HeadFirst Honor Roll Showcase and Other Showcases

There are many ways a player can get noticed by coaches and let colleges know they are interested in playing for that particular school. And you are wise to think cost analysis. So, here are a few scenarios:
1) play on a travel team that travels to different showcases - add up hotel costs, food, tournament fees, etc.
2) go directly to individual college camps. Depending on location, include travel etc. Multiply the cost per college your son is interested in and goes to visit, and that becomes your total cost.
3) attend showcases where multiple colleges attend. Take total cost of showcase and divide by number of colleges you have made contact with.

I guess my point (hope I made it) is that at Headfirst you will see (and will be seen by) tens of college coaches. It is your son's job to be proactive and let the schools know that he will be there and he is hoping that they will see him and take notice. It won't happen accidentally!

justakid gave you some pretty good advice. They key is to not assume that someone will see you at an event like this. You should be sending information to the schools your son is interested in and finding out where they go. The Headfirst camp is highly regarded for high academic schools and if your son is targeting some of the schools that go there then it makes sense. However you should be communicating with them that you intend to go there so they are looking to see your son specifically. There is nothing wrong with communicating with the school(s) and asking where they go.

Thanks for the comments and feedback.

We never thought of contacting the school and asking them which showcases they will be attending. Didn't want to come across presumptuous.

I also posted in the NE forum regarding a club team (Tri-State Arsenal) about which will be a better option; playing for a club team like the Arsenal or just attending showcases in the summer. Thinking of the cost factor and maxmizing the dollars.

There are lots of options and we want to make the best decision based on facts that we can gather.

Thanks agian for your comments and feedback.

MO Short,

As you state there are many different options. I can tell you only our experience.

My son has done two things

1. Made a local high school All star tournament team as a soph.

2. Attend a Headfirst Show case later in the summer of before the start of his Junior year.


Those two things have lead to a lot of interest, chance to attend Junior days and unofficial visits. To the point where it looks like he will get a chance to play D-1 baseball. I share this to help you understand that the Headfirst Showcase was very beneficial and in my mind cost effective. He was able to get in front over 80 schools and over 100 college coaches. To me that was about $10 per school. He was able to talk to coaches get a feel for what they are like and learn about their programs. I do agree that you should contact coaches ahead of time where your son might have interest and let them know you will be there.

As far as a travel team, I know of the Tri state team, my son has played against them. They are a good program and certainly a viable option. My son plays on Showcase team and will be attending a lot of tournaments with them this summer, we are doing that for two reasons

1. To continue to expand the reach of schools that see him or give the schools that liked him from the Headfirst showcase another chance to see him play.

2. It is a heck a lot of fun!


There is an ongoing debate in another post about the benefits of travel team/showcase team. If I had to pick one thing that helped my son the most, based on our experience it would be going to that Headfirst showcase.

However, we would not give up the experience and the outstanding support he has received from his travel coach and participation with that team.

If you can do both, I would suggest to do both. I would just do a fewer showcases, and play for a good summer team like Tri-state. I am sure the travel team coach could help you figure out the best showcase for your son based on his ability and academic's.

My son was also looking into the Headfirst showcase. He is a 2012, is it more benificial to do that showcase before his junior year or after. Maybe just do a regular PG event after his soph. year.From looking at web sites, doesn't seem like freshman or sophmore's get same looks as junior's unless he an elite. Here in the NE, not a lot of travel teams to go down south to play the big summer tournaments. So I am looking for best options.

Personally I would wait and do the tournaments. I would look at the USA National 16U Championships in Fl or Az in June.

If we did it all again, I would have advised my son to play fewer games and attend more college camps. His tournament team travelled wide and far, playing in top events, but if you happen to play well at an odd time (or on an odd feild), when nobody sees you, you've waisted good at bats, diving catches and plenty of money. No event helped my son more than Headfirst. Everything changed after that event. We couldn't keep up with the mail. However, to benefit from Headfirst you need to know that you fit academically with many of the schools and you MUST contact coaches before the event, and then walk right up to them at the showcase to introduce yourself. That showcase is as a test of social skills as well as baseball skills. At college camps you can form a relationship with several coaches over a period of time that is not available during a tournament.

Thanks leftyshortstop
Yes, my son has a 3.9 GPA and has always been a good student.That is why we were looking at Headfirst. I guess my real question is which summer do we attend to get most benefit. There are no teams in our area to get on for those big tournaments so thats not really an option.

