Music City Hits vs Gold Diamond Exposure

[big_joe]

These are two BIG exposure tournaments with a lot of teams. Which one is best and WHY?

[trailhead]

Gold Diamond has better depth of teams from top to bottom.

[Indian]

Not sure which is better, but a couple of scores from GDE, 16-under Chattanooga Force beat Southern Express from Illinois 6-1 and South Carolina Crush 4-2.

[RogerB]

I agree about better quality teams and lots of college coaches everywhere. Great response to a rain delay - the tournament kept everyone effected updated as the few games were rescheduled. Our girls got to play in a big time college stadium and all the fields are great. A first class tournament. Highly recommend.

[trailhead]

Good point regarding facilities. The Gold Diamond Showcase is played at a far superior facilty. The Warner Park fields are top notch. The park consists of five fastpitch softball fields with permanent fences and warning tracks as well as a full fledged stadium. That makes for a total of six fields right there together that are strictly fastpitch fields.

[dore83]

We've been to Hits three times now and Gold Diamond twice over the past 5 years, so we have some ability to compare.

 

FACILITIES: Gold Diamond hands down. Drakes Creek was rapidly approachng the condition of the old Warner Park (pre rennovation) before Drakes Creek was hammered by the flood. We don't have anything in middle Tennessee which comes close to the new Warner Park (or the new Summitt), and a game in Frost Stadium is a nice touch.

 

COLLEGE COACHES: Gold Diamond, again hands down, and the gap is getting bigger. In 2008, there were a few more coaches and a few more Division I coaches at Hits. In 2009, the balance had shifted to Gold Diamond, but the vast majority were spliting time between the two, attending Hits on Thursday and Friday and coming to Gold Diamond for the weekend (or vice versa in a few cases). This year there were very few coaches at Hits. A couple on Wednesday. A few more on Thursday and Friday. Virtual ghost town on Saturday and Sunday. I know of several coaches at Hits who were talking to those in Chattanooga and told them that there weren't enough quality teams to justify leaving and driving to Hendersonville, especially for the Sat/Sun elimination format, so they just stayed at Gold Diamond or went home. The number of coaches in the stands and behind the backstop at each of our games last year at Gold Diamond exceeded the total number of coaches physically in the park at Drakes Creek on any one day this year.

 

CALIBER OF TEAMS: Gold Diamond. In both years at Gold Diamond we were assigned to pools with Gold and collegiate teams with an occasional top 18UA team and the competition was outstanding. I did, however, see some really bad ball in some pools. It is possible to go to Gold Diamond and be disappointed with the caliber of competition or go to Hits and be happy with the caliber of competitong depending upon who is placed in your pool. Hits had some good teams, but nowhere near the depth of higher caliber teams. Quite often when I would walk up to a field and stop to watch, the level of ball was weak enough that I had to ask if it was a 16U or a 18A game as the two were fairly indistinguishable. Twice I really wouldn't have been surprised if I was told it was a pair of 14U teams, and on both occasions, it turned out to be the 18A division.

 

FORMAT: Gold Diamond. I realize that many parents and some players coming up through the weekly hunt for trophies and championships in 10U/12U/14U every weekend (and now HS since they all have started playing tournaments every weekend) have developed a mindset where it isn't real ball if you aren't playing for something (i.e. a trophy or championship), but that is a relatively new trend in travel ball over the last 10 years and it is a difficult midset to break. Collegiate ball basically involves playing 50+ games before ever "playing for something." Their pre and mid season tournaments are round robins without elimination. They play singles and series of games against in and out of conference opponents and the first elimination bracket they see is the conference tournament - and half or more of the teams won't even make it that far because they never learned how to play at peak levels in games which didn't involve trophies so they don't qualify for the tournament. From a exposure and recruiting standpoint, elimination rounds, especially single elimination, is difficult for college coaches and is disadvantageous to players. A perfect example is a coach who left Gold Diamond last year on Friday night to go to Hits on Saturday. He told me that he walked into the park with a list of about 15 players he wanted to watch. Seven of those players had 9:00 games on Saturday morning. He purposely picked the girl on a 5th seed team assuming that they would only play one game before being eliminated. As it turned out, they won, but the teams, all higher seeded, for whom the other 6 girls were playing were all upset in the first round and were on the road back home by 10:30 and he didn't get to see any of them. For some reason, there were a lot of lower seeds advancing this year, especially in the 16U division. The entire weekend is devoted to single elimination play which only encourages college coaches to head toward Gold Diamond.

