In this solo episode of the Catching You Podcast, co-host Lacie Ham opens up about her personal experience with college recruiting in high school. Specifically, she shares the heartbreaking story of not receiving any calls from college coaches on September 1st of her junior year—a pivotal date in the college recruiting process.
Lacie dives into her initial feelings of failure and self-doubt, but ultimately offers encouragement and advice to those in similar situations. She emphasizes that one's value as a player isn't defined by a single day and stresses the importance of perseverance and maintaining passion for the sport.
Tune in for an honest, inspiring discussion aimed at anyone facing setbacks in their athletic journey.
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[00:00:00] I was part of a very prestigious program where these girls were getting probably 20 to 30 calls
[00:00:10] within a week of September, turning to September 1st.
[00:00:14] And I had zero.
[00:00:17] And it made me question who I was as a player, how good I was, my skills, my technique, my
[00:00:27] mental game.
[00:00:29] I questioned everything about myself.
[00:00:33] For probably, it did change me.
[00:00:36] It changed who I was as a player because I got no calls.
[00:00:42] Hello and welcome to Catching You, A Dad and Daughter Softball Journey.
[00:00:46] I'm Rusty, a dad who's been in the dugout and on the side.
[00:00:50] And I'm Lacie, the daughter whose journey through softball has been filled with incredible
[00:00:54] winds, tough losses and so many lessons both on and off the field.
[00:00:58] For the past 16 years we've navigated the highs and lows of softball together, from
[00:01:03] the local fields to national tournaments and everything in between.
[00:01:06] From the challenges of recruitment during COVID to the mental and emotional rollercoaster
[00:01:10] that comes with being a student athlete, we'll be sharing the perspectives of both
[00:01:14] the parent and athlete and firsthand experience of the impact of sports on mental
[00:01:18] health and the importance of support from the sidelines.
[00:01:21] Welcome back everybody to the Catching You podcast.
[00:01:24] My name is Lacie Ham, one of your co-hosts.
[00:01:27] And today I will be doing a solo and this one's pretty specific to recruiting since it
[00:01:35] is September.
[00:01:36] So for those of you who don't know that September 1st is the first day that on
[00:01:41] your junior year of high school, September 1st is the first day that
[00:01:46] colleges can contact you and reach out to you if they're interested.
[00:01:52] So wanted to talk about that for a little bit today and share my story about my
[00:01:59] September 1st and my, obviously my recruiting journey and big part of my
[00:02:04] recruiting journey.
[00:02:06] So I'm just going to put it all out there.
[00:02:08] This is my first, I don't know if I've said this on this podcast before,
[00:02:13] but so I'm just going to lay it out there.
[00:02:16] On September 1st of my junior year, I got zero calls.
[00:02:21] A big fat zero actually.
[00:02:24] Not a nothing.
[00:02:26] Absolutely nothing actually.
[00:02:28] And at that time I was on the athletics Ricardo team that I was a part of
[00:02:33] with Greg Borsalleri and I was actually no.
[00:02:40] Who's I with?
[00:02:41] My junior year, September.
[00:02:42] I actually don't remember.
[00:02:43] Anyways, okay.
[00:02:46] Main point of the story is that I got no calls on September 1st and obviously
[00:02:51] I was heartbroken.
[00:02:53] I went to practice that weekend and a lot of my teammates who are at big
[00:03:00] schools now.
[00:03:02] Oh my gosh, this coach called me at 12 01 AM and I got so many calls at
[00:03:07] 12 01 and blah, blah, blah, this and that about how they were calling my teammates.
[00:03:14] Like five minutes after five minutes when it turned September 1st, when they
[00:03:20] were legally allowed to talk to juniors in high school.
[00:03:26] And yeah, obviously I was heartbroken and I did not get a call the whole
[00:03:32] September.
[00:03:33] Yeah.
[00:03:34] Like no calls from any coaches really.
[00:03:38] And it was devastating because when the rule changed, when I was a sophomore,
[00:03:45] I think I was a sophomore, when the rule changed, that's all I was looking
[00:03:48] forward to was September 1st of my junior year and getting ready for those
[00:03:52] calls and having my notepad out and seeing if anyone was interested.
[00:03:56] When I got no calls.
[00:03:59] That was a little bit of a knife to the gut.
[00:04:02] If you will.
