Early softball recruiting to end under NCAA rule changes

She has talked with college coaches on the phone during the recruiting process. She also attended three college camps, offering the opportunity for more recruiting talk.

Seven schools offered her scholarships.

Last month, she verbally committed to the University of Georgia.

Fleet is an extreme example of softball players in Timesland who have committed to a college before the 11th grade. But the NCAA wants to stop such early offers and commitments.

Last week, the NCAA Division I Council passed rule changes that will end recruiting talk between Division I coaches and softball prospects until a player is a high school junior.

“It gives them a better opportunity to make a more educated decision,” Virginia Tech softball coach Scot Thomas said this week.

“The timeline for these kids has been pushed way too far forward,” said Auburn University softball coach Mickey Dean, formerly the coach at Radford University and James Madison. “You read things about sixth and seventh graders making commitments. I think it’s a good thing that we slow this process down.”

The NCAA surveyed more than 15,000 Division I athletes last fall about their recruiting experiences. Thirty-eight percent of softball players said they made a verbal commitment in the 10th grade or earlier — a higher percentage than any other girls sport.

Millie Thompson committed to the JMU softball program when she was in the eighth grade. Thompson, now a sophomore at Liberty High School, decommitted from JMU two months ago and committed to Clemson instead.

“It is too much pressure for a seventh or eighth grader to figure out where they’re going to go to school. I think it’s ridiculous,” she said. “Now that I look back on it, I think I should’ve waited a little longer [than eighth grade].”

Strong arm

In addition to pitching for Auburn Middle School, Fleet pitches for a Georgia-based travel ball team that competed at the Premier Girls Fastpitch 12-and-under national championships last summer. She began getting recruited by college coaches after that tournament, said her father, Brian Fleet.

She took unofficial visits to Georgia, Oklahoma, Florida, Louisiana State, Auburn, South Carolina, Mississippi, Michigan State, Virginia Tech, Virginia and Liberty.

Kirsten built a spreadsheet with 32 qualities she wanted in a college. The 13-year-old wound up picking Georgia over Mississippi and Florida.

It was a verbal commitment, which is nonbinding. Athletes cannot sign letters of intent, which are binding, until they are high school seniors.

A big factor in picking the Bulldogs, Kirsten said, was that Georgia was closer to home than her other two finalists. She said she also loved Georgia’s pitching coach. She wants to win an NCAA title, so the caliber of the program (currently ranked sixth in the nation) appealed to her. Georgia also appealed to her for academic reasons, including having the major (kinesiology) she wants.

Of course, Fleet won’t be graduating from high school until 2023. There is no guarantee that anyone on the current coaching staff will still be employed at Georgia by the time she enrolls at the college. Being relatively close to home or majoring in kinesiology might not be important to her by then, either.

“For some kids, I think it would be [too early to commit], but Kirsten’s mature,” her father said. “She made an educated decision. … She wanted to get the recruiting over as soon as possible.

“We told her that odds are somebody on the coaching staff won’t be there by the time you’re there, so you need to make sure you’re in love with the school.”

Fleet’s personal pitching coach is Denny Tincher, the father of former James River High School and Virginia Tech ace and 2008 national college player of the year Angela Tincher. She did not receive a scholarship offer until the fall of her senior year of high school because she was still developing her talent. She would not have had a chance at a scholarship under this sped-up recruiting timetable, said her father.

Denny Tincher, who now travels the country mentoring young pitchers, said three of his seventh-grade pitching pupils have committed to colleges since last fall. All three throw 65-68 mph, so they already have college-level speed.

“One went for the University of Florida, which is the best of the best,” Denny Tincher said. “That made the next one feel like, ‘Well, I’ve got to do something.’ So she goes to Georgia. Then that put the third one into Kentucky.

“It’s just peer pressure.”

‘Everyone else was committing early’

Thompson, a sophomore pitcher at Liberty High School, has attended more than 20 softball camps. When she was in the eighth grade, she took an unofficial visit to JMU and accepted a scholarship offer from that school.

“I really fell in love with the campus,” she said.

Dean was the Dukes’ coach back then, but he left JMU last fall to become Auburn’s coach.

Thompson took an unofficial visit last winter to Clemson, which announced last year that it would add softball in the 2020 season. In February, Thompson decommitted from JMU and verbally committed to Clemson.

