Wednesdays and Thursdays start a little later in the day for me. Instead of five in the morning I usually don’t start until seven in the morning.
These two days are all about preparation for the weekend.
I like to make contact with every player I have attending a camp in the coming weekend. Find out where their heads are at, give them any last-minute information I may have on the competition, and make sure they are going into camp with the right mindset. The mental aspect preceding the camp is just as important as the physical preparations that have been made throughout the summer.
Much of these two days is about simply being there for the player and the parent. Spending as much time answering questions and concerns about the upcoming camp is critical for everyone to enter camp being as confident as possible. Confident should not be seen as being confident in making any team, but being confident that they will be afforded every opportunity to make the team and confident that they deserve to be there if it is a new level of competition.
In between those calls I am making contact with our other scouts and advisers to check on there scouting schedules. Our company tries to be at every main camp throughout the summer where we have a player participating. First hand accounts of the camp are critical to evaluating where a player had success or where he may have struggled in camp.
This summer our company has attended more than 50 main camps thus far and a half-dozen showcase events excluding the one we put on each spring.
Wednesday evening see’s a continuation of new client interviews and research. We typically spend 16 man hours researching each potential new client in various ways before making a decision on if the player is one we can help.Wednesday usually ends around ten in the evening.
Thursdays are a bit different in that they are a travel prep or a partial travel day as well as a work day. Thursdays usually ended around seven in the evening so that I can pack and/or get on the road to attend a camp on friday. Typically I will get on the road Thursday if the trip is longer than eight hours by car. Like the players, I want to make sure I arrive at camp alert and rested on Friday.
In the next article I will cover a typical off season weekend.
Joseph Kolodziej – Publisher
