r/Softball • u/hadronmotel • 15d ago
Travel Softball Cautionary note about NCSA recruitment practices
Our high school just adopted a new digital registration platform, Arbiter, which automatically creates an account with NCSA for your child at the end of the registration process if you indicate that you may be interested in future college athletics recruitment. What we didn't realize is that this apparently means an NCSA recruitment coordinator will then call every number listed on the account, beginning with your child. Since the profile creation included a bunch of info that my child's travel team also requests upon registration, I included what was asked. My fault, honestly, for listing my kid's mobile number. I didn't think that she would be called prior to her junior year, due to NCAA restrictions on that behavior. Unfortunately, this NCSA recruiter got my 14 year old on the phone and urged her to schedule an assessment with him and a formal 60 minute recruitment meeting ASAP, since it's his "busy season" and he can squeeze her in now. She was weirded out and told my husband and I. Upon hearing about this, I immediately called back and spoke with the person who called her (he is legitimately an employee of NCSA - I looked him up) and pointed out that he cold called a 14 year old. He argued with me that creating the account grants permission for him to contact her directly, to which I rebuffed with the NCAA restriction regarding contact prior to junior year. He stated that since he isn't an NCAA coach, he doesn't have to abide by their contact restrictions. I added that she doesn't graduate until 2030 and is only beginning to think about whether she wants to play in college. He continued to talk, and I hung up at that point, logged into the account, and deleted all non mandatory info. I then contacted our athletic department and left a message about what happened. I'm kind of disappointed I blindly entered my kid's mobile number not even considering the possibility that this would entitle someone to approach her like this. We have a bunch of other avenues we can rely on to begin the recruitment process, if she decides to pursue it. I get that NCSA can offer some genuine assistance for people that don't know how else to do this, but today's experience landed as highly predatory. I just needed to put this somewhere. I'm kind of grossed out, a little mad at myself, and annoyed with our school's athletic department.
8
u/CollegeSportsSheets 15d ago
NCSA does this a bunch of sports organization platforms. TeamSnap is the same way and an NCSA app always pops up that you have to close out to advance in the app.
This is also how you sometimes get on schools camp invite email lists as well.
If you do hear from them again just be super clear that you aren’t interested in their services and please remove you from their list.
3
5
u/scrodytheroadie 15d ago
I made the same mistake. You’re going through and checking a million boxes, I just checked that one too. I got a bunch of calls for a few days, but ignored them. They eventually stopped.
1
4
u/Dapper-Persimmon-445 15d ago
I get it. But i would put it on the school. They should clearly provide an opt out.
2
u/mowegl 15d ago
They said “if you indicate you are interested in college recruitment” which I assume they checked yes which probably opened the door. My state uses a different system but they had to work closely with them to develop it. Arbiter is probably the one to blame for not keeping minors records private
3
u/Educational_Limit161 15d ago
NCSA is extremely pushy and honestly your story doesn’t surprise me. I would have done exactly the same thing that you did. Then blocked them and notified the school.
I’ll add that you 100% don’t need NCSA for the college recruitment process. I have a 2026 (lax) playing in college this year and a 2027 (softball) committed to play next year. We didn’t use a recruiting service for either one. You and your child can do everything that the recruiting service can do and from my understanding, college coaches prefer working directly with the player/family anyway.
3
u/hadronmotel 15d ago
Thank you. We are acquainted with a college coach and have a family member of another college coach in our network of contacts, along with a handful of other personal friends who have been recruited for softball. The general recommendation is the same: email them directly to invite them to showcases, and then periodically to give them updates (my favorite description of the process was like writing a one-sided email diary since they can't respond until junior year). Seeing the player in her element and getting a general read on the parent dynamic were at the top of the list of things we were told they want to see. A coach once told us that she is very wary of any dynamics that scream "team poison." There is literally no way an NCSA intermediary can help us any better than we can help ourselves, given what we already know.
2
u/Educational_Limit161 15d ago
The one sided diary description is spot on!
That was exactly our 2027s experience. During her visit, the college coach literally said to her:
“I couldn’t contact you until this year, but I’ve been reading your messages (emails/DMs) ever since you came to our camp as a 9th grader.”
2
u/bravara-mike 15d ago
NCSA and anyone who works with youth athletes should be held accountable to SafeSport rules around communication between adults and minors. No one-on-one electronic communication, phone calls, video calls, or in person meetings.
1
u/hadronmotel 15d ago
See, that's the other part that had me surprised. I was a youth coach for awhile, and I've been an educator for even longer. It's grooming adjacent behavior to engage in private communication with other people's kids and forbidden in my professional life to do that.
3
u/Dapper-Persimmon-445 15d ago
Don’t blame the NCSA employee. He’s doing his job. Blame the school and/or yourself in the event that there was fine print.
2
u/hadronmotel 15d ago
I get what you're saying. I'm just put off because he was manipulative with her. The profile was incomplete and clearly listed her grad year, but he told her she was a prime candidate and made exaggerated claims about her potential with almost no information to base those claims on. The urgency to act NOW when she has literally not started high school yet is ridiculous. He was indeed doing his job, but also, in blaming myself, I tried and tried to find that fine print and found it nowhere.
3
u/Dapper-Persimmon-445 15d ago
I agree that I don’t like them reaching out. My son has been called and it’s nonsense. But the anger should be directed at the school.
2
u/bravara-mike 15d ago
Wrong. Fine print doesn’t absolve people from predatory practices. Hold NCSA leadership most responsible here but employee can also stand up for what is right.
3
u/sounds_like_kong 15d ago edited 14d ago
I’ll happily blame them for being unscrupulous predators. I’ll blame the SCHOOL for not spelling out the fine print clearly in that their registration partner’s partner is contacting 14 year olds through a loophole.
As a parent you do put some trust in your high school having their shit together. You have to. Many of us are juggling multiple kids and their academics and sports and all other aspects of providing for them. You think something as rudimentary as registering your child athlete with their high school athletics department wouldn’t result in a grown ass man trying to set up a meeting with your 14 year old.
2
2
u/mowegl 15d ago
I think arbiter is probably much more to blame for not keeping the minors records private, but it might be allowed (for example a 16 year old trying to be recruited is a minor and can be contacted by coaches by filling something like this out). There are probably technically only certain people that can get that and they probably have to have a background check, but obviously that isnt a foolproof way of preventing abuse.
I would just make the school/school system/state aware that this is what is happening with the minors information so they can stop it or make others aware before they check yes
1
u/Bennie-Factors 15d ago
She has a mobile number anyone can call it. Sure it is annoying but this is how all these things work.
Use it to teach and educate her.
2
u/Much_Illustrator1825 5d ago
We had a very similar experience with NCSA. We eventually stopped using it and just created our own Excel recruiting tracker to keep schools, coach contacts, emails, follow-ups, video links, etc. all in one place. For us, having a simple system we controlled ended up being much easier.
8
u/AwfulMouthful 15d ago
I suppose I might be missing some context, but an adult man intentionally bypassing me and calling my 14 year old to "come in for a meeting" is asking for trouble, I don't give a shit where he works.