what's up softball players coach Dan Blewett here
in today's video let's talk about how will you know if you'll be capable of playing D1 softball
so if you're new here i'm coach Dan Blewett i do tons of videos on softball throwing on the mental
side of the game on the strategy side doing lots of videos on recruiting and just helping
you understand what it takes to be a high level softball player so if you're new here check out
the links in the description below for my online courses lots of other resources helpful videos and
also subscribe so you get notifications for all my new ones so in today's video obviously this
is a concern for everyone right everyone wants to know like will i be good enough to play you
know the highest level play d1 softball especially big time d1 softball and here's the short answer
to how you're going to know this number one the first thing is you need to be physically developed
more than other players at a really early age that means you're taller you're more muscular
you're faster you're just filled out you become essentially a woman way earlier than other girls
who are still just like a little girl you probably noticed if you're you know 13 14 15 16 if you
start to look at the pattern of who gets recruited and commits to these D1s they're always pretty
physically well-built kids right this is the same in baseball and softball basically if you win the
genetic lottery and you're built like an 18 year old at age 15 you have a much higher
chance of playing D-1 softball so that's one of the first ingredients it's unfortunate and there
are lots of players i was a late bloomer myself i didn't get a scholarship to play college baseball
i was like barely squeaked in the door at a small d1 and i got a chance to develop there i was lucky
but there are lots of players now who are you know i'm sure you know girls who are throwing 60 65
as 14 year olds 15 year olds and that's crazy and a lot of that is it has to do with the fact that
they grew earlier than maybe you did or maybe your daughter did and they're essentially like a 17
year old in a 14 or 15 year old's body so number one you have to have the physicality at a young
age when colleges still have scholarship money so if you don't know much about the scholarship game
colleges have you know they're they're signing players for you know a couple years down the
road and they have scholars they have a pool of scholarship money that they can give to
a 2021 player or a 2022 graduation player a 2023 player and say they have you know 50 000
in scholarship money that's just a number i'm throwing out for 2023's if they then give that to
four different players they all get a quarter of it they're done they don't have any more
scholarship money to give so they give that away to the best players that they find
in that grad class as soon as they feel like they're ready to commit and give it to them so
unfortunately and a lot of players you can you just can't control this is being physically
developed and having that physicality early is a major determinant a determinant of whether
you'll play D-I softball and the biggest thing and this they go hand in hand is are you dominating
softball are you absolutely dominating it that's the biggest test coaches when they go out and they
watch 14 new softball or a 16 new team and you know they're watching eighth graders freshman play
they're looking for the most dominant player on the field they're looking for the girl that's just
striking everyone out that's throwing really really hard right they're looking for the girl
that's just beating out every every ball she puts in play because she's just super duper fast the
girl who's faster than everybody else right they're looking for the short stop that has a
laser beam for for an arm they're looking for the hitter that's just hitting two bombs and the next
one she just barely misses and it goes to the warning track they're looking for those players
that are just dominating softball and so you have to really ask yourself am i one of the best
players in the whole surrounding area like if there's 10 or 20 teams in my county and there's
often way more teams than that in your county am i one of the known best players in my entire county
if the answer is yes and other people would agree that the answer is without a doubt yes
then there's a chance that you're probably you know on that track to be a D1 player
of course there are always fluctuations right i went to a a baseball thing a long time ago
where there was one high school in los angeles county this is
an la this little camp i went to there was one high school that had two first-round
draft picks out at it for baseball and la county in california is a hop-head for amazing athletes
in all sports right so if if you're in los angeles it might be very different than rural ohio right
or royal kansas so the quality valley is going to differ but no matter where you are you should be
known as one of the absolute best players and you just dominate your level that means you're hitting
450 500 whatever against you know pretty good competition not slouch competition
you're con continually dominating on the mound as a pitcher and all those factors you just
stick out no matter who you're playing that's what d1 players genuinely look like so you have
to really ask yourself and ask people around you do you fit that mold obviously you have to have
the academics if you want to be a d1 player you can't be a slouch in the weight room or a slouch