 

EFFORT TO ATTRACT TEAMS: Gold Diamond hands down. I've gotten 50 or more emails from Gold Diamond over the past 12 months and several phone calls. The only thing I've ever received from Hits over the past 5 years prior to registering was a registration packet in the mail that was sent to teams who had participated the previous year. Hits seems to have that "if you build it they will come" approach attached with the same "we were first" and "we are better" mentality which we've seen out of TN ASA over the past 10 years while the competition is out there hustling. You have to hunt down information on your own, and when you do find it, the information is limited, incomplete and/or outdated. Their web site was down for something like 8 months.

 

EFFORT TO ATTRACT COLLEGE COACHES: Gold Diamond. See "Effort to Attract Teams" above. I know several college coaches who tell me that all they got was a single email announcing the event. I know of at least two who didn't even get that. Five years ago, the first thing I noticed when I walked into the park was that the designated area for college coaches was a small plastic table with two chairs thrown behind the backstops with no cover for shade. I was surprised. Last Wednesday, the first thing I noticed when I walked into the park was that in five years it has apparently not dawned upon ANYONE associated with Hits to provide some shade for the college coaches. On Thursday I watched coaches from Trevecca, TSU, UT Martin and Marshall sit behind our backstop for our 2:15 game in 95 degree weather with no shade, sweating like they had spent a couple of hours in the sauna and they were visably miserable. One coach even resorted to stading virtually the entire game. At first I thought it was because there were not enough chairs at the coaches table (which there weren't) but I think it was so she could position herself under a small patch of shade provided by the small awning over the official scorer's bench. On Friday, I spoke with two coaches who were smart enough to bring their own chairs and sit down the right field line beyond our dugout under the trees just to catch some shade even though it put them at an angle they really didn't like and far too close to parents. Even if they aren't going to hustle to attract coaches, they could at least do some little things to make the coaches' time there more bearable. The success or failure of any exposure tournament is directly related to the attraction and retention of college coaches.

 

With all that said, our experience at Hits this year was enjoyable. The tournament organization once we arrived was good and pain free. Those in charge were pleasant and professional and were always readily available. There weren't any surprises. The fields were not in great condition in general (age, upkeep, and flood) but the gound crews were efficient, drug the fields regularly, and kept them in the best shape possible (although they really needed to be watered). We had solid umpiring crews in all our games with a three man crew in the championship game. Water coolers were checked and replaced constantly, both before and during the games. They had trainers on site throughout the tournament, and they were professional and helpful. Unfortunately we got to know them far too well. The games stayed on schedule. But it was basically a five day, 44 team tournament that had a few college coaches show up during the first three days. Nothing more, nothing less. I didn't see or experience anything which would have caused any team to leave the event disgruntled except perhaps the lack of college coaches, but since most of our girls have signed or verballed, that aspect had a lesser impact upon us. I chose to return to Hits this year after they assured me when I contacted them that they were going to take a different appoach to team recruitment/attraction/selection and make an effort to increase the number of college coaches. I was trying to eliminate a four day weekend of out of town travel for our families that was difficult to justify with a large exposure event so close.

 

Hits started first and had a foothold, but they have failed over the years to do the things necessary to compete and retain their position. They are clearly the 4th of 4 college exposure events in Tennessee. We've been to three of the four multiple times and attended the 4th once. Scenic City 16s run by the Fury is the same format as Gold Diamond and is outstanding. We attended their inaugural event last summer but are too old to participate any more. The Fury puts on a top notch event with outstanding teams at an outstanding facility with the best format and loads the place with coaches. Division I coaches (in the double digits) were at each of our games in addition to coaches from other divisions and they had half the SEC there. Ken Crook also does a very good job with the Tennessee Exposure in Murfreesboro. We've played in his event twice in the fall and once in July and are returning this summer. He brings in almost all of the coaches in Tennessee along with quite a few from out of state. Their format is a little different than Gold Diamond or Scenic City as it has a small elimination bracket, but if you are going to do an elimination bracket, he does it the right way. Only a limited number of teams advance and he doesn't do it until Sunday (not until Sunday afternoon in the fall event which is one day shorter) instead of taking up the entire weekend with meaningless single elimination brackets. There isn't the depth of quality teams as in Scenic City or Gold Diamond, but there are quite a few very, very good teams coming from many states. Even though these three are not as old or established as Hits, they have all rapidly raced right by Hits in every aspect and are leaving Hits far, far behind. All three are well worth your time and money. I'm not convinced that Hits is worth either any more. Unless they take some cues from Crook, Fury, and Gold Diamond and start to do the things to attract, select, and retain teams and college coaches, it appears that the gap will only continue to grow.

[trailhead]

Thanks for the tremendous insight Dore!!