Recruiting safety and scam awareness
Most people your athlete hears from during recruiting are exactly who they say they are. This page is about the ones who aren't — and the simplest way to tell the difference.
The approach here is deliberate: learn what legitimate recruiting looks like, and the abnormal becomes obvious without needing to memorize a list of tricks. That's a more durable protection than suspicion, and it doesn't make a family flinch at every email.
If an adult has contacted your athlete inappropriately, asked for photos, pushed to keep contact secret, or asked for money — tell a parent or another adult you trust today, and don't delete anything. Screenshots matter.
- Immediate danger — call 911.
- Suspected online exploitation of a minor — report to the NCMEC CyberTipline at CyberTipline.org or 1-800-843-5678.
- If your athlete is in crisis — call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 24 hours a day.
None of this is your athlete's fault, and being deceived is not a failure of judgment. The people who do this are practiced at it.
What legitimate recruiting actually looks like
Learn this and most problems identify themselves.
Real coaches email from a school address, call from a listed number, and appear on the program's staff page. Their name, title and photo are on the athletics website, which anyone can check in thirty seconds.
Not a coach, not a program, not a "recruiting coordinator." Scholarships flow to athletes. There is no legitimate circumstance in which a family pays a person to secure a place on a college team.
Legitimate programs expect parents to be involved and copied. A coach who is fine with your parent reading the emails is behaving normally. That is the standard, not a courtesy.
It takes months and years. Genuine interest survives a few days of checking things. Nothing legitimate collapses because a family took the weekend to verify it.
Video, stats, grades, a profile link. Nothing a coach needs to evaluate an athlete is private, and nothing requires a photo that isn't of them playing softball.
A D1 coach who says they can't respond in detail before September 1 of junior year is being compliant, not evasive. Someone claiming special access to rules everyone else follows is telling you something.
Five things that should stop you
Not "be suspicious." Stop, and check with a parent before responding.
An upfront fee to be "placed," a payment to hold a roster spot, a charge to be added to a coach's list. Legitimate costs in recruiting are things like camp fees paid to a school and travel you arrange yourself — never a payment to a person promising an outcome.
"This offer expires tonight." "I need an answer before I call the next athlete." Real offers survive a conversation with your family. Manufactured urgency exists to prevent you checking, which is exactly why you should check.
Moving off email to a personal number or a private app. Suggesting your parents don't need to be included. Framing the relationship as special or confidential. This is the most important item on the page. No legitimate recruiting conversation requires a minor to keep it from their parents — none, at any division, at any stage.
Coaches evaluate athletic film and academic records. A request for personal photos, images not related to playing, or details about where your athlete will be alone is not a recruiting request, regardless of what it is called.
Guaranteed placement, guaranteed scholarship, guaranteed exposure that produces offers. Coaches make those decisions and no third party can promise them. Any service that guarantees an outcome is either misleading you or doesn't understand its own business.
How to verify a coach is real
Do this before replying to any first contact you weren't expecting. It costs almost nothing and settles the question.
Search "[school] softball coaching staff" — don't use a link from the message. Is this person listed, with this title?
Does it match the school domain shown on that staff page? A free email account, a lookalike domain, or a personal address is worth pausing on.
If in doubt, write to the address published on the athletics site. A real coach receives it. An impersonator does not.
Telling a real service from a bad one
Plenty of paid recruiting products are legitimate, including ours. The question isn't whether a service charges — it's what it claims in exchange.
- A clear price, published before you speak to anyone
- Tools and education you can evaluate up front
- Cancellation on your terms, in writing
- Honest about what it doesn't control
- Names its limits without being asked
- Guaranteed placement, scholarships, or offers
- A price only revealed on a high-pressure call
- Multi-year contracts with no exit
- Claims of exclusive relationships with coaches
- Pressure to sign before you can research it
You should hold AthletesGoing2College to the same standard. Our pricing is public, there's no contract, we don't email coaches on your athlete's behalf, and we don't promise offers — because we can't. If any of that ever stops being true, hold us to this page.
Two things here are free and ask for no card: the readiness assessment and the 30-day roadmap. You can judge the work before paying for it. How we compare to other services →
What a recruiting profile should and shouldn't show
A recruiting profile has to be reachable by coaches. That doesn't mean it has to expose everything.
Name, grad year, position, height, high school and travel team, stats, video, GPA and intended major, a general hometown, and a contact button that routes messages rather than displaying an address.
Home address, personal phone number displayed publicly, daily schedule or routine, anything showing where your athlete will be alone, and photos not connected to softball.
Route the profile's contact button to both the athlete and a parent for any athlete under 18. It costs nothing, it doesn't slow anything down, and it means no adult ever has a private channel to your athlete that you don't know about.
The same principle applies to social media: a public account showing tournament schedules and locations is broadcasting where a minor will be. That's not a reason to go private — coaches do look — but it is a reason to think about what's on there.
Four things to set up once
Structural, not surveillance. Set them at the start and they work without anyone policing anything.
Not because you'll read every message, but because a channel you can see is a channel nobody can misuse. Agree it at the outset and it never becomes a negotiation.
"If any adult asks you to keep something from us, that's the moment you tell us." Say it once, plainly, before recruiting starts. Athletes who've heard it said are far more likely to act on it.
The reason young people don't report is fear of trouble or of looking naive. Tell them directly: you will never be in trouble for telling us, even if it turns out to be nothing.
Make the thirty-second check a family habit for any unexpected first contact. It becomes automatic and it removes the moment where someone has to decide under pressure.
Almost every coach your athlete hears from will be a real coach doing a normal job. The point of this page isn't suspicion — it's that a family who knows what normal looks like can spot abnormal quickly, and then act on it without hesitating.
And if something ever feels wrong, the answer is always the same: tell a parent or another adult you trust, today. Not next week, not after you've figured out whether it's serious. Today.
- 911 — immediate danger
- CyberTipline.org or 1-800-843-5678 — suspected online exploitation of a minor (NCMEC)
- 988 — Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, call or text, 24 hours
Related reading
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Recruiting rules change and vary by division. Always confirm current rules with the governing body: NCAA.org · NAIA.org · NJCAA.org