Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, parents and coaches, are your kids using the right glove? The most important skill for youth athletes to learn is how to play proper catch. The problem is most youth gloves are made with bad leather and are too big for small hands. They actually make it harder to play catch. That's why former Major League Baseball shortstop Kevin Smith created Cali Gloves. Cali gloves are crafted from 100% Japanese kip leather and are the perfect size for kids.
All Cali gloves come with palm slits, finger loops, and elastic wrist lacing that encourage proper hand placement. The right closing patterns and give kids more confidence to go make plays. Cali gloves even allow parents to break in the glove without stretching out the fit.
It's the glove Kevin wishes he had growing up and the glove all his teammates want for their kids. Visit caligloves.com to learn more and help your kids play better catch. That's Cali Gloves. K a l I gloves.com.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMG Baseball. I'm Andy Kittis, joined by my wonderful co host Keith Glasser. How we doing?
[00:01:19] Speaker C: Great. How are you?
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Good.
Today's topic, we're going to talk about decision timelines.
We're entering a period of time where young men, and if you're getting recruited for other sports, young women as well, are likely in a position where you got to start making some decisions if you're getting recruited. I think there's a little bit broader conversation than that, but me and you'd been talking about this recently that at a, at a certain point, the, the timelines are going to be dictated by coaches, specifically this time of year.
So want to kick it over to you for some, some opening thoughts here and see where this one takes us.
[00:02:08] Speaker C: Sure. I'm, I'm scrambling because I wrote down that we were doing something different first.
Let me get my thoughts in order.
Yeah, you know, the timeline thing and obviously this is a little bit.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: You.
[00:02:23] Speaker C: Know, relevant to what we do with our clients. Right. But, you know, I, I struggle sometimes with the recruiting landscape in some regards when there's deadlines placed upon student athletes to make a decision.
And I struggle in regard of, of the timing of it. Right.
So, you know, sometimes I wonder, like, what's the rush in, in July when you have 42 to 48 to 72 hours to make a decision and, you know, each program runs their program their own way and, and how they want to do it. There's literally nothing wrong with it. I just, you know, for me, I never used them and it Just didn't really, you know, it wasn't a tactic that I would employ, you know. But that said, as you get later into the year and into the recruiting cycle, there's programs that are making decisions that they need to.
They need to know whether or not you're in or out. You know, you get into September, October, November, and they extend an offer, they're going to want to know in a rather expedited time frame because you're the guy it is that they want.
And if you say no, they want to be able to move on to the next guy because the reality is everyone else is doing a similar kind of thing and if there's another guy that is likely to say yes, but he, you know, they like you a little bit more.
They don't want someone else to offer that kid and they don't have the time to be able to, to kick the tires on you, to, you know, for lack of a better term, to say yes and lose you. So, you know, this time of year, especially once you get into the, the start of, or leaning towards the end of the fall, you know, if you're going to be extended offers coming out of camp or, you know, football games, showcases, camps, clinics, things like that, there's a high likelihood that the coaching staff is going to tell you, like, hey, we need to know in X amount of time. Now, in some cases it might be, you know, 72 hours. In other cases it might be, hey, like, you got a week to let us know.
Not that we need to, you know, really rush it, but like, we do want to move on this and if, you know, you're not going to, if we're not your number one, you're not going to come here. Like, we would like to know, so we can move on, too. And it also is the right thing to do, right? Like, if you're, if you don't want to go there and you want to roll the dice on other places, then you say no and move on. So, you know, you have to weigh all those things. But the deadline thing, to me, you know, I, I just, I waffle on it.
