PG Sunshine East vs PG National Academic Showcase

My son was but also invited to area code expos tryout/clinic in june 19/20 if they were not so close together might try to do both will will have another chance for PG in Aug a little closer to home will be attending stanford camp in july academics!!!

Taratko
The Sunshine is a fantastic time, loaded with scouts from all types of colleges, plus MLB. I am not sure who would be attending the PG Academic Showcase, but typically you will have the Ivy League type schools, service academies, D III and elite top tier schools. Some may indeed have excellent baseball programs, while others may not. Many players choose a college based on who has a great baseball program, however, the academic showcase may open the door to an excellent academic program while still being able to play ball. Remember D III cannot offer athletic scholarships, so they are always seeking outstanding students that will qualify for academic scholarships to field a good team. Maybe, PG could respond to this one.

I chose PG Nat'l Academic becuase primarily I figured since it is so close to Sunshine East, many of the schools will stay around for both, and also because I want to get a great education with the added bonus of a great baseball program.

We struggled with which one to attend. We decided on Sunshine East for three reasons:

1> Academic is new so it is difficult to know what the scout attendence will be. At the same time, Sunshine is not exactly PG's biggest event for scouts. We hope that their strategy of putting the academic, sunshine, and unsigned showcases together results in higher scouting of all events by colleges. Seems like it should.

2>We know that top performers at Sunshine are invited to the National the next weekend. My guess, however, is that could happen for kids who shine at the academic as well.

3>Sunshine is on the weekend, so I don't have to take off work to go with him. Honestly, I think this was the biggest factor.

Steve

"It might be, it could be, it is.........

We are going to Sunshine East mainly because we didn't get the invite to the Academic until after the money was sent in already. Really can't do both.

The Academic will probably draw a lot of the same schools that attended the Headfirst in Jupiter last year so it would be another chance to perform in front of those schools but suspect they will be at the Sunshine as well.

For those that qualify for the Academic you might want to look into the Headfirst in the fall. Although they don't enforce any academic standards to attend the majority of kids that make it recognize they need grades to go to these schools. Headfirst runs a top notch showcase.

JME:

What is the Headfirst? Who puts it on?

Steve

"It might be, it could be, it is.........

GADad

Sorry for the delay, computer giving me fits. Check www.Headfirstbaseball.com they are based out of Washington DC and run 1 showcase a year in Jupiter. It is strictly geared toward schools with high academic standards, many Ivies, and others with limited recruiting budgets. We attended last fall and thought it was very well run, good copmpetition and great exposure. During breaks each school represented speaks to the entire group giving overviews about their programs, they bring in lunch each day, have the showcase events in the morning and games in the afternoons. The attending coaches rotate between teams to coach and interact with the players. My son got letters from Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Georgetown and the Naval Academy as a result of attending. So we were quite pleased.

It was a little pricey but since we live in South Florida we were able to drive up each day so that made it a much better bargain.