The Truth about “Showcase Camps”

What a crazy weekend I had. This past Sunday I was asked to work at a college showcase/skills camp. I wasn’t there to do any instruction but just check people in and then abuse my arm by throwing two hours of batting practice. The camp ran from 7am-5pm and featured 16 college coaches. I could not believe how many athletes showed up and from how many different areas. The camp was held here in Southern California and while most of the athletes were local or from just a short drive away there was athletes from Northern California, Arizona, and Nevada in attendance. The basis of the camp was supposed to be that the athletes receive instruction from top college coaches and at the same time were able to showcase their skills in front of these schools.

150 athletes showed up, all of them believing that they had been invited. That these schools were actually interested in recruiting them and that they had a legitament opportunity to showcase themselves and impress these coaches with their abilities. I myself bought into the idea that this camp was something more than just a money maker. I went into the day thinking that this camp was a genius idea. I mean not only is the coach that is running it going to make some good money but he also has the opportunity to get all of the athletes he is interested in recruiting in one place at one time which would only make his job as a recruiter easier.

As the camp progressed it became painfully clear to me that this camp was nothing more than an opportunity to make a lot of money and fast. There were only a few recruitable kids at this camp and the level of instruction that was offered was terrible. Of course the consumers were happy, each one leaving the camp believing they received top level instruction from some of the country’s top college coaches and that they just showed each school that they were deserving of attending and receiving a scholarship to a Division 1 university.

As I walked away from the experience I was bothered by how these coaches preyed upon the dreams of these athletes. Each athlete dreaming of earning the opportunity to play major college athletics and each coach with no intention of signing a single player at that camp. My thoughts raced back to my experiences in college and professional baseball. Each showcase event you attend you are filled with the feeling of hope. You feel excited for the opportunity that awaits you and you just know that someone at this camp will see you and want you to sign with them. Sadly, the majority of the coaches and scouts have checked out long before they even take a look at you. Either because they looked at your bio and have already made a judgement on you before ever seeing you play or because they don’t really have a need for you and they are just attending the event to collect a paycheck. Which is what happened at this camp. I spoke with one coach of a major university who told me that their recruiting is done on players who graduate in 2010 and 2011 and they only need two more players for 2012. Which means they only need to recruit two more high school sophomores before they’re done recruiting for 2012! That’s crazy, especially when you consider that the majority of the kids at this event were seniors doing everything they could to get noticed.

My frustration stems from the blatened disregard for the feelings of the athletes. Most of these showcase events take advantage of the athlete’s desire to play at the next level. They play off of the athlete’s and the parent’s desperation to get noticed or get a scholarship usually costing the family thousands of dollars when there really was never any ligitament chance of the athlete getting recruited.

So here is how it works. Athletes in their desire to play will sign up for websites that claim to help them get recruited. Coaches then go on these sites and download hundreds of email addresses from the athletes who have signed up. They then tailor an email to the athlete or the parents making it sound as though their school is legitimately interested in the athlete, which usually isn’t very hard to do as most athletes and parents (because of their ego) are so excited of “being recruited” that they are willing to believe that this coach really is interested in them. The email will then invite them to their “showcase” event which only costs an arm and a leg but “you might get a scholarship out of it”.

I think it’s important for you to understand the real process of recruiting. What really goes on and what you can expect when you do start getting calls, letters, and emails. I’m tired of seeing good athletes taken advantage of and dumping tons of money into something that isn’t going to produce a result. So here are somethings to think about.

