Hi all, we had a slot and were supposed to attend this past weekend, however a family situation came up and we were forced to not attend :-(

I'm really interested as too what we missed. How was the camp overall? How was the level of talent? Were the colleges in attendance as prescribed?

I really wished that we could have gone, I know my son would have enjoyed the camp and learned from the experience. Maybe next year.

Any feedback is appreciated,
Mike

I had a similar situation with HF some years back. They were very kind to deal with. They won't refund your money but they will carry your prior payment as a credit towards a future event, and they also let me sell it to someone else. I actually got most of my money back in cash by selling my rights to someone via a post I put up on HSBBW!

Midlo - we had a player scheduled to go to Richmond & then 'signed early'. Parents tried to get HF to transfer the registration to another player & it was a no-go.....fyi

Sorry to hear that. Maybe when they were done with us, they figured it was too much headache!

Mike:

My nephew went to this camp and he thought it was fabulous. The talent was not high-end D-1 talent, but it was very solid and I am sure fertile ground for the many, many schools that were there. It also was a lot of fun in addition to being very well run. He showed me the list of schools (which was impressive from both academic and baseball standpoints) and he had an opportunity to approach all the coaches he wished.

Some of the schools included Davidson, McAlester, Washington & Lee, Richmond and lots of others. Based on what he had to say, I think your son will enjoy himself if he has a chance to attend later.

My son attended on Thursday and Friday. Alot of kids and a lot of coaches. My son broke his foot in June, and got his cast off the Monday before the camp. If we could have gotten our money back, he wouldnt have attended. But he looked better than I thought he would. I think the talent level was good. I think the key to this showcase is contacting the schools you are interested in before hand and letting them know you are attending, and asking them to watch you play. Then you need to get your kid to go up and introduce himself to the coach.

Mike,

My son was at the camp with 250 other kids trying to impress the coaches. I agree with jemaz that there was not a lot of high end D1 talent but there were a handful of mid to lower D1 talent and some very good D3 prospects. The camp was well run but lacked shade in the very intense heat on Sunday. The kids were busting their tails, but again it is hard to stand out among 250 players. I would expect 25-50% of these kids (from both Richmond HF events) to get offers to play D3, simply by doing the math. This is a great event for the D3 schools, and the future student athletes. I got the feeling that it was extremely difficult for the coaches to focus on specific players because they kept moving between fields. Also, many coaches got distracted by parents rather than distracted by players. HF should have made the parents drop off the kids or made them stay on the hill at the Virginia Sports Complex. I had a couple of coaches mention this to me after the event.

quote:

Also, many coaches got distracted by parents rather than distracted by players. HF should have made the parents drop off the kids or made them stay on the hill at the Virginia Sports Complex. I had a couple of coaches mention this to me after the event.

Great observation. Brandon Sullivan is a knockout guy. This is the kind of feedback I think he would like to hear - and probably has heard before. Send him an email.

I've been to tournaments where dads have chatted it up with the college coaches throughout the kids' games - drives me crazy because those coaches need to be WATCHING the kids - not listening to anyone! It's bad enough the coaches have to even go to the bathroom when they should be watching a kid pitch or hit!!

We just got back frorm The HF event...we extended our stay to go visit some Virginia schools.

My son is a 2011....the majority of the kids were 2010 but to say that the experience beat all of our expectations is putting it mildly. Even for 2011, the amount of interest and attention he recieved at the event and the follow up communciation after the event was outstanding. This was a great first showcase for my son and certainly has created a good first experience with many schools showing interest.

I noticed a lot of kids talking to to coaches I did not observe a lot of parents. HF made it quite clear that the coaches really wanted to speak to the players and not the parents. It was fun to watch there young men try to postion themsleves so they could interact with the coaches. Maybe I just missed the parents becasue I was focused on the watching the kids interact with the coaches.

The abililty to have the boys interact with collge coaches while they were coaching games was really a great opoortunity.

HF told all the parents that is was impossible for every coach to see every pitcher pitch, but to combat that they had a collge coach that would write up an evaluation on every pitcher and that evaluation would be sent to every coach in attendance ( and even a few that were not in attendance)...I wonder how effective that will be...

But if your son is a a very good studaent I would highly recommend this event.....the exposure to over 80 schools and 100-120 coaches is hard to beat.