Ds is starting to get recruiting letters. The coach is not real high on my son and will probably say positive things about his attitude and that he's a hard worker but not much positive about his ability. Before you think that we think our kid is wonderful and we're disillusioned, I need to explain that coach's opinion is not what we're hearing from others who have strong baseball credentials. Also, we may not be at this particular school next year. How do we handle this? Can one negative coach affect his baseball future?

Why not use his travel team coach as a reference ?

Our coach didn't care about college recruiting, and would barely return phone calls of college coaches - so we gave him gentle reminders, along with stamped addressed envelopes for college coaches requesting written information. It also helps if your athletic director is in the loop to reinforce things. Don't be too heavy-handed though. In the end, you will get recruited based on a college coach actually seeing your son play, not based on what the high school coach says.

Best approach is to come to a meeting of the minds on your son's college and baseball goals with the coach.

Agree with TRhit about the summer team coach.

Some coaches are very cautious about their recommendations. Top D1 programs will ask if a player is the best player on the team and in the league and they are serious. Go look at the bios of the kids from a nationally ranked D1 program and you will see that almost every player was all-league, all-city, all-state, etc.

Of course at a lower tier D1, a D2 or a D3 they aren't getting that caliber of player.

In the end, brod is right that although the HS coach can help the most important thing is for the college coach to see the player.

HS coaches typically have pretty low opinions about the baseball acumen of parents, no matter their baseball backgrounds, if you haven't noticed. Well the reality is, justified or not, college coaches feel the same way about many, though not all, HS coaches so don't be too worried about the coach's recommendation as long as he isn't being negative about your son's character.