One of the things that has changed over the last 20 years is the involvement of travel baseball leagues affecting the recruiting of college baseball squads. There is many of these squads which are just straight up money grabs while others provide excellent coaching.
Bill Doucet of The Cambridge Times in Canada wrote a fantastic article about this topic which carries over to the United States.
J.P. Soucie has been on both sides of the field, so to speak.
Currently the vice-president of senior house league and coach of last season’s minor peewee Cubs, Soucie returned to the Cambridge association after a stint as commissioner of the Eastern Canadian Premier League.
His time there, despite having his son Tyler benefit from playing in the loop with the Ontario Nationals – based out of Stratford – left a bad taste in his mouth.
“The Nationals did absolutely zero for him. We got no value from that program,” Soucie said, noting Tyler made his own phone calls and arrangements to go to Spring Arbor University in Michigan, which led to him transfer later to Canisius College.
Soucie made no bones about what parents are paying for in elite baseball.
“You’re buying better pitching. You’re not guaranteed to get better coaching. Typically the coaches are dads and/or the same OBA coaches that were in another system that now see if that, ‘If I go there, my son will get this at a reduced rate’.”
While Soucie wouldn’t disparage all elite programs – he admitted that some are established and move players onto NCAA scholarships and the major leagues instead of just collecting cheques. He did question the value of some programs when players are vying for scholarships in smaller schools.
“When you end up at a Division 3 university, where you get zero athletic money, or they say we’ll get you into a junior college and that junior college is in the middle of nosebleed Iowa, and you’re getting $5,000 toward your tuition and you spend $20,000 to get there, I just don’t see the value.”
You can check out the full article by clicking here.
