I dont believe the camp is mandtory. I worked the state tuurnament in Memphis in 2004 and have never been to a TSSAA camp. When I worked the State tournament most all were good umps but we did have a couple of the buddies that were not very good and they worked the lower classifications. It makes a difference that when you get to the state tournament all games use a 3 man system and some of the umpires have only worked the 2 man all their umpiring career so it is a big change in the rotations. TSSAA has a great group of umpires from retired major leaguers, Major DI umpires, small time DI umpires, Juco umpires, to just very good High School Umpires.