Well, there you go! That was my point. Hype. From a softball magazine or from some overzealous too-involved parent whose head is in the clouds. Take note of the parents that talk about "trying to catch a coach's eye" with you. It will be telling.
I don’t disagree with the overzealous parent thing. Are you saying sparkler would have grown into what it is, if no college coaches ever attended.
I'm no Nostradamus so I have no idea.
My daughter would like to differ, last year was more like the size of a Ritz cracker. The great thing about CO is when you're watching all these girls putting them over the fence and your team still can't hit them out of the infield there are a ton of travel ball coaches there so you can start the discussion on where your daughter will pitch in the Fall.
DD played for an org that went to CO every year as one of their bigger tournaments. The last year she went was first year 18u. One of the days we were there that year we played next to a field that had a short porch in left field that backed up to a street. I think it was 170' or so. I was paying some attention to the game on that field because one of the teams playing was full of high level recruits. It was the worst combination possible. Great team versus on alright team, high altitude, and ridiculously short fence. I think i counted 13 homeruns in that game just from that team. The other team had a couple. After the first inning, parents went and stood in the street behind left field to catch homeruns.
The Sparkler has a wide range of teams. Some attend the Colorado tournaments with recruiting as the priority. The draw is the number of college coaches attending primarily the IDT and Louisville tourneys. It’s a vacation too, but showcase teams prioritize recruiting and getting kids to the next level. In addition to the tournaments over the 4th there’s high profile camps such as OnDeck where players are working in front of college coaches.
Yes I am aware as I’ve been there 5 times. There are over 1000 teams there. I’d say 10% of them are showcase teams that prioritize recruiting. And that’s probably high. Not to mention the fact that 90% of the players on showcase teams play in college within a 250 mile radius of their home so most showcase players get recruited in local/regional tournaments. The fact remains, recruiting is not the main draw for that tournament.
There is that thing called competition. Bringing together the best teams from around the country to play against each other. The Directors do their best to put like teams vs like teams in the various pools.