[00:04:04] And every day after that was a little bit of turning the knife deeper and
[00:04:08] deeper into my gut, especially because not the main type of recruiting, but I
[00:04:14] was posting videos of myself on Twitter when it was Twitter.
[00:04:18] And I would post videos of my game highlights and my bullpins and all
[00:04:23] of this stuff.
[00:04:24] And I followed a lot of my teammates and a lot of colleges on Twitter
[00:04:28] because it was my Twitter account was based solely for softball.
[00:04:33] Specifically for recruiting.
[00:04:36] So when September 1st hit, I go on social media, all the colleges were
[00:04:41] like, type of September 1st, we're so glad to reach out to you.
[00:04:45] We're so glad to like pick our school.
[00:04:49] You'd love our program and they're posting all about it.
[00:04:52] And then like some girls would even go on Twitter and be like, I'm
[00:04:56] so grateful for all the calls that I got today.
[00:04:58] I will take it into consideration.
[00:05:01] Thank you for all the calls.
[00:05:04] And I kid you not, maybe a week after September 1st, I deleted Twitter
[00:05:10] because I could not.
[00:05:13] Obviously I was happy for my teammates.
[00:05:15] No doubt about that.
[00:05:16] Props to you for having a coach contact you the minute it turns September 1st.
[00:05:21] Obviously there's probably some girls this it happens every year where they
[00:05:25] get calls in the middle of the night and they're staying up all night.
[00:05:28] Calling all these coaches that are interested in them.
[00:05:31] But it, it struck something deep down inside me when I'd see these posts.
[00:05:38] And I was part of a very prestigious program where these girls were getting
[00:05:47] probably 20 to 30 calls within a week of September, turning to September 1st.
[00:05:54] And I had zero.
[00:05:57] And it made me question who I was as a player.
[00:06:02] How good I was, my skills, my technique, my mental game.
[00:06:09] It questioned everything about myself.
[00:06:13] For probably that, it did change me.
[00:06:16] It changed who I was as a player because I got no calls.
[00:06:23] And I think it's hard when the recruiting world hypes up September 1st a lot.
[00:06:29] When there are girls out there that are probably in the same position as me,
[00:06:36] where they work their butt off to get to where they are today.
[00:06:42] And these obstacles that happen in their journey say, I'm going to quote myself
[00:06:48] in my head injury and then obviously COVID happening during my junior year.
[00:06:54] Those there's plenty of different obstacles that people face as well.
[00:06:58] And for September 1st to be hyped up so much.
[00:07:03] And I was expecting at least one call.
[00:07:07] And honestly, I think I was a part, I was on.
[00:07:09] Yeah, I was expecting at least one call, at least one.
[00:07:13] And it's hard to think back of like when I was a junior in high school.
[00:07:22] And then March hit, obviously March 2020 when COVID happened.
[00:07:26] And I felt like everything was falling apart.
[00:07:29] Like my all these years that I worked my butt off to get to where I am today.
[00:07:36] To get over my head injury to.
[00:07:41] I don't know, just drive an hour and a half almost four times a week to go to lessons
[00:07:47] and work out and all this stuff.
[00:07:49] I felt like it was for nothing.
[00:07:51] I felt like I was a complete failure.
[00:07:54] My goal of being a D1 athlete was nowhere near, like nowhere near me.
[00:08:01] I thought that it wasn't plausible because of how September 1st is drawn out to be.
[00:08:10] So I want to, I'm speaking to the girls that probably did not get any calls September 1st.
[00:08:19] And our emailing, our posting on their social media are going to camps and
[00:08:25] doing everything that they can to get recruited.
[00:08:28] And I want those players to know that September 1st is just a day in the year
[00:08:39] that somebody can call you and say that they're interested.
[00:08:43] It's, it does not define who you are as a player if you get no calls.
[00:08:48] If you get three calls, if you get no calls, if you get 10 calls,
[00:08:52] everyone plays the same sport.
[00:08:54] You're all playing softball at the end of the day.
[00:08:57] And how you choose to go about responding to how many calls you got,
[00:09:05] it makes a big difference.
[00:09:08] How you respond after that.
[00:09:11] Do you shut down completely and say, you know what, softball, it just wasn't meant for me.
[00:09:18] I got no calls on September 1st.
[00:09:20] No one wants me.
[00:09:22] And I'm just really upset.
[00:09:25] And that's, those were my first thoughts in the first week after I got no calls.
[00:09:30] And I honestly, I honestly felt so alone because I was in an organization where pretty much everyone
[00:09:37] got calls and that was all they talked about.