in the in the classroom for most uh female athletes that's not a problem really the boys
tend to slack in the classroom a little more i can i can generalize because it's my own gender
i know that we're a lot more lazy than our female counterparts when it comes to school
but you know you have to have the grades because d1 standards are pretty high to be a division
athlete so i think those are the really key things now if you don't have a good way to
say i'm still not sure like i might be fringy and that's true and you could be a fringe player where
maybe you could play low level d1 or you get a bunch of d2 or d3 offers or whatever
then the the good way to figure this out is go to a bunch of college camps so if you're in
say you're in iowa go to the university of iowa's camps go over to uh chicago go to a
couple of division one go to northwestern's camps or go to university illinois camps go to you know
a couple of the big name schools within a couple you know a couple states over whatever whatever
you can afford those one-off school showcases are pretty cheap usually they're like 75 to 150 bucks
you know you go just to you know the university of indiana's camp and you're going to see lots
of other players that are interested in playing at that school and uh you'll be able to compare
yourself and and look all right i'm a first baseman how do i compare against the other
10 15 20 first baseman that came to this campus weekend do i feel like i stick out and really i'm
at the i'm at the top of the list of the calibre of players that are at that camp if you're the
catcher you know how do you throws down the second base look compared to the other 10 catchers that
showed up at the camp you know what are the what do the coaches say ask them what their standards
are say hey coach how hard do i have to throw how fast i have to run to first base to play
here at the university of kansas or the university of florida whatever it is and they'll say yeah you
got to throw down second base at you know 1.8 and you're throwing a 2.6 well it's a good idea that
maybe you're not there yet right and again for most players you have to be there by your junior
year at the latest and a lot of times at your sophomore year if you're going to want to go on
those big big schools usually a sophomore year when they start to run out of scholarship money
that's not to say they don't have they don't take walk-ons because they do but again all the
best players are going to go off the board pretty early ultimately the the best bang for your buck
is to pour money into development have good coaches play a lot of softball be an animal in the
weight room if you're not lifting weights you're losing ground to everybody else you have to have
the physicality again so if you even if you're you're pretty tall and you sprouted up at a young
age you got really really tall at a young age you have to fill out your your frame you have to put
some muscle on you have to look the part and and have the power it's not good enough just just to
be tall um you have to be a physically well-built athlete and the last thing i would say is
go to division one softball games go to their games and see what they look like you know see
if you can go down to the you know go down to the uh the dugout level when the game's over
and you know see if you can shake hands and chat with the players and say good game and
see if they'll answer a couple questions for you but just get up close where you can see what they
look like up close because when you do that you start to realize like wow she's she looks pretty
strong like she's got a strong back like she's got really strong looking legs you'll start to see
how they compare to you because that's the mole that you've got to fit into so if you're not
going to d1 games or d2 d3 junior college games to see what the athletes look like and obviously
what they can do on the field at those levels then it's going to be hard to understand where
you really fit in right so you want to make sure you know this is the standard this is the mold
will i fit it do i fit it today or do i look like i'm close you don't have to obviously be at
the physicality of a d1 sophomore or junior when you're a sophomore or junior in high school right
they're four years old they've been doing college strength conditioning and and eating on a college
meal plan for a bunch of years they're pretty far advanced but you should be able to see like yeah
i could be that in two years right and that's what these these coaches want to see when they
go out and watch your games alright so hopefully this video on d1 softball recruiting helps it can
be tough to figure out where you fit in be sure to check out the links below in the description i put
more recruiting videos i've been filming a bunch of them about recruiting recently so they're all
in the in the description below there's also links to my softball strength and conditioning program
so if you do need to get stronger on a budget we have a great online program for you there's also
my softball email list which goes out to almost 5000 people every week so definitely stick around
subscribe to the channel check out the other resources and leave a comment do you feel like
you have more questions about d1 softball or the recruiting process if so leave a comment
below i respond to almost all of them thanks for watching and i'll see you in the next video