If you are entering the second semester of your senior year and you still have not committed to a school your dream of playing at a major Division 1 school is probably over. Unless you attend a Juco and transfer in two years most major Div. 1 schools have already signed their players years in advance. Are there exceptions? Of course, I’m just saying it’s not likely that they are actively recruiting you. You should consider a smaller school, a lesser known Div. 1 or consider attending a Div. 2, 3, or NAIA school. I know it doesn’t sound as sexy but other than your own ego the level in which you play doesn’t really matter.
Just because you receive a letter, email, or phone call from a college coach it doesn’t mean they are recruiting you. With the internet today there are multiple player lists available to coaches. Many times a coach will access one of these list and just mass mail a number of players. Many times they go based on stats and accomplishments but if you’ve read any of my other blogs then you will know that neither is a good way to determine ability. I once played with a guy who his senior year in high school was first team all state and lead the state of California in hitting. We recruited him based on his numbers and when he got to our school we quickly discovered that this player could hardly hit in batting practice. He even didn’t make it one semester. You compare that to myself who never won any awards or even played a single day of varsity baseball but was able to play four years of college and for 5 professional teams then you will understand that your stats really don’t mean much. They send out these mass emails to players with decent stats to try and entice them to attend the “showcase” camps.
Be wary if you are asked to attend a “showcase” camp where you have to pay to attend. In my experience with my players who have been legitimately recruited and signed they were never asked to pay for the showcase event. The schools that recruit them did have them attend their showcase event but it was never one they had to pay for. In addition the event they attended didn’t have anyone else who paid either. Meaning that the schools obviously have multiple events, one for the players they are really recruiting and one for the players they ask to pay.
College recruiting has become a science. Colleges have coaches whose main responsibility it is to find players and convince them to come to their school. As such the chances of you getting seen without attending these events is very high. Now the smaller schools don’t necessarily have the budget to travel all over and recruit which works in your benefit. They are more likely to sign you off of your stats or a video which means either way you don’t need to attend an event. The major schools probably won’t sign someone out of a camp and the small schools aren’t there so what’s the real reason to go? Unless you attend an event hosted by a highly reputable company (like Perfect Game) a high profile school probably won’t sign you out of a camp. Even if you attend the PG event the likelihood of you getting a scholarship immediately is highly unlikely. Most of the time the big showcase events just peak the school’s interest in you and then they will follow you more closely. But it is a combination of things that gets you signed not just the “showcase” camp.

So does this mean all showcases are bad? Well no, there are some reputable companies out there (I can only think of two) that major universities will attend and recruit players. However you are better served to play on a quality travel team and attend showcase tournaments over showcase camps. If you play in these events, play travel ball, high school, and so on chances are you’ve already been seen by college coaches a number of times. If you are nearing the end of your high school career and there is still no interest don’t be frustrated, it’s not over, you just need to adjust your approach and begin to consider smaller universities and schools in less populated areas, such as the midwest or the northeast.

By no means do I mean to discourage you about your chances of playing in college. My goal here is to educate you on the process so that you and your parents can spend your money on things that are more beneficial for your career. Spending your money and time on quality instruction is far more beneficial. Playing at a small school in no way hurts your chances of playing professionally. What it does is allow you time to develop your skills and since baseball is a skill sport this time is valuable. Don’t get caught up in the ego part of the game. Don’t put importance on the name on the front of the jersey when choosing a school or even getting excited about getting a letter from that school. The name on the back of the jersey is what matters after all it’s your career and you are the only one who will really care about it. Coaches are concerned about their careers and if they don’t feel like you can help them win or make money then they don’t have any use for you. Understand the process and do what’s best for you. Coaches will find you and by no means do you need to spend thousands of dollars trying to be seen. Chances are they already know who you are.

Holiday Infield/Catching Clinic

This year's Holiday Infield Clinic will be on Tuesday December 29th from 10am-1pm at Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, Ca. In addition to focusing on infield fundamentals we are also opening our clinic up to catchers. The infielders will be instructed by UPB Founder Ryan Dambach while the catchers will be instructed by UPB's Director of Catching Instruction Kenny Dobbs. The cost of the clinic is $75 and is open to athletes 14 and up. Anyone interested should contact Ryan Dambach at: ryan@unlimitedperformancebaseball.com.

Holiday Infield Clinic

This year we will be hosting our annual Holiday Infield Clinic. The clinic will be a one day event lasting 2-3 hours depending on attendance. Right now we are trying to get the field reserved but our plan is to either hold the clinic on Saturday December 19th or Sunday January 3rd. Last year we had a great turnout and all of our athletes learned a lot. We will let you know when more info is available. The clinic will be run by UPB founder Ryan Dambach and we hope to have some special guest instructors attending.