“Now I’m confident being further away from home,” she said. “As a person, I’ve changed and I wanted to do something different.

“When you hit 10th grade, ... it’s not just about softball anymore. It’s about the school. It’s about the major.”

Abby Weaver, a sophomore pitcher at Cave Spring High School, began going on unofficial visits the summer before her freshman year of high school.

When she was in the ninth grade, college coaches (who were forbidden by NCAA rules from calling her directly) would ask her travel ball coach to have Weaver call them so they could get to know each other. She began getting offers last summer and picked UVa last fall.

“I grew up around girls committing very early, so I was like, ‘I’m a sophomore. … I think it’s my time,’ ” she said. “I felt like UVa was 100 percent the right choice.”

Emma Lemley, now a ninth grade pitcher at Jefferson Forest High School, began attending college camps and talking to coaches on the phone when she was in the seventh grade. After taking an unofficial visit to Virginia Tech, she accepted a scholarship offer from Virginia Tech in the fall of her eighth-grade year.

She said she picked Tech because she loved the campus and is “really into engineering.” She also loves Tech’s pitching coach — Angela Tincher.

“I love Virginia Tech and I knew that’s where I wanted to go, but also a little part of me thought that everyone else was committing early, so I guess I felt like maybe I should, too,” Lemley said.

‘Got out of hand’

When the NCAA surveyed Division I athletes last fall, 49 percent of softball players said their first scholarship offer came in the 10th grade or earlier — tied with women’s gymnastics and trailing only men’s lacrosse.

Twenty-three percent of girls and 22 percent of boys who committed to a school in the ninth grade or earlier did not end up enrolling in that college.

“There could be a coaching change. The kid may not even have the grades to get into the school,” Dean said. “There’s so many things that could go wrong.”

Three years ago, Thomas made an offer to an eighth grader for the first time.

“I thought I was losing my mind,” he said.

So why did schools start making such early offers?

“We felt like we were losing out on kids that we thought were quality athletes,” Thomas said. “We were like, ‘Hey, we better jump in here before we completely lose out.’ That’s basically how everybody got into it. … It just kind of got out of hand.”

But rule changes passed by the NCAA Division I Council are expected to put an end to early softball commitments.

The council voted to forbid athletic departments from taking part in a player’s unofficial visit until Sept. 1 of a player’s junior year of high school. That will put an end to a coach showing a seventh grader or a 10th grader around campus during the unofficial visit and making a recruiting pitch.

Players will be allowed to take official visits (paid for by the college) beginning when they are high school juniors; the old rule restricted official visits to high school seniors.

The council also voted to forbid coaches from engaging in recruiting talk at college camps or clinics until Sept. 1 of a player’s junior year of high school.

Those new rules, which are expected to gain final NCAA approval Wednesday, will cover all sports other than football and basketball.

“It should at some point slow down the [soccer recruiting] process a little,” Virginia Tech women’s soccer coach Chugger Adair said. “We’ve been touring around kids that are too young to make decisions.”

But the National Fastpitch Coaches Association wanted even stricter rules.

So the council also agreed to specifically ban Division I softball coaches from talking on the phone with prospects or having off-campus visits with prospects until Sept. 1 of the athlete’s junior year of high school.

Men’s and women’s lacrosse had already adopted all those rules last year.

“It really kind of takes us back to where we used to be with recruiting,” Thomas said “Ten years ago or so, we didn’t really try to bring kids in till they were juniors, maybe sophomores.”

Instead of projecting how good an eighth grader will be in college, college coaches can wait until a player is in the 11th grade to make an offer. Players will benefit from the changes as well.

“It just reduces the amount of mistakes in decisions,” Dean said. “It gives people time to step back and take a deep breath and really evaluate.

“It takes off all that stress of feeling like you have to make a decision because your friends … have found some place they want to go.”

Thompson wishes the new rules would let recruiting talk begin in 10th grade instead of 11th grade.

“That’s not enough time to create a relationship with the coach,” she said.

Weaver likes the new rules, though.

“Girls are going to make smarter decisions,” Weaver said.

“It’s going to be a lot less rushed. They’re going to have time to develop into who they are before they choose their future.”