Playing for the PGF National Champion OC Batbusters after previously being with top 10 national teams like the Corona Angels and Explosion, Paulina Anasis — a 2015 corner infielder from Southern California signed with  Northwestern — certainly was in a great position to be seen by college coaches.

If anyone knows about the process of getting recruited it’s someone who’s been through it all the way to Signing Day and that includes Paulina who starts off today’s blog admitting, “The recruiting process is a big scary beast…”

She insightfully talks about confidence and reacting to mistakes saying, “I can guarantee that most college coaches will care less about your mistake than about the reaction they see in you after your mistake.”

And she gives perhaps the best advice ever: “Don’t you dare let your parents write any emails for you. They’re recruiting you, not your mom and not your dad.”

Paulina was in the top 50 of the 2015 Hot 100 we updated in October and the 6-foot power hitter showed why last year as she was a 1^st Team All-Orange County selection who batted .425 and led her high school to the semi-finals of the very competitive CIF-Southern Section Div. I playoffs.

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The recruiting process is a big scary beast to all those with the desire to play collegiate softball.

Unfortunately, not everyone gets to fulfill this goal and that’s probably what’s so scary.

Everyone handles situations differently, but there are a few things that I can confidently say were big contributing factors that allowed me to get into better communication with college coaches.

It’s no secret that being recruited starts out to be pretty intimidating. My best advice to alleviate the pressure of this situation is to practice your weaknesses enough that you feel confident in your play.

If you feel can eliminate your weaknesses then can feel more confident, and this results in you being able to maintain the same level of comfort in the box and on the field that you would normally have if there was nobody around.

Let’s say you make a mistake. If you aren’t confident, you better believe it will show all over your face and through your body language. That’s a huge downside that college coaches will have a hard time looking past.

If you make a mistake, keep your head up and your shoulders back like the champion you are, like the champion you create out of yourself during practice time.

I can guarantee that most college coaches will care less about your mistake than about the reaction they see in you after your mistake.

Something else that helped me feel less intimidated by college coaches coming out to scout me was talking with them. If a college coach has watched you before and told a coach or hitting/fielding instructor of yours that they have some interest in you, then find a way to get in contact with them via email, then eventually through the phone.

If you’re able to get more familiar with them and hear their voice, I promise you will feel far more comfortable playing in front of them. You will be less intimidated by the stern and focused look they have on their face while they’re at the park recruiting.

You won’t be scared where the eyes behind the sunglasses are looking–if they’re looking at you right now or if they saw you put a swing on an awful pitch. You won’t be so frightened by the name of the school on their hat and shirt.

On a lighter note, I also think it is important to address how to get a coach to come to your games in the first place.

Everyone looks for different things in a school such as location, competitive nature of the academics, competitive nature of the softball program, what the coaches are like, student-to-teacher ratio, and the like.

Figure out a general idea of what you’re interested in. This is the most important foundation to the recruiting process. Once you know what you want out of a college, figure out what schools meet what requirements you have set up.

Figure out which characteristics would be absolutely mandatory and which can be compromised or sacrificed.

Once you know who’s got what, it’s important to try and discover what a school needs. If you figure out that they recently verbally committed a stud pitcher that is in the high school graduating class of 2018, and you are also a pitcher in the class of 2018, then you probably won’t have much luck pursuing that school.

Try your best to get in contact with schools that you know would consider you a valuable asset to the team–especially if you want to play.

A great way to initiate contact with college coaches is by emailing them. Send them a little bit about you, like your name, position, graduating class, what team you play for, where you’re from, tournament schedules and stuff like that.

You can leave your coach’s phone number or the number of a batting/fielding instructor that they can call and ask about you. Player profiles are also very informative for college coaches. They want to get a feel for your personality. Tell them why you’re interested and make it personalized.

They only have so much time to recruit people so they want to use it wisely, on people who have a high level of interest in their school and in their program. Template emails are wonderfully efficient but they aren’t sometimes impersonal and robotic.

Don’t you dare let your parents write any emails for you. They’re recruiting you, not your mom and not your dad. Try to write each email from scratch, but also feel free to look back at past emails that you’re proud of and go ahead and use them as a reference.

The recruiting process is daunting for some and exciting for others. In the end, we should all think about softball as the game we love but that also happens to be a tool allowing our life goals to be more attainable. Thanks for reading what I have to say and I hope it helps you!

— Paulina