Scott Berndes is the President of the Power Surge travel organization out of San Diego and has had great success in his 24 years of coaching in the sport.

He quips:

“It’s amazing in that it means I have been coaching since I was only 10 years old!”

Well, maybe he didn’t start that young, but Scott has led talented teams like the 2019 Power Surge squad that went an amazing 93-1 and won the National Championship.

Three years later, his 2012 repeated as national champs with an 83-17 mark and would finish second the next year (2013) and, in 2018, his Power Surge team took 2^nd at PGF Nationals.

The list of talented players he coached and got to the next level included future stars (and eventual college national champions) such as pitcher Selina Taamilo, outfielders Aliyah Jordan and Chip Bennett at UCLA, infielder Cydney Sanders at Oklahoma and other standouts such as catcher Carlee Wallace who helped Auburn finish second at the Women’s College World Series in 2016.

Coach Scott was a D1 baseball player himself at UC Riverside and when his daughter was six years old, his local league leaders found out about his college experiences and asked him to be a softball coach for his young daughter’s young team…

… and like many in our great sport, he’s been doing it ever since!

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Coach Berndes wrote up something on the topic of recruiting for his organization’s parents and kindly agreed to share it with Line Drive Softball’s readers, saying: “It seems like a good read for all those trying to get recruited…”

College Recruiting: To the Parents… From the Perspective of a Head Recruiter

Question: how does the college recruiting work?

Answer: each player will fall into a category… but who decides where the player fits into what category?

The college coaches decide where players fit… and it’s based on what college(s) is interested in your daughter.

For example: if your daughter’s top 5 schools are UCLA, Florida, Northwestern, San Diego, and Oregon and they show no interest in your daughter—meaning no contact directly or even coming to our games, it’s time to move on from those schools.

Let’s imagine a UCLA or Florida or Northwestern coaching staff is hanging around our Power Surge games watching our players. Your daughter’s teammate, Susie, is at the plate and the coaches are busy writing notes on Susie.

However, when your daughter comes up to the plate, they pay no attention to her and don’t watch how the at-bat goes. Unfortunately, that is a sign the coaches not interested in your young athlete (though it’s a very good sign for Susie’s parents that those progresses are interested in Susie…. At least for now).

You can have all the Top 5 lists you want, but the player and the parents don’t decide who your Top 5 is… the college coaches do.

You do control, though, where your daughter goes for camps… so go to your Top 5’s wish list camps. In other words, get seen!!!

Let’s look at the levels your athlete may play in college and, most importantly, where try to understand where she best fits in:

1. Power 4 Category D-1

These are where the top softball players in the country go. These are the UCLA’s, the Oklahoma’s, the Florida’s, etc.

2. Mid-Majors D-1

These are not Power 4 schools, but there is very good softball played at these schools.. schools such as Long Beach State, University of San Diego, Lehigh, James Madison, etc.

3. Ivy League

Academically prestigious schools that are D1 but do not give scholarships and they usually wait until a prospect’s junior year so they can get an idea of grades.

4. D2 Colleges

Still get to play softball, but not as much scholarship money available.

5. D3 College

High academically reputable schools but do not give scholarship money.

6. NAIA

Usually very small schools although they do have scholarship money.

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So how do we get the colleges to have interest in your daughter?

Here are four possible areas to try:

* College Camps

This is where a player attends the softball camps on the campuses of schools she is interested in and where that college’s coaches can see her one-on-one up close. Important: the college coaches love it when a good player shows extra interest in their school so go to more than one camp at a school if their staff seems interested in you player.

* OnDeck Events

One-day combines held across the country where trusted data is recorded and released to college coaches involving metric testing results of a prospective student-athlete’s speed, power, strength, explosiveness, quickness, etc.  

* Showcase Games

Exactly what they sound like they are: opportunities for players to showcase what they can do on the softball field in areas of hitting, pitching, fielding, running, defense, etc. The college coaches will be there perhaps to watch another player, but if your daughter performs well, it could get her on their recruiting radars.

* Emails

They’re generally not as effective, but who is to say you can’t try to grab a possible recruiter’s attention with something in your skills set or background? Realize that the coaches get hundreds of emails so it’s crucial to give them something so they they separate who they want to see. You can send video clips and highlights to try and grab their interest but they have to stand out.

All four of these are just the first step in our efforts to motivate the college recruiter to see your daughter in person at our games… that’s the crucial part we must get accomplished!

Lastly, we understand that this is a very frustrating time for parents.

There is no book to read on how college recruiting works and the answer may not be obvious as to why College Coach X took an interest in Susie’s potential and not your daughter’s.

Who the heck knows? And when some of you daughter’s teammates get offers and your daughter does not, it certainly can be very confusing.

So what to do?

My one suggestion is to be patient, because the scholarship will come… maybe not to a UCLA or an Oklahoma, but it will come.

As it’s supposed to.

— Scott Berndes /President, Power Surge