Recruiting Videos - for which sports?

Athletic Recruits
1

<p>In another thread on cross country/track recruiting, I was exchanging posts with another contributor on the value of preparing a recruiting video for the student-athlete, and it occurs to me that the topic of videos probably deserves a thread of its own, which I could not find here via the search function. With the omnipresence and increasing technical quality (up to 1080p resolution!) of YouTube (DVD's are too ungainly for coaches to deal with), videos are a quick way for a coach in anywhere from one to six minutes to get a feel for the student athlete. (Length should be enought to see a kid's entire skill set a few times, but no longer -- a baseball infielder's video might take six minutes [but three is better], whereas a pole vaulter may need only a minute. Heck, ten seconds of a pitcher throwing a fastball with a radar gun in the foreground reading "94" will be enough to make most coaches drool.)</p>

<p>In my son's sport - baseball - videos are considered to be a 'must' except for those kids who've already wowed coaches by their HS rep or showcase appearances or are already well-known to their targeted coach(es) for some other reason. From what I've read, soccer and field hockey (and I'm guessing lacrosse) are similar. Other, less subjective and/or individual sports where personal times (track/swimming) or ERG scores (rowing) or ranking (tennis) apparently find it less necessary.</p>

<p>I thought I'd introduce the topic from what I'ves seen and heard from others about baseball, and ask others to chime in. It would be particularly helpful to hear about instances where students later learned that videos were not helpful - whether because they were not welcomed at all or because there was something in them that turned a coach off.</p>

<p>The key questions/criteria that seem to come to mind:</p>

<ol>
<li>Is a video necessary for the sport?</li>
<li>What specific factors about the student's skill set and level make a video more or less necessary?</li>
<li>Should it focus on highlights or practice drills/examples?</li>
<li>Should the student directly address the camera, and what should he or she say?</li>
<li>Should a high school or team coach speak in the video?</li>
<li>Should the student send updated video as events seem to warrant?</li>
<li>Who should prepare the video?</li>
</ol>

<p>As to baseball and our experience, here are my thoughts.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>For baseball, absolutely prepare a video unless the kid's already getting attention from all of the schools he's targeted, and even then it doesn't hurt. For others, I'm guessing something with a kid's face and voice (see item 4, below), and a few highlights could not hurt.</p></li>
<li><p>Videos should focus on those aspects of the athlete's game that don't come across through stats. My son is a pitcher and doesn't have a lot of velocity, so we felt it important to show the variety of pitches he throws and the impact they had in fooling hitters. (The best shots: batters standing with their bats still on their shoulders and staring at the catcher's mitt, not believing that the pitch they took actually broke over the plate for a strike.)</p></li>
<li><p>Most coaches like to see practice "skills" videos, because almost everyone can pull together a highlights video, though some highlights are nice, if only to break up the monotony. Coaches want to see what you physically are capable of doing, and figure that they will whip you into shape as far as repeating those skills in a game/match. Still, a few game shots can be helpful - particularly with something like baseball hitting -- because everyone can look good hittng a ball in batting practice but it's how you do facing live pitching that counts. Again, because my son's bullpens aren't going to look that impressive, we focused more on game highlights. Also, because he was a "closer", it was fun to add a couple clips at the end of games where you could cut the tension with a knife. (In one, a Mom is heard to yell, "One more strike!", and he threw a nasty slider for the final out, and the team roared off the field). Coaches don't need to see you do the same thing a zillion times; for example, I've seen highlight videos of infielders snaring fifteen grounders hit to their right, when a coach will "get it" after four or five.</p></li>
<li><p>I think ANY video in any sport will benefit by the kid speaking into the camera for fifteen seconds and reciting something like this: "Hi, I'm Jane Schmoe of the Class of 2012 at Majoric High School in Yourtown, Georgia. I'm a pitcher/midfielder/etc. and hope to continue playing [my sport] at a [state academic, geographic and division level parameters of colleges you're looking at]. I've [state major athletic accomplishment], and my grades and SAT scores are [X]." Remember, this coach will - if your child enrolls at his or her school - will spend more time over the ensuing four years with your child then you have over the past four years, and you want to reassure the coach that this is a person that he/she will want to be around. Let the coach remember the athlete as a smiling and confident face, so that she's remembered as something beyond a set of numbers on a page. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>This of course presumes that the athlete makes a good presentation; you don't want a mumbling teenager or a gum-chewing girl talking in 'Valley-girl' speak. If your child doesn't come across well on the video, maybe you'll want to scrap the idea or keep it short. I saw one recent video put together by a professional recruiting outfit that was mostly showing the young man talking off to someone at the side and literally mumbling inaudibly through a talk about why he like baseball. Bad idea, IMHO.</p>

