Episode #167: Larry Yoder on Recruiting

🎙️ The Reality of How Softball Coaches Evaluate | Larry Yoder | Ep. 167

In this episode of the Significant Recruiting Podcast, Matt Rogers continues his conversation with Larry Yoder, Head Softball Coach at Mount Mercy University, to break down what really matters in the recruiting process.

This is a real, honest conversation about what coaches are actually looking for, how athletes can separate themselves, and why finding the right fit is more important than most families realize.

Coach Yoder shares his perspective from over 17 seasons of building and leading a successful NAIA softball program—offering insight into communication, evaluation, and what helps recruits stand out for the right reasons.

 🔗 Learn more about Coach Yoder: https://mountmercy.edu/athletics/softball/coaches

 ⏱️ Chapters

 00:35 What Coaches Are Really Evaluating
 03:10 First Impressions & Initial Contact
 06:00 What Separates Recruits Early
 09:20 Skill vs. Intangibles
 12:15 The Importance of Fit
 15:10 Common Recruiting Mistakes
 18:05 Communication That Stands Out
 21:00 Evaluating Competitiveness & Body Language
 24:10 What Parents Need to Understand
 27:00 Late Bloomers & Development
 30:00 What Success Looks Like in College
 33:00 Final Recruiting Advice 

Significant Recruiting Resources — Take the guesswork out of college recruiting with Significant Recruiting: The Playbook for Prospective College Athletes, sport-specific Recruit’s Journals, and the Significant Recruiting Launchpad. Practical tools to help families research schools, stay organized, and build a smarter recruiting strategy. Learn more at CoachMattRogers.com.

