“This is frustrating.  A request with no opportunity to respond. It would be good if you could do a blog to your mailing list and tell kids to be specific about times, places, (swing) coach’s numbers for responses and figure out whether or not the coach is interested……. By the way, I think it’s rude if I just no-show a kid and I wouldn’t do that if it was possible to avoid it, but this makes it tough to avoid.  My goal is to treat all players with dignity and kindness whether or not we are interested or not.”

This past week a college coach at a top 75 ranked DI program forwarded an email to me that she received from a 2020 recruit. She thought if I shared why the email frustrated her as a coach it might help others not make the same mistake.

The email was a request for a last minute visit because the player was going to be in town. There is absolutely nothing wrong with seeing if a coach might be available if you are going to be nearby and plan to visit campus either way.  In doing this tho, try to be as specific as possible and acknowledge that you understand the coach may not be available.

Also, most importantly, while this recruit acknowledged that since she was a sophomore she knew the coach couldn’t reply, she left no way for the coach to contact her thru a reference (swing or high school coach). The coach is not available for the visit and feels bad that she can’t let this recruit know that.

So just a few lessons to keep in mind when emailing coaches and making requests.