<p>Another trick that's easy to accomplish with most video software programs is, after a few seconds, to have the student's voice ONLY appear OVER the videos. This keeps the videos short - there doesn't really need to be separate sound during the highlights themselves unless relevant to the sport. (E.g., for pitchers it doesn't hurt for a coach to hear the smack of the ball into the catcher's mitt.)</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I got the idea of having a coach speak on the video from a semi-professional video done for another kid on my son's summer team, as the coach is a former pro player whose recommendation may carry weight. Again, if you can keep it short (or, better yet, play the voice largely over the video to save time) and specific (say, talking about the athlete's specific skills and accomplishments ["He was our pitcher entrusted with facing our toughest opponents because of his speed and command"] and prospects for the future ["I forecast that he'll continue to grow and develop and will contribute to a mid-level D1 program because ____"], college coaches will be more likely to watch to the end.</p></li>
<li><p>Sending a very short, update clip of a highlight can be a good excuse for keeping a coach reminded about your kid. For example, I had my video camera running when the player mentioned in item 5, above, was hitting and running out a triple, which displayed both his hitting and running speed. His father put it on YouTube and the kid sent the YouTube link to several coaches he'd been in touch with to the effect of, "Hi, just thought I'd let you know about my continuing interest in your program and about my summer season, where I'm the starting shortstop with XYZ travel team and hitting .3xx. In case you're interested, here's a clip of a triple I hit yesterday in our tournament in ABC that another Dad filmed." Coaches can be forgetful; reminders of your interest and progress, if tasteful, can be good, particularly with D3 coaches who have small staffs and themselves are working at the job only part-time.</p></li>
<li><p>You probably don't need to get a professional to put the video together, and a coach may be put off by something too slick. As others have noted, with the Windows Movie Make on Windows or off-the-shelf programs for making movies, anyone can pull together various video clips from a camera. (I use Sony Vegas 10.0, which can be had on Ebay for $70 or so.) Most decent cameras have a video function that will produce decent movies, but I'd steer clear of most phones' cameras. Ask family or friends to find a good camera to borrow - most families of even modest means with children under the age of five probably bought a video camera as soon as their child started to become 'cute'. For those interested, I've taken the liberty of chopping down and sanitizing my son's three-minute baseball recruiting video to less than a minute to give you an idea of what an amateur but well-received initial recruitment video can look like in baseball. You can look at it here: UrsaMajoricSampleRecrVideoD1.wmv</a> - YouTube I'm not claiming that it's great, and because I've done amateur sports videos for my son's teams for years, I'm probably quicker at doing the editing than most, but with patience anyone can do work of this level.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>A professional videographer who doesn't understand the recruiting process (say, someone who specializes in wedding videos) may steer you in the wrong direction, e.g., by focusing on flashy edits or by simply being too long. And I've seen horrible videos done even by recruiting services, for example, by focusing on the kid talking or not cutting out examples of the kid not actually doing well. They may not have the incentive to give the kid 'tough love' and tell his or her parent that she is not coming across well, or they may simply be in a hurry to do everything in one take and move on to their next client. But ask around. The athlete's peers who are going through the same process may have found a real gem of a videographer and will likely share their video with the kid or his parents; even if you don't use that videographer/editor, the video may give you ideas as to what does and doesn't work.</p>

<p>Also, if you search in YouTube for "recruiting video [your sport]", you'll likely come up with a zillion videos, either from the direct search or in the vertical "other videos" bar on the right side of the page. This will guide you as to what's good, bad and ugly about recruiting videos. </p>

<p>Oh, and music is generally a no-no. And if you play the theme from "Chariots of Fire" or "The Natural" - or anything from a Star Wars movie - you'll be blackballed for sure. 8-)</p>

2

<p>Good idea for a thread. I completely agree with leaving the music out. You can find lots of football recruitng vids on YouTube with a pounding death metal soundtrack - just picture the 50-something coach listening to that in his office.</p>

