Post by gq on Nov 20, 2013 10:15:17 GMT -6
Colorado – Is It Worth the Trip?
Is the trip to Colorado every July worth the investment the families make to travel to and lodge in Colorado for a week? This seems to be an ongoing debate in local circles. There are so many factors that go into this analysis that it certainly is a topic reasonable people can have differing opinions on. At first I thought I would try to look at this topic from a number of different perspectives, but then I quickly realized that would result in a very long and confusing essay. So instead I felt it best to explain why my teams go to Colorado. Readers who might be contemplating the decision can compare and contrast their circumstances to ours and see if our rationale makes sense for them too.
1. What Business are We In? When I was in graduate business school one of my Management professors was constantly preaching that businesses need to ask themselves “What business are we in?” He felt that a business needed to understand what it was about before it could make rational decisions about how to deploy resources and develop a customer base. When I started the Chill as a 12U team in 1998 I did it with a core principle of wanting to be the type of team that talented players would want to play for and never want to leave. To achieve this I felt it was going to be necessary to play the best schedule among other things. This core principle of being a “destination program” rather than a “stopover program” has been the guiding principle for almost every decision I have made the last 15 years. This single principle has influenced all of our personnel, scheduling, and player development decisions through the years. Ultimately this approach evolved into striving to be an organization that is effective in the recruiting process. Effectiveness in recruiting is essential to attracting and retaining quality players at the older age levels. Playing in Colorado every year is perceived by talented players and their families to be a very important part of the recruiting process. Therefore, our decision to play in Colorado fits beautifully with this principle as being there helps us attract and retain quality players. I think it is important that any organization contemplating the trip to Colorado in July needs to ask why they are going and whether the trip contributes to their raison d’etre. In other words, if you are not about attracting and retaining quality players and getting them recruited, why would you want to spend the time and money in Colorado?
2. How Do You Get Your Team into one of the Colorado Tournaments? As most know, there are three significant tournaments held the first week of July in Colorado: (1) Boulder Independence Day Tournament (“IDT”); (2) TCS Fireworks Tournament; and (3) TCS Sparkler. The IDT is the most difficult to gain entry to, followed by Fireworks and then Sparkler. We are fortunate enough to presently hold a spot in the IDT at both 18U and 16U. That did not happen overnight. A little history if I may. We became an 18U team for the first time in 2003 when most of the kids were still high school freshman and sophomores. We went to 18U ASA “A” Nationals in 2003 with a group of 15 and 16 year olds. In 2004 we added a pitcher who had completed a year of college softball and felt it was appropriate to start playing ASA Gold level. The prior year no Chicago area teams played ASA Gold, but we along with the Bandits and Sparks all chose to give it a whirl in 2004. Besides playing ASA Gold tournaments every year from 2004-2009, we attended many major Fall and Summer national showcases in California, Las Vegas, New Jersey, Florida, etc. At the time we may have not had the talent level to compete with the best teams there, but we were often the only team from Illinois attending. This allowed us the opportunity to network with college coaches, various club programs across the country, and to build more of a national profile. All of this activity combined to give us the stature to work our way into the IDT Tournament field in 2005. The point is that a lot of club teams get frustrated when they can’t gain entry into the IDT or the Fireworks tournaments right away. This is when the coach (or program) has to ask “How long are we going to be doing this?” If it is a long-term commitment then there is time to work your way into the more prestigious Colorado tournaments. The reality is that many coaches are in this only long enough to see their daughter through and not much past that. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is extremely difficult to build any sort of program resume over such a short period of time. Still it can be done if the team has outstanding success in national tournaments. A highly competitive and previously unknown team may be able to work its way into IDT or Fireworks pretty quickly if it has strong ASA or PGF National finishes on its resume. For us it has been a long-sustained drive with very few shortcuts.
3. Do kids get recruited at the Colorado tournaments? Yes, definitely at the IDT they do. From what I can tell kids get recruited at Fireworks also and to a lesser degree at the Sparkler. We have a couple of players every year that either lay the groundwork or seal the deal at the IDT. And why shouldn’t they? The best teams in the country are there and if a player is competing well she certainly appears to be someone worth recruiting. Even though the majority of Midwest kids end up at Midwest schools, Colorado still plays a critical role in establishing those players as being viable D1 players. If you are a Big 10 school you can recruit the entire country if you wish. However, if there is an Illinois kid competing well in Colorado against national level competition you know you can recruit that kid instead. Therefore, my opinion is that our annual investment in the IDT is definitely worth it from a recruiting standpoint. My understanding is that Fireworks too has served the recruiting needs of its constituent participants. Whether the investment in the Sparkler is worth it I am a little more skeptical. Still, for some programs that may be there only option to be playing in Colorado the week that all of those coaches are out there.
