From the Publisher:

This issue features 2,226 names of outstanding players from the past season (not to mention 94 coaches). This got me thinking about recruiting and the journey that each player took to their respective college. And then the question: When all these All-Region and All-American and Gold Glove players were in high school, did their future college coaches see this great success ahead for them? We’re talking about recruiting.

As a college coach, I used to study my own recruiting evaluations. In future issues, I’ll delve deeper, but in general, my evaluations were correct 40% of the time. My evaluations were incorrect 60% of the time: 49% were overrated in high school, while 11% were underrated. The overrated evaluations included players who didn’t work out due to injuries (9%), other sports (9%), work ethic & attitude (19%) and just not good enough (11%).

Predicting the future will always be difficult, but in thinking about ways to improve evaluations, one idea is to get more and more info. Maybe recruits need to start submitting 3-5 game videos, much like in football recruiting. Maybe recruits need to supply references from other parents who have watched them their whole lives since they were little, to give a large overview of their development arc. That could be a start.

For now, whether the coaches of the 2026 All-Americans predicted the grand success of these players or not, kudos to them for coaching and developing and mentoring these players as they achieved something great.