UPB Still at 100%

For the second year in a row every freshman athlete that UPB has consistently worked with has made their high school team. In our 2 years of existence UPB has had 100% of their incoming freshman make their high school baseball team. Congratulations to the following athletes:

Trevor Townsend Yorba Linda High School
Tyler Maloney Corona Del Mar High School
Tyler Beutel Mater Dei High School
Carlos Quintana Mater Dei High School


Also a quick player update of two of our college athletes. Taylor Richardson is finishing up his first semester at Oklahoma State University. All reports are that Taylor had an unbelievable fall and just may have won the starting centerfielder job as a true freshman. Alison Kooistra from Boston College is entering her junior year at BC. Going into this fall she was slated to bat 7th for the Screaming Eagles softball team. But after a great offensive fall and a meeting with her coaches where she basically told them to leave her swing alone (I love it) she is now slated to bat second in the line up. A goal she had set for herself at the beginning of the summer. Great job to Taylor, Alison, and our freshman class keep up the good work. We here at UPB are proud of you.

UPB Development Pyramid #2 (General Physical Development)

When an athlete reaches the General Physical Development portion of the pyramid they are beginning to learn about the aspects of their skill however they still don’t take ownership of the development of that skill. They may attend private lessons but once the lesson is over they don’t give what they learned a second thought. There is no extra work done on the part of the athlete and they usually have to start over from square one at every lesson.

You can find athletes at this level in every level of baseball but they are usually found from high school to the major leagues. Their mechanics are better than those at the “Natural Talent” level but they are still below average. Athletes here exhibit a good performance followed by a poor performance. They show flashes of what is possible but they have no real understanding for either their successes or their failures. They may know what they need to do in a particular skill such as “stay back” or “stay inside” but they won’t have an understanding as how to get themselves to execute what it is they need to do.

These athletes usually suffer from the ego mindset. They believe that they are they last performance. Many will lie and over exaggerate their abilities or their accomplishments to fit in or feel like they are the athlete they desire to be. Their self confidence is based on at bat to at bat or inning to inning which means they really don’t have any self confidence. If things go well they feel good if they don’t they feel terrible. They experience extreme highs and lows in both their performance and in their emotions and may be prone to outbursts of anger during games.

They are limited in their thinking and believe that if they hit .300 then this means they are a good player and that they don’t need to improve. As such they may have success for the majority of their lives but when they first begin to experience struggles they usually have nothing to go back to. They will make excuses and ultimately quit because they, “just weren’t good enough”.

In order to move to the next level on the pyramid these athletes need to begin to take ownership of their physical skills. They need to do the extra work on their own and begin to think about what it is they are being taught.

Parents: Are You Helping or Hurting?

Probably the most difficult part of what I do is to try and take an athlete and get them to break through the mental barriers that are preventing them from experience the success that they desire to have. In most cases what makes this task exponentially more difficult is when I have to battle the parents in order to get through to the athlete. I have to say that it’s a battle that I have never won. But yet I see this take place on almost a daily basis. A parent brings their athlete to me, desperate to get help for the athlete. They are usually at a loss and don’t understand why the athlete isn’t succeeding. Many times I will get comments like, “I have been trying to get him to understand but he just doesn’t” or “I don’t understand why he can’t just go out there and relax and have fun!” Parents look to the athlete never seeing the connection that the problem, the thing that is limiting their athlete is the parent them-self. As a third party I have the ability to stand back and observe what is going on. I can see the dynamic between the athlete and their parent and almost instantly I am able to recognize where it is that the athlete’s limiting behaviors originated. Unfortunately, rarely (if ever) is a parent willing to look inside themselves and recognize that they might be the problem. For the athlete’s entire life the parents have been instructing and molding their child to become the person they want them to become. Parents understand that they have flaws but instead of facing them themselves it is much easier to just tell your child how to be without ever changing aspects of their own life.