[00:09:41] And then I had an obviously teammates come up to me, hey, who did, who called you on September 1st?
[00:09:47] And it's just, like I said, the knife got plunged deeper inside my stomach when those
[00:09:54] questions were asked.
[00:09:55] I honestly don't remember how I answered those questions or even if I did answer
[00:10:01] because it was such a sensitive subject for me that September 1st was just this big day of
[00:10:07] the year where these colleges are going to want you and they're going to want to
[00:10:11] offer you right away and all these different types of stuff.
[00:10:14] But what I want to really get out of this episode is that I'm speaking to the girls,
[00:10:19] obviously I'm speaking to the girls that did not get calls or just anything along like that
[00:10:25] criteria of going back and forth in your head, whether you are good enough to play the sport
[00:10:32] and whether like what I never questioned was my passion for the game.
[00:10:37] I never questioned that. And even after this whole September 1st debacle,
[00:10:45] I never questioned how much I loved softball. That was always going to stay the same.
[00:10:50] And those girls who are questioning, if your passion for the game is still high
[00:10:56] and you love softball as much as you have the entire time you've played it, then
[00:11:02] you need to keep going. There's something good is going to come your way.
[00:11:08] And based on how you respond after September 1st, whether you get calls or you don't,
[00:11:14] you're still the competitive, fierce, awesome player that you are no matter if you get calls
[00:11:22] or not. And you're still beginning of your junior year. You still have your two more
[00:11:27] high school seasons to go. You have two more travel ball seasons to go.
[00:11:31] There's still time, there's still time. And not to mention how many universities are out there,
[00:11:38] they preach that, I mean, go D1. Yes, D1 is the goal, right? It's always the goal
[00:11:42] for many players. There's many D1 schools. There's many D2 schools. There's many NAIs,
[00:11:49] NAIA schools. There's many Juco schools that filter into D1 schools and could be a cheaper option.
[00:11:57] And that's what, I mean, we've gone over this before in this podcast. That's what we were
[00:12:01] considering was do I go Juco first and then reach out to schools after that because,
[00:12:11] and then the opportunity at San Jose State came up. But there are opportunities for
[00:12:20] you as a player anywhere. There is a place for you, let's just say that. There is a place for
[00:12:26] you to play. Don't take September 1st with a grain of salt and they hype it up so much.
[00:12:34] The softball world hypes it up so much. But when it has you questioning yourself as a player,
[00:12:43] when you work so hard to get to where you are, that's where we need to change the mindset a little
[00:12:49] bit and think that's okay. I'm going to continue to work hard and I'm going to reach my goal.
[00:12:59] If your goal is to play collegiate softball, then you can do it,
[00:13:03] even if you get no calls. And just as long as you keep working hard
[00:13:09] and you keep your mindset straight, you continue to go to your lessons, you continue to do your
[00:13:16] work in the off season, you continue to do extra work outside of that.
[00:13:21] There is a home for everybody and just wanted to do a short little episode regarding September
[00:13:28] 1st because of my experience, my whatever, not even an experience because there were no calls.
[00:13:36] But one of the main things I want to say is that I felt very alone. I didn't know if I could tell
[00:13:43] anyone that I got no calls. I didn't want to tell anyone, especially my teammates,
[00:13:50] because I felt like I was, I felt like ashamed of myself. I felt so ashamed of myself because
[00:13:57] I got no calls. But the more I reached out and talked to my other softball friends that I wasn't
[00:14:03] on the team with anymore who I grew up playing with, they're like, yeah, like we got no calls.
[00:14:08] And so what I want to say is you're not alone. There are plenty of girls out there that
[00:14:13] also did not get calls and probably will be, probably are in the same situation as you.
[00:14:21] And I was one of them. So automatically you're not alone. So just know that you're not alone
[00:14:28] and please don't question your definition as a player. You're enough, you are worth it,
[00:14:36] and there is a place for you to go. There's tons of universities out there that will be
[00:14:42] so accepting of you as a player. And as long as you keep working hard and
[00:14:48] keep up your work ethic and stay passionate about the game. So let's end it there.
[00:14:56] And make sure to follow our social medias at catching you podcast on Instagram and Facebook.
[00:15:05] And make sure to subscribe to our podcast and leave a comment. But yeah, thank you guys for listening
[00:15:13] and I'll see you on the other side.