You know, I understand it. I, I get it. I am fully understand why, why coaches and, and staffs use it for their programs. But, you know, I, I just, I think it's a, for me, it's a, It's a lot more easy to wrap my head around later in the process than it is a little bit earlier, you know, but again, it's up to each and every individual coaching staff and how they run their program and how they do it. But I think the, the key takeaway is just that you're, you know, in the recruiting process as a student athlete, you generally are not going to be able to dictate your timeframe.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:36] Speaker C: And I, and I should add too, Andy, that you know, even like let's say you get extended an offer in April, right? Like they saw you in the fall, they really liked you, you came to a winter, you know, a March camp, they really liked you. They saw you play a couple games in the spring, one or two, and at the end of April, May, they extend you an offer, you know, that offer. Also like they might tell you, hey, like, you know, you don't need to make a decision now, but they very well can come back in June or July and be like, hey man, like we need to know in like a week because the longer it's out there, we're missing out on some other guys that we like too. So, you know, and you have to make that decision. Do I say no to this school and pursue the path with some of these other schools or is this my number one and do I make a decision? So, you know, I would never say that. There's an indefinite timeline on getting an offer and you know, having it forever, you know, it's just going to depend program to program how quickly you're going to have to decide. Some it might be three days, some, you know, it might be a couple months. But there's going to come a point in time where that program is going to come back and say, hey, we need to know in X amount of time.
And I think there's a distinct difference. Like if you're offered in April and then they come back later on and say like, hey, we need to know, like you're not deadlined, right? Like you've had that offer for a very long time. The deadline is more like ring, ring, hello.
Hey, you know, we're thinking, you know, we really want to offer you, but you know, we're going to offer you a spot on our team and in our school, but we need to know in 72 hours, like that's a deadline, not like ring, ring, hey, we want you on the team. Let us know when you want and then ring, ring, call you back.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Hello.
[00:07:27] Speaker C: Yeah, you've had this for six months. Like we got to make a decision.
So I think there's a distinct difference there and I suppose you call it a deadline, but I, I would, I would not put that in that box in what we're talking about. Right now, does that make sense?
[00:07:45] Speaker B: No, it does. It makes complete sense. And, and I think the big thing here is that like many of the topics that we talk about, there's no, like, blanket statement of how these programs are going to handle it. And to your point, the time of year is going to dictate quite a bit of it as well as take example, like, go, go backwards for the 2026 class.
To your point, if you get offered in April, they're probably not deadlining you, but there's going to come a point where they're going to say, yeah, you need to make a decision.
Some other schools will go kind of down the route of, hey, we're not pulling the offer, but we've got three spots left for pitchers, there's an offer out to you and one other guy.
We're going to start offering this to other people, and once we fill those spots, we're moving on.
And you know, for me, as somebody who's been in that position as a coach, I don't have any issues with that at all. I actually think it's a really good way to operate where, know, you give a kid time, you get to know them, you. You make that offer, and at a certain point, you have to put pressure on some kids because unfortunately, in today's day and age, the first reaction after you get your first offer with a lot of kids is like, all right, cool, what's next? Who else is going to offer me? Instead of like, really truly evaluating, like, what's the best fit for me? And the first one oftentimes is the best fit. It's the school that likes you the most. It's the school that wanted to get in, felt is comfortable, comfortable enough to extend that offer.
But as you get later into the process, right, right now, end of September being a good time is if you, if you get an offer now, don't expect to have weeks or months to make a decision. It's totally be reasonable for A coach on September 29 to make an offer and say, hey, Keith, love to have you a part of what we're doing here.
You got a week to make a decision.
This, this time of year, coaches don't have time to wait because if they're trying to fill their last catcher spot or their last arm spot, either you're either in or you're out at this point.
So, you know, if you're in a situation where you have to sort through a lot of different schools, great. It's not the reality for most kids, but at some point you have to make a decision. And I think the big takeaway from this conversation is you have to be ready to say yes because you've done your homework, you've had those conversations, right?
You've talked to some people that you trust. You've seen everything that you need to see. You've met the coaches, you've been on campus, the academics line up, the finances line up. Like, if you have all your information, you have to be ready to say yes, but you also have to be willing to say no. Right? And that's the hard part, is that kids don't want to say no because they don't want options to go off, off the table. But you're going to have to say no to somebody, most likely.
