Headfirst Honor Roll camps - thoughts?

[KrisHur]

DD is a high-academic player. This Headfirst camp has A LOT of schools she is considering. At $800 it seems like a bargain as she is actively pursuing 11 schools that are attending and it's driving w/hotel distance. Before I sign her up I wanted to know if anyone here had experience with these camps or know the reputation. Glorified cattle call or worth it? TIA

 

[radness]

DD is a high-academic player. This Headfirst camp has A LOT of schools she is considering. At $800 it seems like a bargain as she is actively pursuing 11 schools that are attending and it's driving w/hotel distance. Before I sign her up I wanted to know if anyone here had experience with these camps or know the reputation. Glorified cattle call or worth it? TIA

Yes good experience. Colleges were communicative and Interactive connections were made.

Especially since she has 11 schools attending that she would be interested in fantastic opportunity.

This information also comes from high academic achievers.

 

[radness]

Especially notice with high academic Achievers that have a list of colleges that probably they want to attend those colleges regardless if they played softball or not. For the high academic Achievers that I have known, if they were accepted into a particular college and could not make the softball team they would still pick the college.

From these examples,
Most regular Showcase and tournaments may not have an abundance of the college's the achiever looking to attend. Highly recommend going to college camps to Anybody who has a specific shorter list of colleges to go to.
Make the effort to go to their college camps.

That may be planning, to use $$$ better
*Not to go to
one or two team expensive road trip softball tournaments that may not get you in front of any colleges coaches you'd like to play for. Spend that money going to specific college camps and get her name and face in front of them and show them her skill sets.
There is a greater chance that high academic Achievers will be accepted into colleges regardless of a place on the team. That acceptance into the college can happen even before a college coach knows your daughters names. It always helps when a player can attend a camp and be able to already tell the coach 'by the way I'm already accepted to this college.'

 

[LEsoftballdad]

It's a good experience, IMO. We've done HF and Riseball over the last few years, and while I think Riseball is better, HF was worth the money.

If it's the one at the former Baseball Heaven, you'll have a top-notch facility, too.

 

[Traps71]

I’ve consistently heard good things. Was going to send my DD last year, but covid wrecked it. She is going this summer, which, for her, will be summer before her Junior year of HS. A large number of schools that she is considering will be there.

 

[DonnyS]

Commenting so I can find this again in a year or so. Thanks for posting it.

 

[_MIA_]

Commenting so I can find this again in a year or so. Thanks for posting it.

Yup.. bookmarking just in case DD is still playing softball in 5 or 6 years and is high academic

 

[marriard]

DD is a high-academic player. This Headfirst camp has A LOT of schools she is considering. At $800 it seems like a bargain as she is actively pursuing 11 schools that are attending and it's driving w/hotel distance. Before I sign her up I wanted to know if anyone here had experience with these camps or know the reputation. Glorified cattle call or worth it? TIA

It is the absolute best for high academic players. Totally worth it.

Do your homework on the schools, have her contact the coaches she wants to talk and go for it. Well run, all the right coaches for those players.

DD's is currently at a high academic and her coaches main recruiting is around these - they do generally do at least 3 per year - normally Cali, Florida and NJ/NY from memory. I believe more than 1/2 the current roster first interacted with the coaches at these events. This plus the attending the camps on the campuses of interest that she wants to go to. Lots of these players get set this way.

 

[benjey]

DD is a high-academic player. This Headfirst camp has A LOT of schools she is considering. At $800 it seems like a bargain as she is actively pursuing 11 schools that are attending and it's driving w/hotel distance. Before I sign her up I wanted to know if anyone here had experience with these camps or know the reputation. Glorified cattle call or worth it? TIA

What year is your DD? That is important because IMO HF is not great for younger players. I made that mistake. I sent DD there for the first time as an 8th grader. Definitely too early. These are my general observations from my DD's multiple times attending HF camps:

Pros
Incredibly well run and organized
Excellent participation from high academic college coaches
Most coaches are there to interact with the campers and are actively recruiting not just a moneymaker as some camps are

Cons
Really long 2 days. They pack a lot in making it "worth" the money but DD was exhausted by the end of 2 consecutive 14 hour days. Not sure if this impacted her performance but I could see it impacting some players

Overall worthwhile but I still think on campus camps are the most important tool in the recruiting journey. Unfortunately there are only so many you can attend so HF definitely has a place

 

[KrisHur]

My thoughts too - only so much time/money for on-campus camps so this would be a big help. And this HF camp would save us two fly-away college camps so is really paying for itself (unless they like what they see and want her to come out but a good way to get that initial look). I am very happy to hear the DFP community say it's worth it. She's a sophomore so this summer she'll attend what we can and next summer will be the big push.