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On the latest edition of The Significant Coaching Podcast, a recruiting presentation. Of the coach Matt Rogers YouTube channel. Available audio only everywhere you get your favorite podcast. I'm your host Matt Rogers. This week we continue our conversation with a longtime NAI head softball coach at Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Larry Yoder. In part two, coach Yoder shares his wisdom for athletes and families looking to make that jump to play their sport in college. With all the noise you get on college recruiting each day, I think it is very important that families actually hear straight from the college coaches in this episode. We get rid of all the extras and get right into the meat of what coaches want to see, and it is always a little different from coach to coach. I hope all of this is valuable for you and your family, and gives you a little extra motivation to get on the path that's right for you. And as always, you can find more help with all your recruiting questions@coachmattrogers.com, where you can find the tools and resources to make your journey a little easier and a little more focused on you. Let's get into it. Here's part two with Larry Yoder. Coach Yoder, we just had a great conversation on coaching and your fantastic perspective on leadership. I love it. Let's dive into recruiting. Let's talk about how you evaluate when you're looking at recruits. I know you prefer to see kids in person. You love having 'em on campus when you can work 'em out one-on-one. What matters more early to you? Is it the tools? Is it production? Is it the intangibles? Is it a work ethic? Are there things that really jump out at you that draw you to a kid? Yeah I think number one, it's gonna start with are they a good fit for Mount Mercy? Are they, yeah. So the academic part of it and how they do their. Is gonna be the number one thing to Okay, that's in place now. We'll move on. But what I'm looking for is somebody that really loves softball, that's willing to work hard. We're looking for, obviously there's certain people, if you need a pitcher or you need a catcher, whatever. But we're looking for utility type people that can do a lot of different things. And she had seven short stops. She'd be happy. Absolutely. Because you can move 'em anywhere. That's right. I tell all the kids what you did in high school or travel ball may not be what's best for you here and until we get you here and see where everybody's at the more things you can do, the better chance you're gonna have. And we're always looking for versatile people that love the game and are just very athletic and willing to be coached. Isn't that the key? Yep. How do some of those things, I'm gonna I'll throw a couple of 'em at you at a ti, one at a time. How did they manifest themselves when you're watching, how does that love of softball show itself for you? Oh, body language is like a big old billboard, isn't it? Is it when things aren't going right and the head hangs and they're pouting, or the way they treat their teammates that's, that stands out real easy. But you know the girl that's on the bench and if she strikes out, it's run back and help your person on deck, right? Go help your teammate and just keep playing hard. If you make an error, you make an error. And. You move on and they, you can just see the smile on their face being in the dugout and how they cheer, how they are with their parents after the game, all of those things. You can just, I don't know if it's a feeling that I have, but for me it's pretty easy to see who really loves the game and who's just doing it. There's a difference between loving the game and loving success. Yeah. If they're not succeeding, all of a sudden that love goes away. We lost, I don't know if I love this anymore. I struck out twice. I don't know if I love this anymore. Love transcends all that, doesn't it? Yeah. And they can win the game, but it go over for two, so they're not happy even though the team won the game. And so that's not love in the game there. That's right. I love that. How do you see work ethic? What jumps out at you when, you know they've got a coachable attitude, but they're working. This is a kid that grinds. Yeah. They're just they're always ready and they're always doing what they're supposed to do. They're never standing around I don't know. It's, it's hard to say in a game necessarily, whether it's a work ethic, although you can see in a pre-game or in their warmups or how they go through some things and how do you play catch, like going out there and going through the motions. Are you focusing and trying to get ready to play a game and things like that. And you just see 'em helping their teammates getting ready. I think it's just something that, I don't know. I guess I've never been asked to explain that, that you, I can see it it's hard to, it's hard to explain, but I always like getting people's opinion kinda what they see because it's so fascinating that so many kids don't understand what you're looking for. They don't understand. That you're watching warmups, you're watching them in the dugout before the game and you're trying to see. Is that love there is because if there's no love, the work ethic isn't gonna be there, right? Yeah. Watch 'em on deck, right? Are they out there trying to time the pitcher? Are they coming out of the dugout when the other batter's already got a strike or two on 'em and they're putting their gloves on and not even looking at the pitcher? They're not. They're not preparing themselves for that next to bat. That's not but the ones that are excited, they're out there when they're ready, they're waiting in the entry another player ahead and they're, yeah, they're ready to get out there and they're trying to time the pitcher and they're working on things. So just little things like that are when you go out in between innings and you're gonna get a ground ball and you're just gonna pick it up and lobb it over, or are you gonna take a rep and try and make sure you're ready to go and get better. Yeah. All of those little things where you can make yourself