My Messy Journey Tracking Down Recruit Info
Alright so my kid mentioned Mercer’s baseball team last week, said he heard they were looking for players for 2025. Figured I’d dig up the official scoop since, you know, he’s pretty clueless about this stuff usually. Started simple: just googled “mercer community college baseball 2025 recruit”. Sounds easy, right? Hah.
First hit was a general athletics page. Buried under all that basketball and soccer nonsense. Clicked around for ten minutes, found an old roster and some game schedules from 2024. Zero about recruiting. Dead end. Got that annoying feeling like I was wasting time.
Next, I remembered the coach. Coach Kevin. Last name? No clue. Searched “mercer county community college baseball coach”. Found him! Kevin Wilkins. Now… how to contact? No direct email listed, just a generic athletics department address. Sent a clumsy email there yesterday morning: “Hi, trying to find info for 2025 baseball recruits? Any tryouts?” Still waiting. Probably sitting in someone’s spam folder.
Tried the college directory next. Total disaster. Searched his name – phone number popped up! Sweet! Called it… straight to voicemail. Left a garbled message like “Uh, hey Coach Wilkins? Call me back about, uh, baseball? For 2025?” Real professional, I know. No callback yet. Figure he gets a hundred calls a day.
Scrolling deeper into the web abyss then. Found some random local news snippets mentioning baseball recruiting, but nothing official from Mercer. Lots of talk about their fancy new turf field though. Cool, but not helpful! Got sidetracked looking at pictures.
Social media was next. Instinct said Instagram and Twitter/X. Searched tags like #MercerBaseball #Mercer2025Recruits. Couple posts of current players working out. Then… bingo! One kinda new-looking post on the official @MercerMCCCBaseball page. More active than the darn website! Saw something vague about “Off-season recruiting starting soon”. No dates, no details, just that phrase from 2 weeks ago. Better than nothing!
Tried the NJCAA website because someone online mentioned it. More confusing paperwork jungle than useful info. Just basic eligibility rules and transfer stuff that made my head hurt. Like reading tax forms. Closed that tab fast.
Ended up calling the Athletics Office directly. Pressed buttons forever to get a human. Nice lady answered, heard my plea. She basically sighed and said: “Coach Wilkins handles all that, honey. I can transfer you?” Yeah, you guessed it – voicemail again. Left another message. Desperate times.
Current status? Mostly frustrated, but holding onto that Instagram clue for dear life. Seems like the process hasn’t really kicked off formally yet, or they’re terrible at advertising it. Maybe both. My takeaway so far:
- Coach Wilkins is the gatekeeper. Gotta crack that code.
- The official website recruit section is useless. Avoid.
- Instagram is actually their most current channel. Who knew?
- Be ready to stalk voicemails and generic email addresses.
Guess I’ll just keep checking Instagram daily and pray my phone rings. Kid owes me big time for this detective work. Maybe buy me lunch when he actually makes the team… if I ever figure out how to get him on it. Nothing official yet, just chasing whispers and IG posts. Welcome to community college sports recruitment!