4. Is this team recruitable? This is a question a lot of teams need to answer honestly. A team may have one or two D1 talents, but maybe not a whole team’s worth. Odds are that a team with a limited number of D1 prospects is not going to find its way into the IDT or Fireworks tournaments anyway. The question then becomes whether Colorado is a worthwhile destination if a team really only has two or three D1/D2 college prospects? Can the team’s objectives be better served more economically? The answer is probably “yes”. Most D3 recruiting can be accomplished without attending national showcases like Colorado. Even some D1 and D2 recruiting can be accomplished without going to Colorado. The economic value of taking a team of D3 prospects out to Colorado is probably not there. The problem at the outset of the analysis is a lot of team managers may not know enough about their talent level to assess whether they have D1, D2 or D3 level talent. As I stated in one of my other topical essays, getting a good read on your talent from knowledgeable sources outside the organization is invaluable. These outside sources can include college coaches, experienced club coaches from programs with a successful track record in recruiting, etc.. Besides helping a coach assess whether they have a “Colorado type” team, this type of outside feedback may help some athletes enhance their skills to the point where they increase their recruitability.
5. National recruiting vs. Midwest recruiting. As previously discussed, playing in a national showcase like the IDT can help a player get recruited by a school located close to home. In other words, you sometimes have to travel a distance to find your spot close to home. However, in order for kids to be seen by schools outside of the area, it is particularly critical to get to tournaments like the IDT. For example, we have had a number of kids go on to play in the Ivy League. Those schools do not typically have big recruiting budgets, but most of them make it out to Colorado. It can be one of the only chances one of our kids gets to play in front of those coaches. In addition, there are a number of schools scattered across the country that only get to see our kids a couple of times a year. When we play the local recruiting tournaments and qualifiers we get a great audience, but it is exclusively the Midwest schools. When you go to Colorado, for the most part, you will see schools from all parts of the country.
6. National Level Competition. Playing great teams from across the country is a lot of fun for all involved and it makes the players better. As stated previously, our primary goal is to attract and retain outstanding players. Part of that process is making sure they get chances they won’t get other places. Playing in the IDT is one such opportunity. In order for us to hang on to our best players they need to believe they are becoming better while playing for us. My belief is you only get better when you are tested against the best. We can do that at the IDT and our players can learn and improve from the experience.
Conclusion. Playing in Colroado works for us as a program. It is a piece of who we are and what we want to be as a team and a program. This is where the analysis should start for each team contemplating the trip. Where do you want to take your program, how long are you willing to work towards it, and how good are your players? The answers to these questions provide the answer to whether a trip to Colorado is worth it.
Is the trip to Colorado every July worth the investment the families make to travel to and lodge in Colorado for a week? This seems to be an ongoing debate in local circles. There are so many factors that go into this analysis that it certainly is a topic reasonable people can have differing opinions on. At first I thought I would try to look at this topic from a number of different perspectives, but then I quickly realized that would result in a very long and confusing essay. So instead I felt it best to explain why my teams go to Colorado. Readers who might be contemplating the decision can compare and contrast their circumstances to ours and see if our rationale makes sense for them too.
1. What Business are We In? When I was in graduate business school one of my Management professors was constantly preaching that businesses need to ask themselves “What business are we in?” He felt that a business needed to understand what it was about before it could make rational decisions about how to deploy resources and develop a customer base. When I started the Chill as a 12U team in 1998 I did it with a core principle of wanting to be the type of team that talented players would want to play for and never want to leave. To achieve this I felt it was going to be necessary to play the best schedule among other things. This core principle of being a “destination program” rather than a “stopover program” has been the guiding principle for almost every decision I have made the last 15 years. This single principle has influenced all of our personnel, scheduling, and player development decisions through the years. Ultimately this approach evolved into striving to be an organization that is effective in the recruiting process. Effectiveness in recruiting is essential to attracting and retaining quality players at the older age levels. Playing in Colorado every year is perceived by talented players and their families to be a very important part of the recruiting process. Therefore, our decision to play in Colorado fits beautifully with this principle as being there helps us attract and retain quality players. I think it is important that any organization contemplating the trip to Colorado in July needs to ask why they are going and whether the trip contributes to their raison d’etre. In other words, if you are not about attracting and retaining quality players and getting them recruited, why would you want to spend the time and money in Colorado?
