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NCAA Information Center
http://web1.ncaa.org/ECWR2/NCAA_EMS/NCAA_EMS.html#

Some of what NCAA softball

coach's look for! 

Division I college coaches want physically strong players that are mentally tough and know how to carry themselves, too.

What Coaches Look For

1) You must play with hussel
2)   You must play with good fundamentals
3)   Make the correct play
4)   Be a good team mate and play with sportsmanship
5)   Look good and have fun


If you want to impress Indiana assistant softball coach Amanda Rivera, you’d better look right.

“When I walk onto a softball field,” Rivera says, “I want to see kids with their jerseys tucked in. Do they look the part? A lot of that to me is how they carry themselves. Are they walking around with their shoulders up? How do they interact with their parents before and after games?

How do they interact with coaches and teammates? Are they having fun? Can I tell that this is something they love to do every day?”

Once she’s satisfied, Rivera says she then starts looking for specific positional skills.

“When I’m looking at pitchers, I concentrate on their levers and their snaps,” she says. “I want to see good mechanics.”

For Pete D’Amour, assistant coach at Missouri, evaluating pitchers is more about judging body type and natural talent. “I look for length of arms, height, leg strength and elasticity of the throwing arm,” he says. If you’re not blessed with those kinds of physical gifts, D’Amour says, you can make up for it by
demonstrating competitiveness and a good riseball.

At the plate, Rivera says, the most important things are strength and determination. “On offense I look for physically strong, scrappy kids,” she says. “Do they fight off bad pitches? You can tell by that whether a kid is gritty or not.”

D’Amour agrees. He looks for presence in the batter’s box—players who dig in and stay in, always looking for a pitch to hit. After that, D’Amour concentrates on swing mechanics and bat speed. Hitting skills can make or break a recruit—for players of any position. “I always see how the player hits first,” he says. “If you have good bat speed, good mechanics and manage your at-bats well, I’ll stick around.”

Stepping Up Your Game

“The biggest thing a high school softball player should work on is over all fitness, weight training and core work.
“When kids get to our level, they’re so weak. Rarely are they strong enough to compete. Kids think they’ve worked hard all their lives, but when they get to us, it’s a totally different level of working hard.”

Position players should focus specifically on core strength, she says, with exercises like twisting crunches and wood choppers with a medicine ball. “If you have a good core strength,” she says, “you can run into a fence, dive for a ball, turn a quick double play. You’re not going to get hurt. Everything we do is core strength. When we hit, when we turn to run bases, our first step. It’s all reliant on core strength.”

Pitchers should work on leg strength and drive. “Get your legs stronger in the weight room and you’ll improve your velocity,