<p>On a related note, in a skills event like javelin or pole vault - I’ve wondered whether a coach would prefer to see perfect form or if they’d like to see some tweaks they could make to increase the upside potential.</p>

3

<p>For my D’s sport, the Coach has asked for video clips as simple as from a “Flip Cam”. The Coach gave my D a list of the skills they wanted to see and ask us to email them over once they were available. No music, no banners, no Hollywood-type special effects. Just the skills.</p>

4

<p>UrsaMajoric,</p>

<p>I have a totally different viewpoint for baseball recruiting videos. In our experince they were not required. Videos were a “nice to have” for reference as an email follow up or a conversation starter. We found most college baseball coaches today are set in their ways, and avoid technology altogether. The college baseball coaches trust their eyes, stopwatches and radar guns. I know several D1 colleges where the head coach doesn’t even use email. Most of the coaches and scouts we dealt with wanted to see for themselves; velocity, pitch variety, control, and grades in that order with a heavy emphasis on velocity. I recall my son directly asking some coaches if they’d seen his Youtube video. The coaches replied “no”, and he was still offered at those schools. They said “we’ve seen you pitch, and that is all we need to see”. We never had a coach directly request a video if my son was to be considered for their program.</p>

<p>I still think it is a nice to have if folks can affordably do it themselves, but I don’t see it as a gotta have. I don’t think any baseball coach is going to see a video, jump out of his chair, and say we have to recruit that kid in the video. The coaches want to get to know the player, and see what he can do on the field in a real game in front of him. </p>

<p>I’m not convinced video is a required tool in the recruiting process. However, it can’t hurt to be used as reinforcement or as a leave behind in the communication process.</p>

5

<p>fenway, for the first time, and probably the last, I am going to disagree…to a degree.</p>

<p>D1 coaches have seen the D1 kids and clocked velocity. They know who is who.
D2 and you know D3, love the videos of any quality. The D3 coaches have limited budgets and for the kid who isn’t at that particular showcase, that video could mean the difference btwn position and walk-on. </p>

<p>Using all your insightful guidance, we kept on the D3 coach my son really wanted to hear from, sent a video link and boom! Done! (also sent one to your son’s coach and had a nice chat…ruled out for a crazy reason…don’t ask) </p>

<p>So, that said, video away! </p>

<p>I have to say, fenwaysouth could open a baseball recruiting company! You are THAT good and have been incredibly helpful. Our thanks …</p>

6

<p>My D had her coach film her (and his son is a videographer with an underwater camera) swimming and provided narration of her technique. The college coaches have all been very happy to have it-- one said that usually he doesn’t actually get to see a recruit swim until they show up on campus. It was a big help in the recruiting process. </p>

<p>So we are big fans…</p>

7

<p>Etondad: Now that is a VERY COOL way to submit a recruiting video for a swimmer.</p>

8

<p>Fenway, thanks for adding your views. In reviewing other threads on this topic, I see that you’ve devoted a lot of valuable insights to this forum and your perspective is appreciated. And I agree that ultimately the coach will want to see a kid for himself and it’s a good warning to kids to not rely on videos but make every effort to get in front of the coaches. But, the question isn’t whether the coach will make a final decision on a kid who he (the coach) has found by some other means and has since managed to see in person (as occurred with your son); the problem is how to get on the coach’s radar in the first place.</p>

<p>It sounds like your experience primarily was with D1 programs. I’m curious as to what you’ve seen as to the possible differences in the value of videos between D1 programs and D3’s. This is particularly an issue for kids applying to D3 programs in other parts of the country where they can’t even get the coach’s attention without flying out to a showcase that that particular coach attends, as Orangemom points out. Buried in my lengthy (sorry, folks!) post was this point that being found differs with “… D3 coaches who have small staffs and themselves are working at the job only part-time.” In other words, they’ve got fewer resources but have to find potential matches from a much larger and harder-to-distinguish group of kids, a job made harder from top LAC’s, who will indeed have applicants from around the country.</p>

<p>Bear in mind that D1 coaches will be plucking a select few kids from the top of the pyramid - kids who are more readily found from prominent invitee-only showcases, etc. For the great mass of kids lower down looking for D2 or D3 placement, by definition the differences are more subtle. Even then, many kids won’t get OV’s (and thus won’t apply ED) and will have to wait to see what happens to team rosters after the ED slots are filled. So, it’s harder to show your stuff to every coach whose school might be a potential academic fit.</p>