better if you take advantage of the opportunity, but some of 'em just go through the motions there. We get back to intent, like we talked about before. Yeah. People that do things with intent, that translates into work ethic for me. I agree. I, it's funny I always told my staff I want junkyard dogs on the basketball court. I wanted those kids that would hit and grind and run and work and, yep. The gym rats, the gym rats, yeah. How does, what does that look like for you for when we put that in the softball context? The girl, the cage rats, right? They always want to be out. They always want to be hitting. They always, they do wanna play catch or they they want some extra ground balls or they want whatever it is, they, they can't quite get enough. Or they're, they feel like something's not quite right, so they wanna what's going on? Do I fix it? And others, and they, eh, it was a bad day and yeah. Whatever. So I call 'em the one more kids. Yeah. One more grandma. Coach. One more pitch. One more hit. Yeah, one more swing. Yep. And then I say you don't get that one more in a game. Right? That's true. So I'm not gonna give it to you here, but we try to help 'em out, but that's pretty cool. Yeah. What separates or recruit, who gets your attention? We're talking about all these kids that grab your attention and doing those little things compared to the kid that gets the offer from you. Say, I'm sorry, say it again now. You're recruiting lots of kids. You, oh yeah. I'm guessing you look at hundreds of kids. Yep. There's kids that you really like and then there's kids that you give an offer to. What's the difference between those two? What, what makes it, what makes you go I gotta lock this kid up. Yeah. I think probably at the end, the type of offer is gonna be skillset type of things and how they're gonna fit into the team and how much I think they can do over a four year. This person's definitely gonna. Be an impact for us and they're gonna keep getting better. And I think that that's the kind of girl I want on the team. But there's there's a lot of girls that aren't as good that have all of those things, right? And so I guess at the end, the ultimate thing is gonna be skillset, but they all have to have that other piece around it before. They better fit your team and your school first, right? Yep. It's gotta fit the school. They've gotta academics. Again we talk about all the time during the recruiting process that academics is gonna be number one and you're never gonna miss a class for a practice or anything like that. Games will work on and we'll work through, but at the end of the day, academics is number one and we're super passionate about softball, so that's gonna be tucked up underneath there. But yeah. Every kid that comes here, I tell 'em they get to play softball for four more years and then they're gonna work for 45. So what do you think your priority needs to be? And I want to get you through here. I want to get you graduated or onto grad school and they've gotta fit that mode and if they can fit that and they have. Enough passion about softball that they're willing to do all of these things. I really wanna make it clear. This is not easy. Yeah. This is extremely hard. And once I get to the point where I'm comfortable with knowing that they wanna put in all this work that they're gonna do, the academics, they're gonna do all the softball, then I think the only difference becomes what is the skillset at that point. I'm gonna put you in a situation here. Let's say you're recruiting a bunch of girls and they all have 3.8 GPAs. They all have 27 acts. They can all play shortstop, they can all pitch or catch, and on top of it they the skills are there. What are the things you walk away from? What are some of those red flags where you're like. That's not gonna work here. Yeah. The, again, that there's a lot of body language things that will come into play for sure. When it comes down to little things like what are the parents like, and not recruiting parents, but sometimes parents won't let their kids do a lot of talking and is this. Is this how it's gonna be recruiting the child or the parent here? That's right. And that sends up a little bit of a red flag because I sometimes when those kids get away from. From that they're a little bit different. And so you don't really know what you're getting. And so I like when I'm getting good interactions with the actual player and we're making a connection. I think that's super important. Yeah. And if we're not making a connection or there seems to be a disconnect, that might be a. Sort of a red flag or are you honest about that? When you feel that I, you say I'm, I don't know if we're a good fit for you. Does it come out like that? No, not that would be an. A rare thing. Yeah. I just, I try to, I don't wanna ju we don't get to spend tons of time with them. Things aren't right. I wanna, I don't want it to, I don't want to jump to a conclusion. And so I keep trying to make this let's see if we can make it happen. But it either does or it doesn't really. Yeah. You seem like you get pretty invested before. You might make that offer so you know if they're gonna be a good fit for your team before you get too deep in the woods with them. Yeah, we usually, with us it's gonna be a two step, at least process. And that's again why I like kids from Eastern Iowa because they can make that visit. Yeah, it's a little bit, I do have a girl from California on the team and she came, but it's she comes once and we do it all at once, but a girl from more of the area. It's gonna be more of a two step. We're gonna bring 'em in and they're gonna do all the school things and the academic things, and they'll talk to me and hear about the program. And if all of that's, Hey, I can see myself here. Okay, now you're gonna come in and we'll do a workout. You're gonna maybe watch a practice. You're gonna go eat with some of my girls. So you can talk to them about what's coach like what's the time commitment? What's what what's going on. And so after they've been through all of that. Then you, it just weeds itself out whether they are gonna be a good fit or not. But I always tell 'em if if you come to Mount Mercy and you're excited and you get hurt the first day in practice and you can't play softball anymore. I wanna make sure that you're still happy you're at Mount Mercy. Yeah. Like you need to pick the school where you're most comfortable. That's where you're gonna be most successful and it's softball's super important, but it can't be everything. It has to be the total fit. You have to be comfortable with your teammates, with your coaches, with the academics, with everything. And that's, it's by the time you get through all of that, you have a pretty good idea of. And that's usually when we'll make that offer is after that second visit. I don't very rarely just throw out anything unless it's sometimes if they're further away, you do have to do things a little bit different. That's right. You do. 