There was new legislation passed by the NCAA Division I Council earlier this month that has a direct impact both nationally and locally on fast pitch softball and the college recruiting process.

The new rule states that, effective immediately, September 1 of a perspective student athlete’s junior year is now the start date for all softball recruiting.

Prior to the legislation being passed college coaches were given free range to communicate with potential student athletes well before they were eligible to sign national letters of intent.

According to a press release from Apponaug Girls Softball (AGS) in Warwick, fast pitch softball leads all Division I colligate sports in student-athletes that commit to a school in or before the ninth grade. The president of AGS, Jay Walsh, said he and the organization are fully behind the new regulations.

“I am an educator, a coach and work at a University and I think the rule changes are in the best interests of student-athletes because it allows players to develop emotionally and physically before determining what college they want to attend,” Walsh said in the release.

Walsh has his Ph.D. in education from the University of Rhode Island and is currently serving as a professor and Executive Director of the American Association of University Professors at his alma mater.

Recruiting for potential collegiate student athletes occurs primarily over the summer during competitive travel softball. According to the release, travel coaches often served as a third-party between potential young players and college coaches. With the new rules in place, Walsh is confident in his organization’s coaches’ involvement in the recruitment process.

For Walsh, it is about the development in the league’s players and, if they are given the opportunity to play at the next level, that both the student-athlete and her family are educated and prepared to make the right decision.

“We believe in the community organization model,” Walsh said. “Now that colleges are prohibited from early recruiting and travel coaches cannot act as third parties we have an opportunity to create a program focused on long-term development that prepares players, both emotionally and physically, to make the best decision possible when they are juniors and seniors in high school instead of middle school or younger.”

Walsh is entering his first year as AGS president. As a father of two daughters who are involved in the league and now the president, Walsh takes great pride in the non-profit community that Apponaug Girls Softball is. He also said he looks forward to the improvements the league will make in the future to give their athletes the chance to play at the next level while standing by the new regulation.

“Apponaug is already family centered,” Walsh said. “With the elimination of early recruitment and the development a long-term model, we are confident that families will commit to Apponaug rather than pay more to play in a profit-based travel organization.”

The opportunity is there for youth softball players to grow and develop in the AGS community, Walsh said. He believes that the league’s community can help for any long-term goals for young softball players.

“You know the saying, and ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’” he said in the release. “Well, it also takes a village to raise an emotionally and physically prepared college softball player, and Apponaug Girls Softball will be that village.”