- Dec 20, 2012
- 1,084
- 0
Any tournament that is listed as a "Showcase" and can not provide a list of schools to be represented is not worth going to. And even then there are only so many games any one coach can watch. I do not know a thing about tournaments in the NE so I can't say who's who in showcases in your neck of the woods. And true, most of the coaches are there to watch kids they already have an eye on. It's not like they just go to the tournament, find a game and hope to see something they like. That's just not the way it works anywhere.
The reason coaches are there for the pool games and then leave makes sense. They only have so many days that they can recruit and have to make the most of them. During pool play they can make requests to see players in different positions, slap, steal or whatever. Depending on the tournament they may be allowed to bat out of order, resub, etc.... Once bracket play starts it is by the book and they cant sit around a whole game to see one or two at bats and possibly zero defensive action.
From our experiences the best bet for exposure tournaments for our area,other than national tournaments like the Ronald McDonald, were ASA and PGF qualifiers, especially in the Dallas and Houston areas(we are in OK). But regardless of where the tournaments are played the players, coaches and parents have to put in the work in order to get the attention of coaches at the tournaments. That means hundreds of emails, phone calls and text messages every week.
The reason coaches are there for the pool games and then leave makes sense. They only have so many days that they can recruit and have to make the most of them. During pool play they can make requests to see players in different positions, slap, steal or whatever. Depending on the tournament they may be allowed to bat out of order, resub, etc.... Once bracket play starts it is by the book and they cant sit around a whole game to see one or two at bats and possibly zero defensive action.
From our experiences the best bet for exposure tournaments for our area,other than national tournaments like the Ronald McDonald, were ASA and PGF qualifiers, especially in the Dallas and Houston areas(we are in OK). But regardless of where the tournaments are played the players, coaches and parents have to put in the work in order to get the attention of coaches at the tournaments. That means hundreds of emails, phone calls and text messages every week.