'cause those kids need a little bit more, they need to understand. The distance that they're not driving home every weekend, they gotta get on the airplane if they wanna see mom and dad. Yep. Coach, I think there's a lot of confusion from families about NAI and how financial aid scholarship works. Would you mind getting in the weeds with us a little bit and talking about what your, what that full cost looks like at Mount Mercy and what you're able to do to help make. Sure they're affordable. So families understand, don't look at the sticker price, yeah. For that's for sure. Hardly anybody pays that. How do you go through that? What's your process with that? Yeah. And nobody pays that sticker price, right? It's all, you have to get in there and you have to do a lot of figuring out. And within NAIA, we do offer academic scholarships and we offer athletic scholarships, and then there's some small. Other scholar things that you can pick up along the way, obviously. But the two, two main ones, the main one is gonna be academic. So the better you can do with your grades, obviously is gonna get you more money. And then there's gonna be a softball scholarship and, but there's also other scholarships out there that we try to look for to make our school more affordable. So again, if you're from Iowa, we have a thing called the Iowa Tuition Grant, which is. More of a middle class type thing. There's Pell Grants that all states have a federal type thing, but the Iowa tuition grant some of our kids will fit into that. That's gonna give them a lot of money. We have a niche of working with healthcare things and so I have a lot of nurses on my team, which is extremely difficult water chance discipline to, to play softball and to do. But yeah, we have some great programs. We have two large hospitals here in Cedar Rapids and we have. A thing called Mercy Ready, which is mercy Hospital. And they, you do work for them a little bit as you go along, but they give you a huge chunk of money to pay for your education. But at the end of your graduation, you have to work here in Cedar Rapids for them for two years. So it's a commitment type thing, but when you start to get an academic, an athletic maybe that nursing thing, an Iowa tuition grant. School you're almost getting into a full ride type of thing. Yeah. But that's if you're not into nursing then maybe that's not available for you. But there are a lot of ways that we can get it. And I think NAI at least Mount Mercy we're, our price at the end is gonna be cheaper than like a state university. If you went to the University of Iowa or Iowa State or something like that, usually we're definitely in that. And then depending on what your softball scholarship is, it could be. Incidentally cheaper yet. So I think that's the biggest misperception that public schools are cheaper than private. You know that? Yeah. That you, I can go to, I can go to school, to Iowa cheaper than Mount Mercy, and I don't even think it's close anymore. Especially with softball scholarship. Yeah. Not with the athletic. If you're getting a nice softball scholarship you're gonna be cheaper. Yeah. Your tuition is right around 36,000. Is that still accurate? Yeah, it's probably closer to 40, but, and then room and board, everything's gonna be just over 50. W what's everything? What does, what's the average kid in your program end up paying out of pocket? Is there a kind of a range you try and get kids into? I think the school would say that the average is gonna be around 22, 23. Yeah. But again, with the softball scholarship that's for your average student. And so the softball scholarship or that Iowa would tuition grant or that nursing thing starts to push it all towards, yeah. Closer to zero. And so you, we don't give full rides. I always I think a lot of people think there's a lot of full rides. I don't think there's as many full rides in G one. There's any elser. Yeah. A lot of people are paying for an education and so at the end of the day, you just need to find out what your final price is gonna be. Yeah. I don't like to give my final price until I know you're a good fit for me. And you won know, so you need to go through the process of, 'cause if you're not interested in being here, I'm not gonna That's right. Not why would I work hard if I so you got five other options you like better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if but it's definitely like they shouldn't just look at that sticker price, like you say. Yeah. There's, you find where you're comfortable and then start to get into it. And I think you'll find there's a lot of good small schools out there that Yeah. Can help you. And even I'm not that familiar with D three. They don't offer, athletic scholarships. They seem to be they're not gonna just let us walk away with all the students. They're competitive too. They find they're competitive too. Yeah. And there's a lot of opportunities out there. And so when I hear about these people walking away from college with $200,000 worth of debt, I'm like, what? Where are you? Makes no sense. Yeah. And so yeah, you're probably gonna have some debt unless you've saved or your parents saved and whatever. But it's an investment in yourself and it's been proven time again, that you're gonna earn more over a lifetime with a college degree than you will without. