cat's cradle: That's what everyone has this thread for!!!

I like what "sweetfeet" said concerning the fact that it's the college coaches that end up making this decision in a de facto manner. The last few several high school inactive players being awarded the Gatorade player of the year were Blakely Mattern, Julie Bolt, Lindsey Beam, and Kimmie Gillespie. All have made really big impacts at some pretty impressive college programs. While there are a lot of good players named here year after year (after year!), only a few have the potential to make big impacts at highly competitive programs and can really take their game to the "next level."

I also agree with the statement that RIIIPL is humbling. I honestly couldn't tell you who was a player capable of taking their game to the next level without seeing them in RIIIPL or a similarly highly competitive environment -- the ability to take on the type of opponent or opponents you're going to see in college are pretty critical.

Still...always entertaining to read this stuff. It always has me doing the backward search to figure out the relationship with the player of the person touting the player.