<p>And, of course, even if, say, 4 of 10 coaches you’re contacting won’t bother to look at your video, you’re still going to want to make the video for the other 6. At that point, there’s no cost to you to make the video available to the 4 old-timers via YouTube. So does it hurt your chances with those 4?</p>

<p>Finally, what is the alternative? For example, my son is very interested in going to [a particular Ivy League school] and would love to pitch there. But that school’s coaches weren’t at the Headfirst Honor Roll camp he attended, and we live 3,000 miles away. We’re not going to fly back out there in the off chance that he’ll both be admitted at that school and the coach will have a potential spot for him. So, if my son is admitted RD and is deciding between there and some other school, he’d like to know if there’s a chance to even walk onto the team. Without video, the coach won’t have any way of giving him any sense at all whether his chance of walking onto the team are 2% or 5% or 60%, and my son conversely can’t make a call based on what is a tipping point for him – all things being relatively equal, he’d rather go to a school where he can play ball.</p>

<p>Varska, thanks for chiming in about the music. After my original post, I started clicking random YouTube links and was frankly surprised by how many recruitment videos had rock anthems as background (and were appallingly bad overall). One showcase/recruitment service used the same music snippet for every kid in their program; I can imagine a recruiter going through all the kids he’d seen the previous week at their showcase would have gone batty by the time he viewed them all. Even worse, some used rap music (the lyrics seemed clean but nevertheless were wholly inapposite to sports) for pasty-faced suburban kids… say what?</p>

9

<p>Thanks for your analysis; even though baseball is not my son’s sport, the information was helpful.</p>

<p>Let me add to your point about limited resources for DIII athletic recruiting. Online information about men’s recruiting budgets at seven of my son’s potential colleges shows that the total available for all sports combined ranged from $5,000 to $47,000.</p>

10

<p>Schok, very interesting figures on the recruiting budgets. Bear in mind that with baseball, at least, the recruiting budgets often are subsidized by showcases that pay the college coaches to come and “coach” the kids playing in the showcase. (I mean no disrespect by putting “coach” in quotes; at the HeadFirst showcases, for example, many of the coaches work their fannies off in the dugouts juggling a roster of fifteen kids, all of whom are strangers to them, through several seven inning games a day.) So when people complain that some of these showcases/camps are overpriced and are just money machines for the promoters, they may be overlooking that much of the money gets paid over to coaches.</p>

11

<p>Ursa…my DS is looking at D3s and an Ivy. We, too, live a plane flight away, but, that said made a few showcases. </p>

<p>Fenwaysouth has been a great source of guidance. </p>

<p>DS was invited for a wknd by top LAC based on video. Coach also talked about him to another top LAC, and another visit. He mustvhave been invited to six top LACs based on video and email/ phone and transcripts…yes, send them, too. Coaches at these schools need kids who can do the work and get in on their own merit. Top ivy had big pull, but D3 coaches, in general, don’t have a ton. It’s definitely an added bonus, so keep those grades up.</p>

12

<p>UrsaMajoric/Orangemom,</p>

<p>I’ve sat on this for a bunch of days, and talked to some former travel coaching friends over the weekend. I coached my middle son & team for nearly 8 years. We were a very tight knit group with 8 kids that started with me at 9U, and won a few state championships along the way. My son still talks to me and plays baseball so I think I might have done something right. :wink: This topic has grabbed my attention because I’ve been asked to speak (again) at a well known baseball academy and high school about college baseball recruiting. Video may be an area of recruiting that is changing, and will continue to change, and I want to stay on top of it. This is a good constructive conversation. I don’t think we’re seeing eye to eye on it, but that is the great part of this site. We can talk it over, and continue the dialogue.</p>

<p>Here is the bottom line for me…</p>

<p>There is no doubt video is and will become more pervasive…more recruits will use it to remain competitve with the other recruits. That I think is a fact. Where I have difficulty with it is how much emphasis is put on it. I don’t think of it as required. I still think of it as an accessory. I think young, tech- savvy recruits think this is just as good as the coach seeing them. This leads to a false sense of accomplishment and security. I think the video can be a useful accessory but shouldn’t be used in place the hard work of starting and maintaining a dialogue with a coach, My fear is that some will use it as crutch and think…well the coach has my video, “he can see how wonderful I am right there on the digital superhighway. My video speaks for itself”. That would be a bad trap to fall into IMHO.</p>