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it sounds like Mount Mercy's values through the roof in terms of what you're gonna get out of it and Yeah. What you're gonna get out of being a student athlete and Yeah. So it's fantastic. And yeah, and again, with my niche being in nursing or healthcare, like if you went to the University of Iowa and wanted to play softball, they would say no. Yeah you can't do that. Here. Let's do it. I do explain it's gonna be hard, but we work around those clinics. If they miss softball, it's okay. And we, if they have to miss practice 'cause they've got some of that work or clinicals or anything they have to do, that's okay we'll work around that. We'll make it happen. And nobody's punished for any sort of academic thing. We make it work and it's I wish more people would look into, especially nursing and things like that, it's just a fantastic opportunity to walk outta here. All our nurses have jobs by the time they leave. And how do you beat that? It's, yeah, but it's a lot of work. It's not easy. That's easy. But it's, but it can be done. I pay for pay for what's left on your pay for your edu help you pay for your education too, on top of it. What a great deal that is. Yep. Yep. Coach, do you want potential recruits reaching out to you, and if so, how do you want them to reach out to you? Yeah absolutely. We want them to reach out to us. But I also get. 25, 30 emails every day. And sure you can tell which email is generic and which one's just coming through. So I guess even you can get my phone number pretty easily and my email certainly very easily and. If you can personalize some things, I don't need a long list. Tell me you're interested. If you're really interested then I'm gonna try and set up a visit. 'cause I want to get to know you or I do wanna see some film but until I get a girl in here and we actually are face to face and see 'em. Yeah, you just dunno. And things are very competitive. And yeah, it's hard. So you've gotta stand out a little bit. And so I think if you can personalize those as a recruit, I guess my advice would be don't throw such a broad net, like all over the place. Try and narrow your what you want, what do you want to do, what do you wanna study, where do you want to actually be at? And then narrow it down and then start to. Write those coaches, go to a camp or a clinic or go on a visit and ask to speak to the coach or whatever. Send 'em a personal email and tell 'em about yourself or a text and a phone call. Anything. Great advice. Yeah, I love that. Coach. How about a piece of advice for parents that have a youngster that wanna play college softball? What advice do you have for them? I would maybe help guide them to some decisions, but let them do it. Especially when it comes to visit day. Let them experience it and let them talk. And just try to just try to be an observer for, and then. Give them advice later or whatever. I think that's the biggest. I just see a lot of parents that wanna take over and talk for 'em and things like that. Yeah. You only have so many scholarships, so you want that opportunity. When a kid comes to visit, you wanna be able to find out if you're a good fit for each other. You wanna find out if you, you want to coach them, and if mom and dad are doing all the talking or micromanaging everything, you never get a sense if that kid's gonna fit you. It's hard to make an offer to a kid that you didn't get to hear much from, that's super important too. But like that second visit then they get away. I send 'em with the players or get off and do a, whether it's a bullpen with my pitching coach or maybe hitting with me, just, I always tell 'em you, you're gonna spend a lot of time with us. You wanna make sure you're comfortable and the things we're teaching and doing in practice, that you're comfortable with that. And then you get a lot more of that. Interaction again. So that's as much as seeing their skillset, it's being with them and seeing how they react to what you're saying and things like that are all super important. It goes back to what we talked about in the first segment, how you do such a good job of giving space. For kids to learn how to lead, to learn how to communicate. 'cause if they don't have that space to fill that void, it never gets done. So you're doing the same thing on a visit. You're giving them time with the girls. Without you, you're giving them time to ask questions and really get to heart of that. And I would imagine you tell your girls to be completely honest. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. For sure. Yep. Don't sugar coat it. This is how it. For sure. And then they just, this is a big decision for them, biggest decision they're making. And they have to feel comfortable with it. And they just it's my job to get 'em as much information as I can so that they can make a good choice. And I usually hope it's Mount Mercy, right? That's right. But it's not, then it's not for them. That's fine too. And yeah Mount Mercy's not for everybody and you. You gotta find where it's you're most comfortable. Yeah. And that's it's quite a process. Coach I can't tell you how much I respect you and what a joy this has been to get to know you. I'm so thankful you're in the world of coaching and you're mentoring and raising these young women and they get to have somebody like you in their life, not just for those four years, but long after they're done at Mount Mercy. So thanks for doing this today, and thanks for being you. All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you for listening. I hope you continue to enjoy hearing the truth, passion, and wisdom that every coach who is kind enough to come on this show shares with us. Coach Yoder is truly a good guy, an outstanding leader, and role model. It's been fun getting to know him. As always, you can find more resources to help you on your recruiting journey@coachmattrogers.com. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss what's coming next. Until next time, stay focused on what you can control. Stay humble and keep. Keep chasing significance.