Step 4: Understanding the Numbers
Preparing yourself for the recruitment process is serious business. As you begin you need to realistically look at the numbers you are going to be dealing with. I’m not sharing the numbers so that you freak out and give up. I’m sharing them to help you understand just how hard you need to work this process.
There are roughly 300 Division I schools in the country that have softball teams and can offer money. Each year those schools will offer some form of a scholarship to about 5 freshman players. That is a total of about 1,500 scholarships for Division I schools.
In the state of GA alone there are roughly 400 High Schools. Assuming that each of those schools has a softball team that graduates 5 seniors per year, that comes to about 2,000 graduating softball players in the state. If you multiply that out for the country that means that there about 100,000 softball players who are going to be graduating next spring.
In other words, there are 100,000 girls just like you who want to get a part of 1,500 scholarships of some form. That means that only 1.5% of the seniors that are graduating are going to make it to a Division I school with any form of athletic scholarship.
As you look at the players you compete against regularly where do you stack up in regards to playing ability? Are you in the top 1.5% based on your skills. Guess what? I really don’t care. The top 1.5% of the players in regards to ability are not necessarily the 1.5% of the overall pool that will get the scholarships. Those that get the scholarships are going to have talent for sure, but they are going to be the top 1.5% who put the effort in to advertising themselves and working the recruiting process.
Regardless of your ability, the numbers are stacked against you if you don’t put the same effort in to trying to be recruited that you’ve put in to making yourself a college ready softball player. So start making the time through whatever means is necessary to make those contacts with coaches and keep in touch with them. Outwork your opponents on the field, and on the computer.