How many College Showcases on 1 weekend...

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How many different College showcases on the same weekend can college coaches handle? I know that some colleges have 2, sometimes 3 coaches to try to cover a lot of ground, but there are some that do not have additional coaches.

This is not a knock on any organization or tournament. The more opportunities for the girls to strut their skills the better. But, if we over saturate a weekend, then I think we (tournaments and Ohio Softball) are just "spinning our wheels".

Take the weekend of Jun 12-14. There are 4 College Showcases (Midwest College Showcase, Willoughby College Showcase, Madness College Showcase, and Capital City Showdown) and the 16U ASA State and 18U ASA State tournaments. That is 6 tournaments trying to draw the coaches. I know that the coaches are going to try to see the girls that have communicated with them, but we are not making it easy for them.

16U ASA States-Findlay
18U ASA States-Ashland?
Midwest College Showcase-Maumee
Willoughby College Showcase-Willoughby
Capital City Showdown-Columbus
Madness College Showcase-North Ridgeville

Willoughby and North Ridgeville are the only 2 somewhat close to each other.

The next weekend is not as bad. 18U ASA Regional-Massillon, 16U ASA National Qualifier-Ashland, Compuware-MI, 16U Sluggerfest-Cincinnati

Any ideas or just s u c k it up?

 

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Compuware is my vote. You should already be narrowing down options by this event. Don't wait to long, been throw it.

Jeff Klopfer
Ohio Classics 14U

 

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the 16U ASA states and Midwest college showcase are about 45 mins apart. So I guess if I was not playing 16U ASA states I would sign up for the Midwest College showcase. ASA states draws college coaches well and the SGS Magic are running the Midwest showcase and they know how to run Tourneys.

 

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I guess my question is, are we hurting ourselves by having too many showcases on the same weekend so that college coaches cannot cover them all?

 

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I think your post was pretty clear in raising the question and I think the answer is that TD's should definitely consider whether there are too many showcase tournaments on any given weekend. Too late to do anything about this season, but if I were a TD, I'd print the OFC tournament list to a .pdf file and refer to it next fall when I was scheduling my event for 2010. The reason that I mention .pdf is the email addresses that are on the OFC list would continue to work as links, so TD's could communicate directly with each other about their plans.

 

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Compuware is a joke for 2009 by their selection process as has already been stated on this site. But with so few weekends of time, it's inevitable to overlap, and teams will have to choose what they feel are the best opportunities for their kids to be seen with the greatest impact. If I was a 14 team I would be signing up for the Queen Of Diamonds South Labor Day right now in the Carolinas, as that was supposedly as good as the showcase itself from feedback on this year.

 

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we tried to do 4 things with our showcase to hopefully make it a premier event, and different then anything out there. . 1. announce the date very early in the fall 2. Contact 400 colleges in the midwest of all levels of college ball. 3. Offer the players a skill clinic AND a showcase for one low price. 4. NO 18u/16u tournament games will be played during the morning of the skills session or during the spot light games starting in the evening.

Thus far our reponse from college coaches, and players signing up has been very encouraging to us. We try to make our tournaments very well run, and our whole organization is encouraged by the new format. www.permiersportingevents.net for the showcase info www.sgsfastpitch.org for tournament info

 

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I find that much of the over lapping of dates comes from ASA not committing to dates/locations of states for 16u and 18u until such late dates. This really ties the hands of any TD to determine what would be the best dates to host a college showcase. It would be nice to have ASA announce late summer the location of the next years states for all age groups. This would allow organizations the ability to not only determine the best dates to host a tournament, but also to select tournaments in a timely manner, IMO.

 

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Hate to oversimplify this, but the teams, and college coaches themselves will sort out which tournaments they want to attend. Anyone can tack showcase onto their tournament name. Went to an out of state "showcase" a couple of years ago and the ONLY coaches present were from the local DII college. A tournament has to attract both coaches and players to really be a showcase. This may just be one fools opinion, but if the only coaches there are within an hours drive of the tournament, then they are just a tournament. This is also just an opinion, but year in and year out ASA qualifiers have not had that large of an impact on the decision of MOST teams which tournaments they will play. Admittedly that may have been somewhat different the last year or so, but most ASA qualifiers over the last 10 years have been poorly attended. When nationals are close interest picks up.

 

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I have to agree with Mike there. NSA's requirement to attend State to honor berths, according to teams that have posted after last year's State event, is getting old to the teams. I would hope for the 16u and 18u teams, they wouldn't do that to the girls as GAPPS is where they really want to be. But, are forced to go to NSA States. A lost opportunity to be seen by college coaches.

To me, the 16u and 18u teams... that's what is all about. Being seen.

 

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Compuware is a joke for 2009 by their selection process as has already been stated on this site. But with so few weekends of time, it's inevitable to overlap, and teams will have to choose what they feel are the best opportunities for their kids to be seen with the greatest impact. If I was a 14 team I would be signing up for the Queen Of Diamonds South Labor Day right now in the Carolinas, as that was supposedly as good as the showcase itself from feedback on this year.

Hilliarddad, we were fortunate enough to get invited back to the Queen of Diamonds South this Sept with our 14U team. From what Kirt told me he already has 21 of the 24 teams set. He invited us last year but we were not able to make it happen on such short notice and since we were mostly 13U last year anyway he said that we were welcome to come back. I agree with you that for the 14U age group that will be an excellent venue and I got some excellent feedback from teams who attended last year.

As for Compuware I cannot comment because we did not even look at going this year. We wanted to but our schedule is pretty set and we are happy to be hitting Stingrays, GAPSS, and the others that we have scheduled.

 

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I have to agree with Mike there. NSA's requirement to attend State to honor berths, according to teams that have posted after last year's State event, is getting old to the teams. I would hope for the 16u and 18u teams, they wouldn't do that to the girls as GAPPS is where they really want to be. But, are forced to go to NSA States. A lost opportunity to be seen by college coaches.

To me, the 16u and 18u teams... that's what is all about. Being seen.

Tim I have always disliked the fact that NSA required teams to attend the state tournament in order to honore their qualifications to attend the NSA nationals. The main reason for this is because they had an alterbate to the state tournament which was an indoor event up in Akron. No disrespect but an indoor tournament should never be a substitute any outdoor qualifier.

 

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Am I mistaken that for 2010 ASA established the dates for all national qualifying tournaments in advance of the bidding process to resolve the issue that feistymom referenced?

I believe your are correct, but yet we did not see 16u ASA States or 18u ASA States listed until several weeks after the 12's and 14's appeared on the tournament list . . .

 

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we have to agree, getting coaches to an event is what is the most important thing in the end. That is why we are agressively pursuing Coaches, and the website is going to be updated as them commit. We are also getting a nice response from players signing up, teams from as far away as Florida are contacting the tournament director! [we flock there in winter, maybe we can get them here in summer!]
http://www.premiersportingevents.net/MidwestCollegeShowcase.html

 

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MAGIC

Your format seems great. You have really differntiated yourselves from that perspective and it truly does seem to cater to both the player and the college coach. Nice job. Wish you guys the best of luck.

Mike Wilson