2. How Do You Get Your Team into one of the Colorado Tournaments? As most know, there are three significant tournaments held the first week of July in Colorado: (1) Boulder Independence Day Tournament (“IDT”); (2) TCS Fireworks Tournament; and (3) TCS Sparkler. The IDT is the most difficult to gain entry to, followed by Fireworks and then Sparkler. We are fortunate enough to presently hold a spot in the IDT at both 18U and 16U. That did not happen overnight. A little history if I may. We became an 18U team for the first time in 2003 when most of the kids were still high school freshman and sophomores. We went to 18U ASA “A” Nationals in 2003 with a group of 15 and 16 year olds. In 2004 we added a pitcher who had completed a year of college softball and felt it was appropriate to start playing ASA Gold level. The prior year no Chicago area teams played ASA Gold, but we along with the Bandits and Sparks all chose to give it a whirl in 2004. Besides playing ASA Gold tournaments every year from 2004-2009, we attended many major Fall and Summer national showcases in California, Las Vegas, New Jersey, Florida, etc. At the time we may have not had the talent level to compete with the best teams there, but we were often the only team from Illinois attending. This allowed us the opportunity to network with college coaches, various club programs across the country, and to build more of a national profile. All of this activity combined to give us the stature to work our way into the IDT Tournament field in 2005. The point is that a lot of club teams get frustrated when they can’t gain entry into the IDT or the Fireworks tournaments right away. This is when the coach (or program) has to ask “How long are we going to be doing this?” If it is a long-term commitment then there is time to work your way into the more prestigious Colorado tournaments. The reality is that many coaches are in this only long enough to see their daughter through and not much past that. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is extremely difficult to build any sort of program resume over such a short period of time. Still it can be done if the team has outstanding success in national tournaments. A highly competitive and previously unknown team may be able to work its way into IDT or Fireworks pretty quickly if it has strong ASA or PGF National finishes on its resume. For us it has been a long-sustained drive with very few shortcuts.
3. Do kids get recruited at the Colorado tournaments? Yes, definitely at the IDT they do. From what I can tell kids get recruited at Fireworks also and to a lesser degree at the Sparkler. We have a couple of players every year that either lay the groundwork or seal the deal at the IDT. And why shouldn’t they? The best teams in the country are there and if a player is competing well she certainly appears to be someone worth recruiting. Even though the majority of Midwest kids end up at Midwest schools, Colorado still plays a critical role in establishing those players as being viable D1 players. If you are a Big 10 school you can recruit the entire country if you wish. However, if there is an Illinois kid competing well in Colorado against national level competition you know you can recruit that kid instead. Therefore, my opinion is that our annual investment in the IDT is definitely worth it from a recruiting standpoint. My understanding is that Fireworks too has served the recruiting needs of its constituent participants. Whether the investment in the Sparkler is worth it I am a little more skeptical. Still, for some programs that may be there only option to be playing in Colorado the week that all of those coaches are out there.
4. Is this team recruitable? This is a question a lot of teams need to answer honestly. A team may have one or two D1 talents, but maybe not a whole team’s worth. Odds are that a team with a limited number of D1 prospects is not going to find its way into the IDT or Fireworks tournaments anyway. The question then becomes whether Colorado is a worthwhile destination if a team really only has two or three D1/D2 college prospects? Can the team’s objectives be better served more economically? The answer is probably “yes”. Most D3 recruiting can be accomplished without attending national showcases like Colorado. Even some D1 and D2 recruiting can be accomplished without going to Colorado. The economic value of taking a team of D3 prospects out to Colorado is probably not there. The problem at the outset of the analysis is a lot of team managers may not know enough about their talent level to assess whether they have D1, D2 or D3 level talent. As I stated in one of my other topical essays, getting a good read on your talent from knowledgeable sources outside the organization is invaluable. These outside sources can include college coaches, experienced club coaches from programs with a successful track record in recruiting, etc.. Besides helping a coach assess whether they have a “Colorado type” team, this type of outside feedback may help some athletes enhance their skills to the point where they increase their recruitability.
5. National recruiting vs. Midwest recruiting. As previously discussed, playing in a national showcase like the IDT can help a player get recruited by a school located close to home. In other words, you sometimes have to travel a distance to find your spot close to home. However, in order for kids to be seen by schools outside of the area, it is particularly critical to get to tournaments like the IDT. For example, we have had a number of kids go on to play in the Ivy League. Those schools do not typically have big recruiting budgets, but most of them make it out to Colorado. It can be one of the only chances one of our kids gets to play in front of those coaches. In addition, there are a number of schools scattered across the country that only get to see our kids a couple of times a year. When we play the local recruiting tournaments and qualifiers we get a great audience, but it is exclusively the Midwest schools. When you go to Colorado, for the most part, you will see schools from all parts of the country.
6. National Level Competition. Playing great teams from across the country is a lot of fun for all involved and it makes the players better. As stated previously, our primary goal is to attract and retain outstanding players. Part of that process is making sure they get chances they won’t get other places. Playing in the IDT is one such opportunity. In order for us to hang on to our best players they need to believe they are becoming better while playing for us. My belief is you only get better when you are tested against the best. We can do that at the IDT and our players can learn and improve from the experience.
Conclusion. Playing in Colroado works for us as a program. It is a piece of who we are and what we want to be as a team and a program. This is where the analysis should start for each team contemplating the trip. Where do you want to take your program, how long are you willing to work towards it, and how good are your players? The answers to these questions provide the answer to whether a trip to Colorado is worth it.