As such I get parents who are frustrated that their athlete won’t pick up on things that they are telling them. They just won’t learn and as a result both the athlete and the parent are unhappy and upset. A wise man once told me that, “What we dislike in others are the qualities we dislike in ourselves.” At first I didn’t understand what he was saying but if we are truly honest with ourselves we will begin to realize that this statement is entirely true. Again I see this everyday with the parents and the athletes I work with. The very qualities that the parents bring their athletes to me to fix are the same qualities that the parents themselves exhibit. It’s a battle that I can’t win, if I have the athlete for 30 minutes a week and the parents are with them the rest of the time how can I possibly win? How can that athlete ever change?

I can hear all you parents getting upset now. It’s not fun to look ourselves in the mirror but if you truly want what’s best for your athlete then it’s something you are just going to have to do. Consider for a moment that “Do as I say, Not as I do” just doesn’t work. Imagine that your athlete has been watching you everyday since the day they were born and everyday they were learning from you. Your fears, anxieties, worries, frustrations, and actions all were learned by watching you. Now that they are in their later years, now that they are getting older don’t fool yourself by thinking that they aren’t still watching. They watch your every move and you can talk to them until you’re are blue in the face but that won’t change the years of conditioning they have developed by watching. I mean think about it! How can they remove fear of failing if you are afraid they will fail? How can they put an at-bat behind them and focus on the next one if you are stuck on the previous at-bat or at-bats? How can they relax and play if every time they look up in the stands you are a nervous wreck?

Now I know that parents do what they do out of love. They love their athletes and want the best for them. They want them to experience the joys of playing at a high level and want them to be the best. All of this is fine and good but there is a line that parents must be careful not to cross. Parents cross it all the time without realizing it and it happens to be the most detrimental thing that could happen in an athlete’s career. Parents must be careful that what they want for their athletes isn’t what they want for themselves. Too many times parents allow the accomplishments of their athletes to impact their ego. They can walk around and say, “My kid plays at this college” or “My kid was drafted in this round” all the while never realizing that the kid is the one who has suffered. In the grand scheme of things what does it all mean? So what if your athlete plays at Cal State Fullerton. So what if he plays a Nowhere School University. As long as the athlete is happy and enjoys his experience playing isn’t that all that matters? Oh sure parents might not get to puff their chest out and say, “My kid is the best!” But so what! Whatever the athlete’s accomplishments, however far along the ladder they may climb in the baseball world, none of it, absolutely none of it is worth the parent’s relationship with their athlete. Unfortunately many times that is exactly what the parent trades.

Even if you are a great parent, even if you do everything perfect as a parent the one thing you don’t understand is how to develop an athlete. You may even be extremely knowledgeable in the sport of baseball but being knowledgeable and developing an athlete are two very different things. Besides your athlete doesn’t want to be developed by you. He doesn’t want to go home and hear about what he didn’t do or what he could do better. All they want is for their parents to be proud of them. 4 for 4 or 0 for 4 that’s all they want. They don’t want to breakdown their at-bats with you. They don’t want to be reminded that what they just did wasn’t good enough. They just want your love and support. They want you to be their biggest fan. Believe it or not they do look up into the stands, they see your response to at-bats, they know how you are feeling, and it matters to them. It’s hard enough to get a hit off a pitcher with the game on the line let alone without the pressure of trying to get your parents approval. Don’t add to the difficulty of getting hits by adding any type of pressure on your athlete.

So what can you do? How can you help your athlete reach the levels of performance both you and he want to reach? Look in the mirror! Work on yourself first before you ever attempt to work on your athlete. Become aware of the words you are saying, the body language you are giving, your actions at and during games, your energy on the way home. Don’t allow yourself to get lost in the heat of the moment. Understand that everything you do is going to impact your athlete and their performance either positively or negatively. Before you say something, before you act a certain way, ask yourself, “Does this help him or hurt him?” You may want to say something or act a certain way because you’re pissed off but be the adult, get control of yourself knowing that even though you may not say something verbally you may be saying it non-verbally. Trust me, your athlete will pick up on this, it will effect their performance. If you want to help, if you really want to help then start with yourself. Talk to your athlete. Ask him how you can help him get to where HE wants to go. Listen to what your athlete says, really listen. In this case they just might know more than you.