It seems that weekly, if not daily, you’ll come across another story about how today’s generation has been coddled with self-esteem trophies since their first little league game and have been told that their clay pots are special no matter how lumpy and cracked. This has an especially insidious strain in high school sports that can undermine a player’s chances of getting recruited to play college baseball.

Think about it, combine the me generation with a standout high school athlete and the too often accompanying egotism, you get a package of entitlement that will keep even the best players off a college baseball team.

It’s the “you’re good enough that you don’t have to” perspective that fails to recognize the reality of the situation. If you want to play college baseball, you need to get over thinking that you’re good enough that you don’t have to…

…worry about being recruited.

Your stats are so outstanding, so far off the scale compared to everyone else, that the coaches will be coming to you. If you’ve been listed as a national blue chip prospect for the past year or two, congratulations, you’ve been discovered.

For everyone else, if you want to play college baseball, it’s a matter of numbers. The thing to remember is that ultimately it’s the college coaches that get to do the picking. Given all of the other players who are going out of their way to put themselves in front of the coaches with stats just as good as yours, why should they have to go through the trouble to find you?

...worry about academics.

Unless you’re up for the draft, you have to worry about grades and the SAT/ACT. Why? Because the coaches have to. They have to follow the rules so why bother with an athlete that he’ll have to worry about making the grades?

The really sad thing is that families will start paying for lessons for a ten-year old but won’t worry about the SAT or grades until the kid is a senior. A couple of months in a test prep class can improve your chances of being recruited as much as hitting lessons.

…worry about attitude.

You know nobody plays your position better than you so don’t have to hustle onto the field. Since you’re such a great hitter, you’re expected to throw your helmet in the dugout if you strike out. Right?

Wrong. If a college coach is recruiting someone of your athletic abilities, he isn’t recruiting you to be the star of the team. He’s recruiting you because your skills match those on the team. That means everyone else on the team will be at least as good as you and the last thing a coach needs is team full of prima donnas. (Click for a list of questions to ask coaches.)

…worry about paying for college.

After all, you’re going to get a full-ride scholarship. Not likely. There are only 11.7 scholarships for a D1 baseball team. That’s the entire team. Not all schools fully fund their scholarships and scholarships are often awarded a year at a time. And what if you get hurt?

The NCAA division with the most baseball teams is D3 and D3 doesn’t give out athletic scholarships. There are also a lot more private D3 colleges than public ones. You can’t play college baseball if you can’t afford to attend college.

http://www.diycollegerankings.com/play-college-baseball-recruiting/8458/