Summer is increasingly becoming anything but an off-season for most scholastic sports.

Instead, it can be argued summer is more important than the actual high school season for sports ranging from baseball, a traditional summer favorite, to football, which other than in weight rooms, used to be pretty quiet until hot, brutal two-a-day practices got going four or five weeks before the opening Friday night.

Summer is evermore a combination of select teams and important recruiting opportunities.

AAU basketball tournaments, state golf events, showcase baseball and softball tournaments and football combines are excellent for high school student-athletes who are doing everything possible to become college student-athletes.

It makes sense. College coaches have more chances to travel and see potential recruits during their off-seasons, which in some ways — and certainly in an individual sense — makes a kid’s “off-season” more important than her varsity season.

A couple weeks ago during a showcase baseball tournament for hundreds of select clubs ranging around the eastern half of the country, college and pro coaches and scouts outnumbered regular old fans and parents in the stands during the games I saw over at Christopher Newport University.

Kyle Moore, a rising senior at Nansemond River, who recently gave a verbal commitment to play baseball at Maryland, said he wouldn’t have the same recruiting successes and opportunities without playing year-around for the ‘Canes.

“All I have to do is ask (one of the ‘Cane coaches) about speaking with a college coach, and in the next day or two, I’m on the phone with him,” Moore said.

Who can argue with the result? Moore will be playing baseball at an ACC program and going to an excellent university.

On the gridiron, the prospect of being a college prospect is a good reason for cramming as many combines, 7-on-7 tournaments and camps on college campuses into a summer as possible.

There were college coaches walking Cedar Point’s course last week at the VSGA Junior State Championship.

Lakeland’s field hockey success, let alone Lady Cavs going on to U.S., Junior Olympic and Division I college teams, wouldn’t be the same without having an almost ceaseless field hockey calendar.

Coaches admit it’s increasingly tough on a kid to play multiple sports these days, especially if he is elite in one of those sports.

The flip side of all this is that if a student-athlete is not participating fully in the summer AAU/select/showcase/combine circuit, the likelihood of being noticed by coaches from the next level drops even lower than the percentages already are for high school athletes to go on to college scholarships.

Moore plays football and hoops for Nansemond River, as well as being a speedy, slugging outfielder, making the time he puts into baseball more remarkable.

Hopefully, Maryland gave Moore a couple brownie points, since being a three-sport athlete, and never mind time for academic success, takes even more discipline and energy than it ever has before.