Where do top college programs recruit from? What States and Teams?

So with NLI day and not to be confused with NIL yes these too are often misunderstood. One is a day when you sign your National Letter of Intent to play for your college and the other is your ability to be paid cash for Name Image and Likeness.. I digress, if you look at this picture above you will see some fairly large softball college programs. They were all in attendance down in Huntington Beach a few weekends back. What does this mean for you? I'll get into that shortly.

Trying to identify where your kid may want to play softball is hard, let alone in 5th, 6th or 7th grade. However we as parents start to magnify and project what we think our kids will aspire to do and where they can go based on their talent. This blog is merely about where the colleges appear to be recruiting from and what teams they appear to be recruiting from.... Let me still be 100% clear. If your child is an absolute stud 1% this information is irrelevant. They can play for the local bobby sox and UCLA will still want them if they throw the ball 75 mph. For the rest of us follow along.

UCLA is a top tier program that is located in the Mecca of the softball world and this is kind of a no brainer. They currently have a roster with 23 players. 20 out of the 23 girls live and play HS softball in California. 5 of the 20 girls came from Northern California. 5 of the current roster players came from the portal and were at major programs. All 5 were Southern California girls who essentially came home. 1 of the Northern California girls is from our High School here in Rocklin. Moral of the story here is that if your child wants to play at UCLA they will most likely need to live in California and play a ton in Southern California.

Oklahoma is the top program in the country. They are not located in the Mecca of anything per se lol yet they attract the best softball players in the world. This is evident by their current reign as the top seed in nearly any and all things softball. They currently have a roster of 21 players. 8 players are from California, 6 players are from Texas. The rest are spread out across the country. They have 7 portal players who all appear to have "moved up" in regards to the school they were at and now where they are. Next year they will be adding another kid from Northern California who also plays with Sav at Rocklin High School.

Texas A&M is another top program located in, you guessed it. Texas produces the second most number of D1 softball players in the country and let's take a look at where a major school in the lone star state might recruit from. 23 players on their current roster. 14 are from Texas. 7 are from California. The thing that stood out to me was there are 10 girls on that roster from the portal. Half of them were originally from Texas.

The University of Florida will round out our coast to coast topic this week. They currently have a roster of 19. You guessed it. They have a lot of girls from Florida but not as many as I would have thought. They have 8 from Florida, 3 from California and 2 from Texas. This seems to run true with my experience. I do not see too many FLordau schools out here on the west coast. THey typically show up in Colorado For the sparkler.

For many years, California, and Southern California in particular, has been the country’s hub for fastpitch softball. The state has 21 NCAA D1 programs, the most of any other state, and houses more than 130 total collegiate programs.

One out of every five DI softball players originate from California —ranking them 1 in odds of high school players making it on an NCAA DI roster. Compared to the national ratio which stands at 61:1, odds in California more than double to 28:1.

( https://scholarshipstats.com/softball )

I tried to get some actual data on what travel teams produced these players but to be fair it would be nearly impossible to calculate. Yes Batbuster smith seems to send an abnormal amount of girls to Oklahoma but I know of one player who only went to them her senior year. She did not get her offer while playing for them so to give them credit seems a little inaccurate. So many girls change teams from year to year that data is impossible to get right.

For the majority of you reading this from the sunshine state I have great news. You are in the sweet spot. For those of you who don't want to make that drive on i5 for 6 hours I suggest you start to prioritize what it is that your child wants to achieve. At the end of the day the best exposure will be attending the school you like and performing well at that given school camp. Second best will be participating with a team who has the name recognition as well as the coaching staff who has the contacts with said college or the ability to reach out. Ultimately you will end up where you should. If you don't then you will be able to right that ship via the portal. In the end we aren't talking about life or death. Take a deep breath and just try to enjoy the journey.