Event Recap: Ray Seymour Invitational… Strong Year 1 for the Showcase Honoring the Florida Coaching Legend

The inaugural Ray Seymour Invitational was held this past weekend in Newberry, Florida (25 minutes west of Gainesville) and, by all accounts, it was a successful event that would have made its namesake very proud.

The invite-only showcase event featured 21 top club programs from across Florida and the Eastern half of the country—from the Iowa Premier and Wichita Mustangs to the Virginia Unity and Tennessee Mojo and Fury.

The event was the brainchild of coaches David Handler and T.J. Goelz, two longtime members of the Tampa Mustangs organization, who wanted to establish a high-level collegiate showcase in Florida to honor their organization’s founder and patriarch, Ray Seymour.

Seymour brought success and contributions to softball across all levels—rec, travel and college—and, after a stellar 25-year career at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, was inducted into the Florida Softball College Coaches Hall of Fame posthumously after he passed away in 2016.

Handler and Goelz established TD Event Management with the goal in mind to launch the inaugural Ray Seymour Invitational in tandem with softball tourney veterans Connect Sports and the coaches’ good friend, Jeremy Higdon.

The Ray Seymour Invitational—along with its three sister events of Scenic City (in Chattanooga, Tennessee), Thunderbolt 5 Star (Birmingham, Alabama) and the Atlanta Legacy—created “The Grand Slam of Recruiting” in the Southeast.

“TJ and I had been looking for a way to honor Ray Seymour and recognize all of his accomplishments and contributions to the game of softball in Florida and nationally,” Coach Handler explains.

“We had often discussed bringing a high-level college exposure showcase to Florida and with the relationships that we have with Jeremy at Connect Sports, it was an easy decision for us to turn to Connect to help us make these ideas happen and create the Ray Seymour Invitational.”

Last weekend, RSI was played at Champions Park with its 16 turf fields and featured the 14s through 18s all played at one park to making recruiting easy for college coaches.

The variety of scouts that came was impressive, especially for a first-year event, as coaches from Washington, Arizona State, Florida, Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Central Florida, South Florida, Virginia Tech and many more were in attendance (see the complete list below).

The recruiters and scouts came to see over 60 travel ball teams including nationally respected club programs such as Fury Platinum, Tampa Mustangs, Georgia Impact, Birmingham T-Bolts, Iowa Premier, Wichita Mustangs, LA VooDoo, Tenn Mojo,  Atlanta Vipers and the Virginia Unity to name a few.

“The post-event feedback has been extremely positive focusing on the level of competition, college coach attendance, venue and structure,” continues Handler.

“Our goal for the event is to attract the best organizations and teams to join us each Fall in Newberry as well as to offer our local Florida softball organizations and friends a chance to compete in front of college coaches.

“We feel that if we offer the highest-level competition and cover all ages at one 16-field facility to help facilitate college coach attendance, we feel our event will has a bright future.”

Coach Goelz feels the Mustangs’ founder would be happy with how the event in his name turned out.

“Establishing a high quality, well run, competitive event in the name of Coach Ray was the goal because that’s what he always preached: high quality, competitive and do it the right way with everything you do,” the current Mustangs 18U head coach explains.

“It was truly special to honor him and his legacy. The event was an overall success, we learned from our first year hiccups, and will only get better. We hope this will become a staple event, in the first part of the Fall recruiting season), that teams will plan on attending every year.”

Handler added that the event has already established when it will take place in Year 2.

“TD Event Management is excited to announce that the 2022 Ray Seymour Invitational has been set for October 21-23, 2022.”

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Club Teams That Competed

• VA Unity
• Iowa Premier
• EC Bullets
• Fury Platinum X
• Birmingham Thunderbolts
• Tampa Mustangs
• Florida Impact
• Sante Fe Inferno
• Lady Lightning Gold – Corn
• Wichita Mustangs
• Lady Gators – Jackson
• Atlanta Vipers
• Florida Gold
• Lightspeed Gold
• TN Fury National
• TN Mojo
• Fl Firecrackers
• Florida Power Black
• Lady Dukes
• Pro Impact
• Sarasota Heat

Attending College Programs

• University of Tennessee
• University of Washington
• University of Florida
• University of Georgia
• Arizona State University
• Ole Miss
• University of Alabama at Birmingham
• Virginia Tech
• Lipscomb University
• Mercer University
• Tallahassee Community College
• University of Central Florida
• Florida International University
• Florida Gulf Coast University
• Jacksonville University
• University of North Florida
• University of South Florida
• Eastern Florida State College
• Florida Tech
• Gardner-Webb University
• Dartmouth College
• Santa Fe College
• Eckerd College
• Indian River State College
• Eastern Illinois University
• Florida Southern College
• Rollins College