<p>My oldest son’s broad recruiting experience was with D1, D1 Ivy, D1 Patriot, D3 and D3 NESCAC, however that was 2 years ago. None of these schools requested video, and some were thousands of miles away. My son did include a video link in some follow ups, but nothing was ever mentioned about it. I understand the possible value. The possible value is to seperate yourself from another kid who may have similiar athletic stats or academic talent. To your point, it is probably more applicable to D3 because their recruiting budgets are not nearly as deep as D1. I know a lot of D3’s blow their recruiting budget at HeadFirst. More D1s recruit nationally than D3s. If the college doesn’t recruit nationally, then there are few choices for the coaches to see your son. There is really no way around it, the kids has to get his fanny to be in front of the coach at some point if he wants to be considered. When a coach makes a visual evaluation, a grade gets noted in the coaches notebook for future reference. A D3 coach will recruit players and possibly help them get admitted but nothing is final until tryouts in the Fall. The coach is going to play along as he wants as many kids at tryouts as possible. His ideal world is to have competition at every position. That D3 coach will want to look at as many videos as he can but he will not make a final roster decision until he sees that kid at a summer showcase or Fall tryout.</p>

<p>The demand for roster spots in D1 is greater than D3, however I just can’t see a coach making a decision on a kid with a video. There would have been hundreds or thousands of kids he would have seen in the flesh. He is going to take the kid he saw in the flesh over a kids in a video. In our experience, a recruit gets on the radar of a coach by other means, not a video recording. In today’s recruiting world you have to start a dialogue through a conversation or email, share athletic and academic stats, and show interest in the program. Give the coaches your spring & summer schedule and hope they come see you at a showcase, camp, or tournament. Follow up with the coaches to see if they remain interested, rinse and repeat. [b}I submit you could use the video as reinforcement but a coach is not going to view it as a door opener**. To a coach, seeing is believing. I’d like to compare this to an online dating service. Would you make a 4 year decision based upon a video…probably not. But would you date someone after meeting them, spending some time with them and referencing their online video profile…much more likely would be my guess.</p>

<p>Now that I have those thoughts in place. I think video will become even more important in the years to come. Someone made the suggestion (on another board) that certain showcases could have video feeds and recordings for coaches to see. The technical tools available will become greater and coaches will be forced to learn how to use them to remain competitive with their peer coaches. </p>

<p>Orangemom12’s video door-opener success story is an interesting one. She clearly used it as a door opener and followed up with email/phone transcript. This may be more of the expeption today, but may become more of the rule tomorrow. Like I said, I really want to keep an eye on it. If coaches are going to put more emphasis on it, they will demand it from their recruits.</p>

13

<p>FS, I’m thinking that we may not differ all that much. However, your very well-thought out and articulated response jumps back and forth a little bit between the issues of whether a coach will make a final decision based on video, and whether a video will get his initial attention. (And, there’s a third use of the video - after the coach sees you as a supplement to that which he’s seen.) </p>

<p>Since I’m probably exactly the sort of worry-prone parent who you will be speaking to, allow me to offer some humble suggestions from the point of view of such a consumer. I worry that your presentation to prospective recruits may similarly jump around and leave them a little confused. Perhaps a few rules on those issues where we agree would display that our differences are minor. Here’s where we seem to agree, and I’ll quote you in part, if I may.</p>

<p>First rule: video can be a useful accessory but shouldn’t be used in place the hard work of starting and maintaining a dialogue with a coach, My fear is that some will use it as crutch and think…well the coach has my video, “he can see how wonderful I am right there on the digital superhighway. My video speaks for itself”. That would be a bad trap to fall into.</p>

<p>Second rule: virtually never will a coach make a final decision based upon a video, so you still have to find a way to get in front of that coach or his assistant, whether at a showcase, a tournament they’re attending, or on campus.</p>

<p>Third rule: find out what the coach prefers. Many teams’ online questionnaires will ask you for a YouTube link to your video - this suggests that they’re interested in seeing a little of you at work. More importantly, if you talk to the coach or his assistant early on in the process, ask if it would be helpful to send a video (or create one if you don’t have one). </p>

