Very bad tournament

IMO, the coach bears some (a lot?) of the responsibility for entering a bad tournament with bad hosts.

Our coaches were either familiar with tournament hosts or did their homework to find out.

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I agree with justbaseball. Crack open the books. Let the homework begin. Dish the dirt!




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How did the 'college exposure' part go? Did everyone show up (and pay attention)?

This is the coach’s fault. He should be well aware of what tournaments he is going to attend one year in advance, and he better do his homework. We spend a lot of money and invest a lot of time on behalf of our future pro ball players, and if the coach is garbage, we get him fired or move on.

quote:

Originally posted by AntzDad:
How did the 'college exposure' part go? Did everyone show up (and pay attention)?

That's another huge disappointment. Coaches were only present at the college field (small DI). Because of "poor field conditions" the schedule was significantly modified throughout the weekend. Many teams only got to that field for one game, although the tournament director's team coincidentally played there three times.

They tried to put our team at a rec-quality JV field for three games until our coach protested so we got a second game on the college field.

JMO, As long as you are just stating accurate facts and direct observations, I don't see a problem with posting info. Yes, it could be helpful to others considering this event in the future. If it was a local or regional tourney, you may want to just post in the appropriate forum.

I agree with the others, this is on the coach.

Before you post think it through, what caused the poor field conditions? Rain, or was that your opinion? How did this not meet your expectations? Did you get to play the games promised, etc, etc.

I do believe that in any situation there will always be something that someone doesn't care for. Some people go to Stanfords camp and disappointed because they don't play at the Diamond, while other don't care, because their son did get noticed. In HS son played a major tourney and one game was at a HS where no college coaches were, but were at the main field, where he played the following day.

All good advice, and exactly why I inquired before "bad-mouthing" a tournament host.

To be a bit more specific . . .

The host's mandatory third-party booking agent canceled our block of rooms and the hotel had given some away.

Rain caused some fields to be unplayable for day one so the solution was to move the out-of-state team games to an unused JV diamond rather than reduce the total number of games. It was located behind a middle and elementary school but we were given no directions. It had barely any mound, and the baselines were the gravel type used on the softball fields. 6-inch weeds were growing through the gravel (that is not an exaggeration). No surprise that they didn't groom it before the game, or even try to tend to the mound. The umpires were also 45 minutes late. Son's team played back-to-back on this field (three of our four were rescheduled here), so game two should have been called for darkenss because it started so late after the delay for game one.

We have had much better experiences with other host organizations, so we are hoping this weekend will be better. We understand that not every team gets to be on the top diamond, and honestly the high school and junior college diamonds we have played on are typically excellent.

Thanks so much everyone for your insight.

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I see that your playing conditions were bad...



Judging by that prominence in the background they must have had a huge mole problem too!




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quote:

Judging by that prominence in the background they must have had a huge mole problem too!

It really is a small world. Our team was also at this tournament and if it is indeed the coaches fault and not the tourney then I believe the name has to be mentioned. How else would other coaches know not to attend their events. The tourney was put on by Elite Baseball Tournaments. We also will never attend one of their events. We were a local team and couldn't believe they had planned on using that field. The JV field was on the original schedule to be used, not added after the rain on day one.

It was by far the most unorganized, unprofessionaly run tournament we have ever attended or heard about. The host is actually based out of granger, IN. Our area in NW indiana has several very nice fields that could/should have been used. We were offended that the host would come to our area and make us look so bad.

Ok I'm going to stick up for the coach a little bit here. Their website looks great, it appears they use top flite facilities. We have all been frustrated by third party contractors before (regarding the hotels)...
When your coach saw the way things were he fought to get you on the better field so I give him a c minus for not doing his homework, but I wouldn't throw him under a speeding bus.

Thanks everyone, and I feel badly for the local teams, as well. It was our first experience in the Valparaiso area and I must tell you that we found the area to be lovely, the campus folks welcoming, and the high school facilities (that we saw but didn't play on) looked terrific. Please don't feel that it reflected badly on YOU. It did on the host, however.

I saw our coach's frustration and everything he did to try to make things right. I also saw coaches from other teams doing the same on behalf of their players. I believe they were all very surprised and disappointed. It is not my impression that anyone on our team held the coaches responsible.

16U collegee exposure tournament? Wouldn't any sixteen year olds the college coaches would be interested in this soon be playing in 17/18U showcases?