The recruiting process is a process that will determine the rest of your education, your athletic career, and the rest of your life.
There are around eight million high school students who play a high school sport, of that eight million, only about 480,000 of those athletes will play for some college or university in the NCAA or the National Athletic Collegiate Association, at the Division I, II or III level. Then about one-fifth of the athletes remaining play for a junior college or a community college.
Getting recruiting is a steady process and a slow process at that. It consists of sending emails to coaches once or twice week, selling yourself, in hopes of the coach having a free weekend to come watch you play. And, if they do come, it then turns into playing your absolute best, showcasing your skills, and doing something that will catch the coach's eye indefinitely. It also comes with making calls to colleges; hoping the coach will pick up, to ask them questions about their program, and let them know you are interested in their school. But, when they don't pick up, it's leaving a long slightly awkward message, and then having to try again later that week, when hopefully they aren't with their team lifting or at practice. And then, it's on to the next one. It's about convincing a coach who knows nothing about you, that you belong on their campus, playing for them, wearing their name on your uniform.
It's trying to figure out if they have what you want to major in, because first and foremost, you are a student at the university, then an athlete. It's seeing if you'll play your freshman year, or if you'll sit the bench for awhile until you're a junior, all depending on what their roster already looks like, and how many athletes the team carries.
As the recruiting process unravels, you begin to realize what you really want in life. You're forced to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life, and you have to honestly sit down, and evaluate what you want. Because in the end, it's about what you want, you're the student and you're the athlete. You learn to see what's most important to you going to school. Speaking for myself, I would like to play at a smaller school in the middle of nowhere, the because I learn best in a smaller class environment, and I feel safer in the non-city areas. It's most important to me that I play at a school where my parents are going to be able to watch me play, they've been on this journey for so long, and they deserve to see me reach the end of the road, because, without them, I wouldn't be the softball player I am today.
It's about finding who you are, and how you want to live your collegiate athletic career. Discovering a place that makes you feel safe, in the type of environment you want. Whether that'd be in a big city school, or a small school out in the sticks. Whether that'd be a school that offers a hundred majors, or only has a handful. It's about feeling comfortable with how far you're away from home, maybe you've been a homebody for all your life and you need to stay relatively close, or maybe you're ready to branch out of your comfort zone. Or perhaps you're the complete opposite, you're ready to move across the country and get your education.
In addition to all of this, it's also about embracing the ride. Embrace all the visits you go on, all the people you meet, whether that'd be the coaches, athletes on the current team, people of the administration of the school or the people of the town. Take lots of pictures, every visit I go on, I take a picture of the field, and take a picture in front of the sign at the school, because, "pics or it didn't happen." I also make sure I get a t-shirt from each school too because you can neve have enough t-shirts. Remember, these are memories, this is your journey, have fun with it. You only get to go thruogh the recruiting process once, and it can be hard, it can be stressful, but one day, it will all be worth it.
Most importantly, it's about you finding a home for four years (if you chose to play at a four-year school) or two years (at a junior college). It's about getting to play the game you fell in love with as a little kid, and enjoying every moment of it. As I've learned, this journey has gone quick, and after my high school years, I have only four years left before I have to hang up my cleats, and that's the most heart-breaking thing I have had to come to realize. But, I'm sure that the game will be with me the rest of my life, and it will never leave me as it has a special place in my heart.
