May 30, 2025
Over the last handful of years, more and more data-driven tools and analytics in recruiting, and also the increasing use of video. These tools are incredibly valuable and useful for player development and college coaches are also now turning to them to help evaluate prospective student-athletes to aid in their recruiting efforts, as well.
Other than video though, these tools aren’t yet universal or completely familiar, so we want to make sure that we orient attending Headfirst student-athletes to what to expect while they’re at camp and how coaches use these analytics.
While video certainly isn’t new in recruiting, it has now become much more prevalent, given the ease of capturing quality footage with a smartphone, and with easy distribution through tools like YouTube to put your film in coaches’ hands. Having video to send to coaches is a great way to introduce yourself, and also to keep them updated on your progress and development as you build a recruiting relationship.
Video also puts the eyes of the entire coaching staff on you. For the vast majority of college coaching staffs, recruiting is a collaborative effort, and getting cross-checking and staff buy-in on recruits can be labor and time-intensive. Having good video footage can help make this easier though – which is the purpose of the video that we collect at Headfirst on every student-athlete.
In addition to the objective measurements, there are a few other pieces of data – some built-in, others as optional add-ons – that we collect at Headfirst.
Pitching Evaluations
In addition to the Rapsodo reports on all pitchers, we also do pitching evaluations for all pitchers who throw live in games on both days of camp. These evals are written by college coaches assigned to each field, and include velocities, as well as notes on movement, command, presence, athleticism, etc. These pitching evaluations are distributed to all college coaches in attendance but are not made available directly to student-athletes or families.
Through our partnership with Realplay, all Headfirst defensive and offensive showcases, PLUS all in-game action from multiple camera angles will be filmed.
Realplay’s high-quality camp video is:
You can learn more about our Realplay partnership here.
If you’d like to purchase the Realplay Video Package for $189.99, please click here.