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With the announcement of the Shrine Bowl roster on the 15th of September, there came the question “why was the team selected so early?” Well, the answer is in and it seems a lot less complex than many of the ideas I heard tossed around this week.
On Wednesday, I spoke to Ronnie Blount, Administrator for the Shrine Bowl of the Carolina’s, and he told me that the decision was simply logistics.
“The uniforms we get the kids and the coaching staff are all custom made,” said Blount, “and the company we use needs 90 days to get the order in. Last season, we were with a different company and it was a nightmare. We had some of the staff and kids not getting their gear until the day of the game. It was really quite embarrassing.”
Blount says that they are not using that company again this season and have opted to use a company from over seas to do the custom work for them. But to avoid any embarrasing situations like they had last season, they decided to move the selection dates up to ensure plenty of time to get in the uniforms and gear that the players and staff receive.
“We realize that it is early, but we opened nomination in July and we actually had more nominations this year than we have ever had. These coaches have been meeting and watching film and they all feel like they did well on the selection of these teams.
The biggest criticism of the early selection is that it could potentially leave off a player who is a late bloomer in his senior year or perhaps a player who was injured during his junior season. But for the most part, the coaches already know coming into this thing who most of the top players are in the state. The biggest task is selecting amongs so many good players when there are only 44 spots.
The positive of selecting early is that the coaches on this staff can now get back to complete focus on their own programs and players prior to region play and the North-South football game staff’s can now begin their selections.
