"Talent scout" redirects here. For talent scouting in the music industry see A&R

A&R

Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...

In professional sports

Professional sports

Professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are sports in which athletes receive payment for their performance. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations...

, scouts are trained talent evaluators who travel extensively for the purposes of watching athletes play their chosen sports and determining whether their set of skills and talents represent what is needed by the scout's organization. Some scouts are interested primarily in the selection of prospects, younger players who may require further development by the acquiring team but who are judged to be worthy of that effort and expense for the potential future payoff that it could bring, while others concentrate on players who are already polished professionals whose rights may be available soon, either through free agency

Free agent

In professional sports, a free agent is a player whose contract with a team has expired and who is thus eligible to sign with another club or franchise....

 or trading, and who are seen as filling a team's specific need at a certain position. Advance scouts watch the teams that their teams are going to play in order to help determine strategy

Strategy

Strategy, a word of military origin, refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. In military usage strategy is distinct from tactics, which are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked...

.

Many scouts are former coaches

Coach (sport)

In sports, a coach is an individual involved in the direction, instruction and training of the operations of a sports team or of individual sportspeople.-Staff:...

 or retired players, while others have made a career just of being scouts. Skilled scouts who help to determine which players will fit in well with an organization can be the major difference between success and failure for the team with regard to wins and losses, which often relates directly to the organization's financial success or lack thereof as well.

Kinds of scouts

According to Tony Lucadello

Tony Lucadello

Tony Lucadello was a professional baseball scout for the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies . During his career, he signed a total of 52 players who made it to the Major Leagues, most notably Hall of Famers Ferguson Jenkins and Mike Schmidt...

, considered by some to be the greatest scout ever, the four kinds of scouts start with the letter 'P':

• Poor – wastes time looking for games rather than having a planned itinerary
• Picker – emphasizes a player's one weakness to the neglect of all strengths and ignores the potential within
• Performance – bases his evaluation on what a player does in his presence
• Projector – envisions what a player will be able to do in two or three years

Lucadello estimated that five percent of scouts were poor, five percent pickers, 85 percent performance scouts and five percent projectors.

Computer-aided scouting

Modern day scouts are becoming more and more reliant on computer programs to aid and assist in the evaluation of talent being scouted. Every professional sports franchise is now using computers to organize their collected information and data. As of 2007, most franchises still depend on human management to decide which players their organization will draft or sign. In every major sport however, there are some new pioneering programmers that very well may change the landscape of how scouting is done at the professional level.

Baseball

• Hugh Alexander
  Hugh Alexander (baseball)
  Hugh Alexander was an American baseball outfielder. He played in seven games for the Cleveland Indians in 1937, getting one hit in eleven at-bats, and striking out five times. That offseason, he lost his left hand in an oil drilling accident, ending his playing career. Alexander subsequently...
  
  
• Joe Devine
  Joe Devine (scout)
  Joe Devine was a former baseball scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Yankees. He is credited for signing Joe DiMaggio to the Yankees.- Baseball Career :...
  
  
• Tom Greenwade
• Paul Krichell
  Paul Krichell
  Paul Bernard Krichell was a Major League Baseball catcher, best known for being the head scout for the New York Yankees for 37 years until his death...
  
  
• Tony Lucadello
  Tony Lucadello
  Tony Lucadello was a professional baseball scout for the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies . During his career, he signed a total of 52 players who made it to the Major Leagues, most notably Hall of Famers Ferguson Jenkins and Mike Schmidt...
  
  
• Joe Sugden
  Joe Sugden (baseball)
  Joseph Sugden , was a professional baseball player who played catcher in the Major Leagues from -. He would play for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Cleveland Spiders, St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago White Sox, St...
  
  

American football

• Bill Nunn — legendary scout for Pittsburgh Steelers
  Pittsburgh Steelers
  The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team currently belongs to the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Founded in , the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC...
  
  
• Dick Haley
  Dick Haley
  George Richard Haley, Jr. is a former American football cornerback in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins, the Minnesota Vikings, and the Pittsburgh Steelers...
  
   — architect of 1970's Pittsburgh Steelers
  Pittsburgh Steelers
  The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team currently belongs to the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Founded in , the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC...
  
   dynasty
• Rich Behm
  Rich Behm
  Rich Behm former scouting assistant for the Dallas Cowboys who was permanently paralyzed from the waist down after his spine was severed during the collapse of the team's tent-like practice structure in a severe storm May 2, 2009....
  
   — Dallas Cowboys
  Dallas Cowboys
  The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football franchise which plays in the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League . They are headquartered in Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas...
  
   scouting assistant who was permanently paralyzed from the waist down after his spine was severed in the May 2009 collapse of the Cowboys training facility.

Basketball

• Will Robinson
  Will Robinson (basketball)
  Will Robinson was an American college basketball coach and scout. Robinson became the first African-American head coach in Division I history when he accepted the position at Illinois State University in 1970.-Early life:...
  
  - also scouted for the NFL's Detroit Lions
  Detroit Lions
  The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League , and play their home games at Ford Field in Downtown Detroit.Originally based in Portsmouth, Ohio and...
  
  .
• Kevin Mackey
  Kevin Mackey
  Kevin Mackey is a former head coach of men's basketball at Cleveland State University. Although several low moments of his life were made public, Mackey was also a popular symbol of success when his CSU Vikings upset the Indiana Hoosiers to make the Sweet 16 in the 1986 NCAA Men's Division I...
  
  , Indiana Pacers
  Indiana Pacers
  The Indiana Pacers are a professional basketball team based in Indianapolis, Indiana. They are members of the Central Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Basketball Association...
  
  

Ice hockey

• Håkan Andersson
  Håkan Andersson (ice hockey)
  Håkan Andersson is a Swedish amateur hockey scout who currently serves as the Director of European Scouting for the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League ....
  
  
• Garnet Bailey
  Garnet Bailey
  Garnet Edward "Ace" Bailey was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and scout who was a member of Stanley Cup and Memorial Cup winning teams...
  
  
• Samuel H. Kim
  Samuel H. Kim
  Samuel Hyung-Ihl Kim is a Korean Canadian hockey commentator who has covered ice hockey since joining SBS Sports in 2006. He is also a hockey scout who serves as a scout & interpreter for the Anyang Halla of the Asia League Ice Hockey...
  
  

External links

• Joyce, Gare. "Wall of Dreams."