And if a coach does deadline you, right? If a coach comes to you in June and says, hey, man, we saw you, we loved you, you've been on campus, you got 72 hours to make a decision.
You have to be willing to walk away from that offer if it's not the right one. And that's hard sometimes because you don't want to have the like, well, what if I had just taken that offer? Kind of conversation. But you got to put yourself in a situation to say yes, and you got to be comfortable enough to say no if it's not going to be the right fit. And I think that's what people struggle with sometimes, is they haven't done the homework to put themselves in a situation to make a decision one way or the other, and you end up wanting to try to kick the can out down the road. So you need to start having these conversations early.
You know, if you're getting recruited by two or three or four different schools, you should be talking about those schools as if they're going to offer you so that when the offer comes, you're in a position where you can make a decision and you're not getting caught off guard.
Right? And I think that's important to constantly evaluate. Like, I've got these four schools.
I've seen three of them, so. And so is my number one. If they offer, I'm going there. Or I like three of them. Here are the pluses and the minuses. It's going to come down to the size of the offer for me to make a decision. Like, you got to be evaluating that type of stuff, and you got to recognize that at a certain point, there's going to be some pressure put on you to make a decision, and you can't let it catch you off guard because you have to understand that, one, there's plenty of good players out there. There's no shortage of good players to go play college baseball.
And two, these coaches need to do their jobs. And moving on from a potential recruit is part of the process for us. Either that player says no, or we say, hey, man, we're going in a different direction because, you know, you've seen everything you need to see. You don't want to be here, that's fine. We're going to go find somebody else.
Yeah.
[00:12:55] Speaker C: And I think that that's the mindset that a lot of coaches have relatively quickly, Right. You know, you're.
If you've had an offer for four months and you haven't made a decision yet, then most coaches are in the process of moving on to somebody else.
And, you know, if you end up committing, awesome. But they've kind of, you know, and, you know, It's a catch 22. Like, you're, you're super excited that the kid committed and you're not.
You didn't have to quote, unquote, deadline them or, or tell them that, like, hey, we're going to start offering other people. We don't know if there's going to be a spot.
Maybe you end up with some, you know, two really good players instead of one.
Um, you know, but that, that's just a reality. But I think you hit the nail on the head where, you know, as you start getting offered from colleges, like, you need to have about, like, you need to evaluate them as they're coming in, you know, and the reality is you only need one, right? Like, you just need one to go find. To go play college baseball. But, you know, if you're, if you're lucky enough to be able to have multiple, like, you need to be entertaining what those offers and evaluating what those offers are going to do for you, right? Because if you, you, you get into that slippery slope of just trying to accumulate more offers, like, that's going to do something.
And in some regards, I would argue that, yeah, it does, right? Like, there's some confirmation bias in there, like, yeah, we're on the right kid.
[00:14:32] Speaker B: Blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:14:33] Speaker C: If all these programs are in, then, like, yeah, we're on the right kid.
You know, there, there, there can be a semblance of leverage in there a little bit, but everyone's moving at their own pace, right? So, like, it's, it's going to be a perfect storm of things to, you know, legitimately be able to try to leverage offers against each other if that's what you're trying to do, you know, but that would, my, my advice would be like, that's your 1 and 1A right. Like not your school I don't want to go to.
And my number one school, like, these are my top two schools.
Let's see what can happen. And we're talking like, you know, maybe a little bit more scholarship money or a little bit more merit money, whatever it might be. Right.
You know, but I don't necessarily know if that's, you know, those are going to be unique situation to situation cases, not something that is a blanket strategy for everyone out there.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: I concur. Dr.
Anything else you want to add to this particular topic? Coach no.
All right.
Well, hopefully that was insightful.
Prepare to make decisions. Big takeaway.
And don't be, don't be shocked if a coach puts you in a position where you have to make a decision. At some point, they're gonna have to.
Thank you for listening, everybody. Tune in next week. We will talk to you then. Thank you. Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.
