First and foremost, read through Step 9 and all the articles before committing. If you still feel ready to commit after reading everything, do it! You’ve weighed your options carefully, evaluated each program on the criteria that’s most important to you, and you have a final decision! Congratulations on your
✅Call the coaches and commit (or do it in person)!
✅Immediately after committing, contact other schools that were recruiting you by phone and notify the coaches that you have committed elsewhere
✅Learn about what your commitment means
✅Learn about the importance of handling your commitment appropriately and treating all the schools that recruited you with respect
✅Learn about the reasons why your commitment can be cancelled
✅Learn about signing periods and the NLI (if applicable)
Committing is an exciting time! You also already know that the hard work is just beginning. The same is true of your academics. You have been crushing it in the classroom to be able to experience this moment. The last thing you want to do is mess up all that hard work now. There are several academic things you will want to be clear about when you commit to a school.
First, you will want to make sure that you are in good academic standing for admissions. In other words, given your current GPA, courses, test scores, and planned courses, will you get admitted to the school? If not, what will you have to do in the classroom in order to get in? Coaches should be able to tell you if you get your GPA up to X and make Y on the SAT/ACT, you will be admitted.
The other thing you will want to make sure of is that the academic expectations moving forward are clearly laid out. What do the coaches expect of your grades and test scores moving forward? What do you have to maintain to stay in good shape academically. When expectations and requirements aren’t clearly laid out, it leaves the door open for the coaches to use their discretion and say something like, “your grades got worse, so we aren’t going to be able to have you on the team” at the last minute.
You will also want to make sure that you are in good shape with your NCAA academic eligibility. This means you have a high enough NCAA Core GPA and are on pace to meet Core Course credit and distribution requirements. We have more info on both of those things in Step 3 and our academic resource page.
Congratulations on your commitment. That’s great news. It’s also the signal that you need to kick your preparations and development plan into overdrive. What do we mean by that? Committing is the easy part, if you can believe it. Showing up and being an impact player as a freshman is the real challenge. You need to show up as polished of a player as you can be and you need to show up in mid-season form. One of the most difficult adjustments you will have to make in your transition to college ball is the mental game. The game will move faster and you will be expected to adjust to that speed change quickly. More will be expected from you in terms of detail and understanding.
The good thing is that now you have a college program to turn to for suggestions. Ask your future coaches if they have a workout or development plan for incoming freshmen. Now is a good time to review all the areas of your development you should be fine tuning for when you step on campus. Here are some goals you should work towards:
✅ Build functional strength, speed, and size
This means that you are building strength that will help you become a better and more efficient baseball player.
✅ Improve your baseball skills and fundamentals
This means that you are fine tuning all the on-field skills that are expected from a player at your position at the college level.
✅ Improve your athleticism
This means that you are playing other sports and/or learning how to move your body more efficiently. College coaches value athleticism as much as any baseball specific skill.
✅ Improve your mental game
The mental game at the college level runs circles around what you are experiencing in high school. The competition is better, smarter, and more informed. You will be forced to play the game at a much faster pace and have improved decision-making speed and skills. Improving the mental game means learning how to stay focused in the present moment, focusing on what you can control and your reactions to what you can’t.
You will achieve those goals with:
✅ A plan for getting honest and objective feedback on your abilities to inform where you focus
✅ A quality weight lifting and strength program
✅ A plan to address your weaknesses realized from self-evaluation and outside feedback
✅ A plan to improve on your strengths
✅ A plan to continue learning and striving for a better way to do things
✅ A way to measure growth and improvement
Keep working! College will be here before you know it and you will have to beat out returning players to earn a starting spot.
