coaches, and for the scouts.  I believe that we (PG) have a responsibility to reach out to the high school coaches more and to not only educate them about our business, but to also listen and learn about the basis for their anti-showcase sentiments.

 

Many of them simply have not attended a prominent showcase or a big WWBA tournament and seen the coaches and scouts in the stands.  They have not spoken to those college coaches and the draft decision makers about why showcases are valuable to them. 

 

They do not get to spend enough time around our scouting staff to know how many inquiries we get about players and the diligence with which we scout, evaluate, rate and rank the players.  They do not know what those reports, ratings, and rankings mean to the college coaches and to Major League Baseball scouting departments, and to the development of the players themselves. 

 

I believe that people generally do not have a favorable opinion of things they have little direct experience with, especially when they think they are directly affected by it.  I also believe the responsibility lies with us, those that are aware of the benefits of the showcase culture, to reach out and become more involved with the those high school coaches who for whatever reason have anti-showcase sentiments. 

 

The answer, from my perspective, is that somehow we need to expose/educate those anti-showcase high school coaches to the showcase culture and what it means to the players, the college coaches, and the MLB scouting departments.  But, we can only educate those that are willing to be educated.

 

All of us have perceptions that become reality in our minds.  We need to work to erase the perception part of that.  I also acknowledge that not every single player and parent has had a positive experience with showcases.  I also understand that a showcase is not something that is beneficial for every single player. 

 

I want to and will post some more emails that parents have sent me about all this because I think the words that come directly from the “horse’s mouth” are so important.  Parents love their children and generally speaking, because of that pure intention, their words have more weight. 

 

That is it for this posting.  As always, you can reach me at bclemmens@perfectgame.org.

 

This column represents the thoughts and opinions of the author and are not necessarily those of Perfect Game.