My son is a high academic achiever that will be playing DIII next year. I will have to say that Headfirst probably had the most "bang for the buck" in terms of exposure of any event we attended. It generated alot of interest for him, even though he was not feeling well after having dry sockets in his teeth and not eating for 2 weeks! (also, since he felt he was not playing his best, he wouldn't introduce himself to anyone, but it didn't seem to hurt him, at least with a fair number of coaches)

That being said, he ended up committing to a school that we marketed him to by way of letters, emails, berecruited.com info and youtube links (in other words, we spent 0 dollars toward that end). They had also seen him play in the American Legion AllStar game, unbeknownst to us.

Good Luck!

P.S. I feel that if you are only going once, summer before senior year would be the one...

Agree - Summer before senior year. The first August session is best. Best attended - prime recruiting season. These guys get some burnout over 4 days so I suggest first two days.

Thanks everyone for your input
greatly appreciated.

Totally agree 100% with everything leftshortstop stated on this post. My son travelled nationally after his junior year in tournaments and showcases. However, it was HeadFirst that opened up the most exposure and opportunity. He eventually chose one of those schools from a selection of many.

Thanks so much for this conversation. Lots of useful information.

Question, for a rising senior, the two showcases scheduled for Head First - June/August, which of these two would be most beneficial to go?

Thank you again.

AUGUST!

Sharing our experience,

COLLEGE CAMPS, although excellent for getting feel for coaches and school, make sure they have legit level of play D1, D2, D3 etc players at the camp, especially pitchers throwing live to hitters. At one camp we were told they need to see him more against live D1 pitchers (camp only did showcase style batting practice. ala perfect game style). And my son is one of top D1 guys.

The cost is crazy high and hard to fathom given our emotional attachment to our son. But as said earlier, if you can figure out that the RIGHT college coaches are in attendance (recruit coord, #1 or #2 assistant, even hc) well then you have something. If its like tpx96 where often times you get a vol coach well all players need to get seen by the key coaches, ok. Or Perfect game where some showcases are during quiet periods wherein coaches can not even attend to watch players.

Moral to story , we had to do lots of homework before picking an event to make our dollars go farther. If interested in the west coast try Trosky baseball showcases, he gets key coaches there and a value.

Definitely the first session in August! Make sure to sign up early-we almost didn't get in to that session...

My son is a junior, class of 2011, solid grades.

He has the opportunity to sign up for the Stanford Camp and the Headfirst Honor Role Showcase. The coaching/college rosters overlap some on these camps.

We can afford two camps. Is it better to be seen by many of the same coaches twice in the same summer, or assuming a coach likes you, is one look enough?

The more look's a coach gets of you helps him make a better judgement of your talent. If he likes what he see's, he will follow.

We did both the Stanford and headfirst Rocklin camp twice. It was great, lots of college coaches present. I thought that Stanford had a better crop of baseball kids (skillwise). Even then, most of the Stanford players were not what I would consider top tier prospects -- and headfirst was a step down from that.

For us, however, it was a perfect selection which ultimately lead to multiple offers from schools which were well matched for my son's interests (academically and baseball).

The only potential downside is if your son is a pitcher. In that caase, unless he pitches on day 1 at Stanford, he may be a little tired for headfirst. Headfirst would like pitchers to go 2 innings both days. The first year, Son pitched day 2 at Stanford and, two days later, Day 1 at hf (and also day 2 at hf). The second year, he pitched Day 3 at Stanford and only day 2 at hf (but 3 innings). We did not mind paying the big $$ for 3 innings; others would have a different take. (They also want you to play other positions at hf so the time was well spent -- i.e., S wasn't sitting around doing nothing -- he was having fun playing baseball.)

I got a little different approach. Dont spend the large amount of money by going to these showcases unless you feel your son will stand out among the hundreds of kids in attendance. Mine didnt and I feel its a waste of money.
We picked out several colleges that we thought he could play ball for. We called those coaches and said we wanted to come and visit the college and work out for the coach. It didnt cost us a dime to do this except the gas it took us to get there. On several occassions my son worked out/practiced with the team. He got one on one attention, personal instruction, got to see how the coaches interacted with their teams and how he liked the players. None of which you get at a showcase.
Just my two cents.

Skidog


What Division programs where you working out for?

It is a NO NO except for special conditions at D-2 schools

Never heard of that. You can only work out at an official camp as far as I know.

And then only in the context of the camp, not separately or after camp hours.

We worked out for DII, Juco, and NAIA.
Took a campus tour of the school met the coach and did a work in the same day.