NTIS Cary report

Thanks for the report!  This forum is a great resource and there is plenty of experience.  As you work you way toward high school, more and more information here will be valuable to you and your son.  Congrats on the great performance in Cary.

OskiSD, great report. Would you mind sharing the steps your son and you took in this process? How many tryouts? Cost of each? Expenses incurred during the trip to Cary? Thanks

OskiSD posted:

....though Cary obviously is neither cheap nor easy from the west coast.  

Well, having moved here from Northern CA three years ago, I can assure you it is WAY cheaper!  

...just having some fun.  But we do love it here in Cary (=Containment Area for Relocated Yankees!).  

Next time you're coming to town, lemme know - I'd love to come watch your son play.

Sure, I'll give it a shot.  In late May he was asked by a former coach to consider trying out for the NTIS team at a local field.  Showed up and there were about twenty kids with a pretty broad talent spectrum.  Infield/outfield drills, sprint, BP, pitching/catching sessions, all measured over a 2-2.5 hour period.  (My wife paid for it and I can't recall the exact fee but it was more than nothing).  Based on that he was asked to play in a game at UCSD at the end of June.  Two teams of (I think) 13 or so kids; my catcher son brought his A game and went 3-4 with two guys erased on the bases.  He was then asked to play in Cary.

Cary price was $300 for the "uniform" which covers other costs as well.  Getting to Cary is expensive, esp. given that one doesn't get a lot of notice before booking travel, etc.  Stayed at a "team" hotel organized through USA baseball with three other region teams (this was pretty cool as the kids got to know each other a bit).  

Each team is guaranteed four games, though once you lose you go into a consolation bracket.  The championship was my son's SoCal team vs a very good Southwest team, which wound up knocking us off with four in the last frame.  Games are seven innings, though two of our games ended a little early because of run rules.  Son had a total of 12 at-bats, and got in for just over 50% of defensive plays.  

It's hard to say how much of my son's experience had to do with the specific circumstances (he was ready to play and performed well; he really clicked with the coaches; etc) but it sure felt worthwhile.  A really useful yardstick for a kid who wants to excel in the sport and is open to some struggle against tougher competition.  

justbaseball posted:

OskiSD posted:

....though Cary obviously is neither cheap nor easy from the west coast.  

Well, having moved here from Northern CA three years ago, I can assure you it is WAY cheaper!  

...just having some fun.  But we do love it here in Cary (=Containment Area for Relocated Yankees!).  

Next time you're coming to town, lemme know - I'd love to come watch your son play.

We loved the area and my son now knows that the "barbecue" we have in San Diego is a pale, sad reflection of the real thing.  

Glad to hear you had a good experience. I have not had any bad experiences but my experience makes me curious as to how kids are chosen or just getting more about money.  My son was "invited" to the first round tryout and was unable to make it due to HS playoffs. Automatically advanced to next round based on "recommendation" from someone?  Sent in my money for the next round and due to unforeseen circumstances , we missed that tryout as well. I was surprised to get an email stating that since their were so many good prospects at the tryout and only so many spots on that team ,he would be placed on a team from another region and advance to Cary. Not sure how often this happens but sure came across to me that they just wanted another check as they had never seen my son. We passed on the opportunity. 

My kid also played in the NTIS in Cary. What a great experience to play with and against some real studs (12/13 yo pitching 80 plus mph, batting exit velos of over 100 mph and distances of over 400 feet!! On the 60/90 fields). The tourney format was great and we were spared the rain that was forecasted all week. The facility was not only beautiful it was equipped with trackman for you metric junkies (me included). It was great that my 12 year old can use these data as a baseline to improve next spring. 

Yes the cost of all the local tryouts and Cary tryouts were a bit exorberant (around $600 for us) and the travel cost to cary tacked on another $1000+ and shortened our planned family vacation in Williamsburg VA by several days. In the end, it was totally worth it for me. I spent severals days of bonding time with my more man than boy looking son and watched some great and not so great baseball, but it was still better than 99% of 13U and even 14U baseball I've seen this past spring and summer. 

My kid's team had a lot more players than others  but the coaches did manage to keep the playing time relatively fair, in retrospect it would have been a better experience for the kids with less players. Some of the kids had an opportunity to be coached by Xan Barksdale an outstanding catching coach and he was also very apporachable to players who were not given the opportunity to train/be evaluated with him in the 2nd evaluation phase. It was like a fantasy camp.

We are now a few days back from Cary and the effect has been very positive for my kid. He is more motivated to work out and improve since he now knows how great the talent is out there and how much he wants to be part of it. So yes to see him even more motivated to get better was worth every cent.

As post script, the kid and I visited Duke, UNC and NC State as suggested by others. That too was great, picked up more shirts and caps. The better half was breaking chops on the collection of shirts, shorts and caps that were brought back from our trip.

NYC, glad you had a good experience.  If you were mid-Atlantic then you did have way too big a roster (as did a couple of others).  We were fortunate to carry only 13 (a 14th who plays on the national team bowed out due to a conflict).  Alternatively the North Texas team had only a couple of kids from NT and had to borrow players from other regions.  The vibe was really great, though, and the tournament was inspiration in a can for my kid.   He's ready to run through walls. 

Sounds like everyone had the same experience as we did (son went as 13U in 2011)  Cary is a great experience....at least the portion the USA Baseball handled was.  Our team, Ohio Valley at the time was a disaster.  Team had 4 kids from the coach's "travel team"....and I use the word travel very loosely, they were mid-level rec at best....and they played almost every inning of every game, even after two of them had 4 errors on routine plays the first inning of the first game.  Coach and his kids missed a lot of events, breakfasts, team picture, etc.  It was a total fiasco.  The rest of the team was actually pretty decent.  The one game the rec kids sat, we beat a team from TX that was undefeated up to that point.  No exposure at all for 13U.....but the older kids 14U and up got plenty.  Son had a friend there a year older (LHP) who got quite a few good contacts out of it.  Research the people running your local group before you commit.....some are better than others.

Buckeye, true on organization - that was apparently the issue with the North Texas squad.  Ours was run very, very well by the PC and RC at UCSD.  He was direct, fair and knew how to talk to 13 year olds.

wareagle posted:

Glad to hear you had a good experience. I have not had any bad experiences but my experience makes me curious as to how kids are chosen or just getting more about money.   

When you are around the Travel Baseball scene locally & regionally for several years you start to know who is who fairly well, and from our area over the years there have been some real "head scratcher" selections for NTIS/Cary as well as some "no doubt/of course" selections.   Over time I've learned to take it with a grain of salt and recognized that some of it is based on projection and sometimes it has caused me to look a second time at a player whose talents I didn't fully appreciate in the 1st place.   Sometimes there are players selected who just have one great tool, who might not stand out as much as a well rounded player on the travel ball circuit but who the USA folks recognize their talent.  

We have never had our son tryout for NTIS mostly because we knew we wouldn't have been able to afford the trip to Cary.   A few of his friends have gone and had a great experience

I guess I should add that one of the "rec kids" ended up at a TCU   Another kid who basically got zero playing time due to the coaching staff is at another D1 up here.  Along with my son, that's 3 D1 kids...and that's just the ones I know of.  I guess looking back, there must have been some pretty decent talent down there lol

We got the official program for just that reason - to have the rosters of the 16 teams so we can track them down the road.   

OskiSD posted:

We got the official program for just that reason - to have the rosters of the 16 teams so we can track them down the road.   

We had one....I'll have to ask my son if he still has it somewhere.  Now that he's a junior in college, would be fun to see where some ended up.