high schools traveling

Hirrel

Many public high schools from the Northeast now head to Florida to play before their season opens up here

The team/parents/school work together to make the finacnes work

Our HS season doesn't start till May 13th...we go down to Tennessee every Spring to get some work it. It's unofficial and each player pays a share.

HS teams from all over the north go to Florida for spring break. Kids pay their own way. In some cases the games count on the school's W/L record. Im sure western HSs must make similar journeys to Arizona or So Calif.

They are just regular HS teams. No homework over break. Some JV and even freshman teams go, but mostly varsity.

Some facilities are former spring training sites. Kids sleep in same rooms that once housed major leaguers. Many parents make the trip.

Our team goes to Florida every year via a charter bus. This trip is paid for just like everything else is - through the boosters. The money in the booster club comes from each player being responsibile for raising a set amount of money. If a player/family prefers not to do those things to raise their share, they can donate the amount to the fund. The trip is made during our spring break. This year we have two games - March 28th and 30th before we go. Some years we have our first game there - just depends how spring break falls.

HS players in Illinois can only dream about a team trip to Florida. I believe that the Illinois High School Athletic Association prohibits a HS team from traveling more than 3-400 miles from home. One can only try to fathom what reason they have for this but we sit here landlocked in snow and ice and freezing temperatures. For those of you who's sons' can experience a southern trip at this time of the year be very grateful...Our southern trip is a 2 hour bus ride to central Illinois where the weather still stinks.

All, thank you very much. Very interesting! Now i have a final question ; how is it arranged between the teams (high schools) in Florida that you'll be playing?

Hirrel, We participate in the "Florida Beach Bash" every year. This is a constant stream of teams coming into Ft. Walton Beach, FL depending on when their spring break occurs. Who you play depends on who is on spring break. This year we face four KY teams that we never see during season, one Florida team and one Ohio team for varsity. JV plays a similar schedule. There are also Softball tournaments going on in the area at the same time. Our girls go here as well. I don't have the contact name, but if you would like me to get you an actual name, feel free to PM me and I would ask our coach. The folks that run the tournaments there obviously do the schedule just like any other tournament. You can put in requests for teams you would like to face, etc. I'm sure there are many other places in Florida that this same thing happens. I know our area has several teams that go further south in Florida every year.

lafmom
i'll ask my sons coach and if he can't help, i'll PM you, if you don't mind .thankyou

We play teams from NY Penn and Ohio just about every year over our Easter break. We really enjoy having these guys come down here. One year we let a team from NY play four or five games at our place over a three day period. They even practiced a couple of times. You meet some good people and make some nice contacts.

Our guys are going to Crestview, FL tomorrow for a tournament that is held there every year.

Disney's Wide World of Sports has about 8 weeks of "Spring Break" Tournaments every year. You just go to the website and register your team for the week and package you want and pay your money. They do the rest.

Our goal is to get the team down there next year if we can raise enough money.

I'm sure there are many other organizations that hold those types of tournaments in Florida every spring.

Kungaloosh, I believe a couple of Alabama varsity teams
are going to disney this week and also think one of them was on son's team schedule.

Our boys just got back last night. 4 days, airfare, hotel, meals, $800 per kid and 2 games. From here it was a waste of time, money and not well organized but the boys felt it was ok and had a good time so that's as far as we let it go. It was paid for by parents and school contributions.

We tried to make the Disney trip happen this year, but just couldn't get there financially. We just had too many obligations as a team this year, (needed new uniforms and the final payment on the hitting facility). Now that is all taken care of, the trip should be a go next year. The fruit sale, two donut sales, and the annual fish fry should cover the trip since we won't have those other expenses.

Coach Merc, we also have several Disney nuts (Annual Passholders and DVC owners) as parents, so hopefully we can avoid any pitfalls that might come up.

Coach, certainly hope they were limited to only 2 games due to weather otherwise complete waste of money.

Itsrosy, I believe Indiana has that same stupid rule. Funny how the High School band can take trips to Disney to perform but the baseball team is locked into this backward logic. The IHSAA is a total nightmare here in Indiana. Any ideas on how this type of “no travel” rule can be changed?