They can host camps before Junior year, but they are trying to close that loophole by not permitting “recruiting” talk during camps.
Copeland took the NIU job at the end of June. He had seen my son at a PBR event (Illinois State Games) in August 2022, and apparently called my son’s high school coach on like day 2 to express interest.
I’m not sure how many times NIU was out to watch him this summer, but Copeland was definitely front and center at a game in Indy this summer when my son had four hits. (That never hurts)
They had him in for a visit on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend and offered on the visit.
My son had two other offers (one P5) and an offer to be a PWO at a school that he really wanted.
NIU made the most sense (by quite a lot).
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Is the rule still no direct recruiting contact before 9/1 of their junior year?
Had he been to camps at NIU prior to this?
Glad he found a spot he's comfortable with that's close enough that you can get to a lot of his games.
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He’s really excited about the new coaching staff and the vision they have for the program. I’m excited for him but mostly proud of the work that he put in to get to this point. He’s still got two more years of high school baseball, but he’s quite relieved to be done with recruiting so he can focus entirely on continuing to get better.