<p>Beyond this, FS, I think kids can be given criteria to help them decide whether a video would be helpful in a given circumstance, understanding that they probably will not be penalized for not having one. The following circumstances each tend to suggest that an initial video would help, if you’re otherwise uncertain:</p>

<ol>
<li>If the coach is not heavily recruiting you;</li>
<li>If your quantifiable skills (or your physical size, if that’s considered significant in your sport) – e.g., weight or speed in football, velocity of pitches in baseball – are less than ideal or your skills are not subject to quantification (e.g., artistry in gymnastics);</li>
<li>If your academics are on the low end of the the school’s range and you thus need to market yourself more as an athlete;</li>
<li>If you are contacting the coach relatively late in the recruiting process (and so there’s less time for the coach to see you before making up his recruiting depth chart);</li>
<li>If you live far from the coach’s college and/or are not going to be at a showcase, tourney, etc. where the coach can see you until late in the process.</li>
</ol>

<p>Also, a follow-up highlight or two may be helpful if you’ve had substantial improvement in performance since the coach has seen you, or he has seemingly forgotten about you, or he seems to question whether you’re genuinely interested enough in his school to attend if he offers you a spot.</p>

14

<p>I think the videos are a useful adjuncts for “field” sports, notably football, soccer, hockey, field hockey and lacrosse. I think you could show nice video of baseball fielding, but I think hitting might lose something – just my opinion, don’t know that for sure at all. Etondad’s comment on a well done video showing great swimming technique is very cool and interesting, but I still have to imagine that timed sports are mostly about the times. My kid had a pretty good video and I think it prompted some closer looks at tournaments and invitations for a closer look at certain schools camps on the D1 level. Basically, it piqued the curiosity of several coaches who hadn’t seen/noticed my kid otherwise. For several D3 schools it was enough for them to say, “I can tell by your video that you’d do great on this level, when can you come out for a visit?”</p>

<p>As for the video: i think music detracts, no more than 5-6 minutes, limit narration if any, show wide variety of skills, show failure and response to failure. We began with a brief slide of stats and were fortunate to have a nice, brief clip of kid doing a great job in a live interview from local news and then it was about 25-30 plays. That’s our story. Hope it helps.</p>

15

<p>Thanks, Side. Absent an appearance by a few coaches, anecdotal tales like yours are the best information we’re likely to get. My son too - after we sent videos of his pitching - got contacts back to the effect that, “I saw your video and think…”, with most of the ‘thinking’ being positive. </p>

<p>This brings to mind the fact that one problem with showing coaches your pitching is that there are limits to what the coaches will be able to see at a tournament or showcase from a pitcher. My son put all his eggs in the Headfirst Honor Roll basket as far as showcasing himself to East Coast schools, but there, every coach sees every player in drills only insofar as they hit and field. Headfirst does NOT have pitchers do bullpens so as to save their arms. Because four games are going on simultaneously, a coach may not see a kid pitch; Headfirst tries to make up for it by having a coach with a radar gun responsible for filling out an evaluation form for each pitcher at each game, and those evaluations are shared with all coaches (but not the kids or their parents, so they can be candid). So, even after a showcase, a video may be the only way for a kid to actually “show” the coach what he can do on the mound, particularly for kids like mine whose strength is in pitch movement, not velocity. (Fortunately, Headfirst also posts pitching assignments at the beginning of the day, so a kid can go up to a coach and say, “I’m pitching in the 3rd and 4th inning at field 2; please come by if you can.”**)</p>

<p>I agree that hitting is a little difficult to display on videos, but not impossible if done well. In viewing sample YouTube videos, I was astonished how poorly this was done - many times a kid would have a camera at the side showing him hitting balls off soft toss. Wow. Sure, you can get a feel for the kid’s mechanics (which can be a disqualifier, to be sure), but that doesn’t tell you how much pop he has or how he does against real pitching. Even though my son is a pitcher, on his recruitment video I included clips of a half dozen hits in games showing he had some pop to all fields (as he’s also a decent [back-up level] catcher). If you don’t have game videos, putting a camcorder behind the backstop during BP can show how well the ball jumps off a kid’s bat, but I’d still limit it to the best six to eight hits that the kid has in that session, along with a bunt and his run to first base.</p>

<p>Love the idea about the clip from the local news - that gets back to showing the kid’s stage presence and personality. </p>

