How do other sports handle college recruiting?

[timbuck]

(I may have posted something similar to this in the past. But it crosses my mind around this time of year)

We all know that the "showcase" is the holy grail of soccer recruiting (somewhat sarcastic). College coaches attend them in November, March and in early summer because they aren't "in-season" and they can break away to watch games. Do other sports try to make it this easy for college scouts? Did college coaches ask for showcases or did clubs put them together because "if you build it, they will come"?

Basketball has high school and AAU. Seems that a lot of college coaches are able to break away to attend high school games to look for recruits. Why don't soccer coaches do the same?

Baseball - I have no idea how they do it.

Volleyball- Do college scouts attend the big club volleyball tournaments? Or more high school focused? (We have friends who are travelling like crazy for volleyball tournaments over the next few months). College volleyball season seems to run from August until late December.

What about track/cross country/swimming? Do scouts attend meets? Do they just look at times and find recruits? (A bit easier to look at a race time on paper to determine if an athlete is "good" versus a team sport where it's more subjective).

Tennis? Hockey? Lacrosse?

 

[espola]

(I may have posted something similar to this in the past. But it crosses my mind around this time of year)

We all know that the "showcase" is the holy grail of soccer recruiting (somewhat sarcastic). College coaches attend them in November, March and in early summer because they aren't "in-season" and they can break away to watch games. Do other sports try to make it this easy for college scouts? Did college coaches ask for showcases or did clubs put them together because "if you build it, they will come"?

Basketball has high school and AAU. Seems that a lot of college coaches are able to break away to attend high school games to look for recruits. Why don't soccer coaches do the same?

Baseball - I have no idea how they do it.

Volleyball- Do college scouts attend the big club volleyball tournaments? Or more high school focused? (We have friends who are travelling like crazy for volleyball tournaments over the next few months). College volleyball season seems to run from August until late December.

What about track/cross country/swimming? Do scouts attend meets? Do they just look at times and find recruits? (A bit easier to look at a race time on paper to determine if an athlete is "good" versus a team sport where it's more subjective).

Tennis? Hockey? Lacrosse?

Scouts.

 

[twoclubpapa]

Volleyball - there is a big volleyball showcase in Las Vegas held yearly in February or March that draws lots of college coaches. My granddaughter was first noticed there by a coach who came to watch a different girl play on an adjacent court. He began recruiting my granddaughter and came to watch several of her SCVA tournaments during the club season. She was playing on a SCVA Division 4 team as a junior and he got her a tryout for a SCVA Division 1 team where she played her senior year and went to the 18s national championships. That team had traveled around the USA to several tournaments to qualify for the nationals and there were many college coaches at these tournaments. I think all except one of her teammates had already committed to a college that senior year.

Here in SoCal the HS girls volleyball season (Aug-Nov) runs at the same time as the college women's volleyball season (Aug-Dec). I don't think her college coach ever came to see a HS match. The girls club season runs January to June.

 

[focomoso]

Basketball has high school and AAU. Seems that a lot of college coaches are able to break away to attend high school games to look for recruits. Why don't soccer coaches do the same?

At least for boys, basketball programs have more money and therefore more scouts. The talent is also much more concentrated (in the US and urban areas) which makes the chance of an eventual payoff larger so that there's an entire system of scouting at the younger levels independent of the schools. Also, it's easier to identify basketball talent earlier because of the reliance on athleticism.