<hr>

<p>** Another trick about videotaping your kid at showcases. Because the focus at showcases should be on the kid and not the parents and only the kids are to approach the coaches, I didn’t want to be the obsessive Dad videotaping his kid’s every breath. So, I sat watching with my small but excellent camcorder casually resting on my knee – and did so while other players were pitching and hitting as well, so it wasn’t obvious to coaches who I was there to see and videotape.</p>

16

<p>UrsaMajoric,</p>

<p>Absolutely in total agreement on baseball. The rules and applications you’ve outlined are exactly where I think video can be used for a baseball recruit. See, we just needed to talk through this. ;-). Good stuff. </p>

<p>Sorry for my jumping around. While I was writing it, I kept thinking about the different applicaitons between D1 and D3. I think there are some subtle nuances in the applications you’ve outlined between D1 and D3. I did talk to my college baseball son last weekend. He informed me that some of the D3 schools did ask for video which was news to me. BTW my oldest son’s video had no music or running commentary, and was filmed at a showcase tournament. It included his bullpen warm up, and some gametime footage. The camera angle was behind the pitcher and also behind the catcher. I tried to keep the video recording as quiet as possible.</p>

<p>Both of our sons are pitchers. In addition, I think a pitching video may be the hardest thing for a coach to evaluate & get interested in. Some kids hide the ball well from the hitters which makes the pitch seem faster than it is. Some kids throw a heavy ball because of the tourque or spin they generate which would be hard to see on film. Overall pitching velocity, movement and location can be very difficult to judge & evaluate depending on the angle of the camera IMHO.</p>

<p>My middle son is a high school junior and thinking about college baseball if he can find the right fit with academics. It appears he will be pursuing engineering as his older brother is. So, it will be time to break out the old video camera soon and applying it as we’ve described here.</p>

17

<p>Good point that the difference between D1 (which I’m not familiar with) and D3 can and should be pointed out to your audience. I’m not sure where I should put the Ivies, as they’re technically D1 but don’t have the recruiting budgets of most D1 programs and are drawing from a more national crowd than most.</p>

<p>Well, I don’t want to turn this thread into a pitcher’s only discussion, but hopefully others can extrapolate from this to other sports. For example, Sidelines’ story about using a TV station’s interview w/his son is universal - i.e., add some personality. I think you can even “set the moment” a little once or twice in a video - for example, with my great-nieces’ gymnastics videos (not for recruitment - they’re 9 and 7), it’s fun to catch the moment before the music starts and the crowd hushes, and then the crowd’s reaction to a good routine.</p>

<p>I think we’re all agreed on the no-music rule, though I see it more often than not. It’s funny - I videotaped another niece’s dance work as an audition piece for a dance camp and thought I had a brilliant idea for an insider audio-pun; I started with about fifteen seconds of the intro to “Dancing Through Life” from the musical “Wicked”. My sister-in-law (the mom) laughed… but made me take it out.</p>

<p>As for narration, we stop my son’s voice-over narration at the 35 second market, bringing it back only briefly later on to mention the other positions he plays and his batting stats. But he’s actually talking into the camera for only 9 seconds. I was appalled to see some of the camp/showcase videos take up half the video with the kid awkwardly answering questions while shifting back-and-forth from one foot to the other. Favorite question: “What did you like about this camp?” Yeah, like a college coach cares about THAT?</p>

<p>Agreed that pitching velocity is hard to show unless you have a radar gun in the foreground (and many videos do this). I’ve seen kids pitching at baseball ‘centers’ with the speed displayed on a readout above the catcher, but they often seem fishy, with kids throwing heat I’m sure I could hit, and an “87” suddenly displayed. As you say, taping (wow, now there’s an outdated word) from both in front of and behind the pitcher can give the best idea of what the pitches actually do. </p>

<p>The nuances like the ‘heavy ball’ you describe aren’t easy to project – my son generates a lot of double plays with his comparable sinking two-seam fastball; the best you can do is to have shots from behind the plate with batters actually doing that. What you can do is demonstrate the variety of pitches a pitcher has and how he uses them. Later in my son’s highlight video I display five 3-or-4 pitch sequences where he sets the batter up with his first couple of pitches and then strikes him out (making him look goofy) with a different pitch - even a slow (say, 78MPH) fastball can be effective if you set it up with two sliders.</p>