The New England May Showcase is the greatest opportunity for any high school football player in New England looking to play at the next level.
The top high school football talent in the northeast is getting ready for takeoff this coming May. New England’s premier college football recruiting showcase features more than a hundred collegiate scouts from their respective colleges and universities who gather to evaluate the rising stars. Held at various prep schools across New England, the event has become the region’s go-to event for athletes chasing a college scholarship and a shot at the next level.
The New England football showcase first took place May 16 and 17, 2022, spearheaded by Avon Old Farms head football coach Jon Wholley. The showcase at first included Connecticut and Massachusetts powerhouse teams such as Brunswick, Avon, Choate Rosemary Hall, and Williston.
This is an event where hundreds of colleges from any level show up to these respective schools and evaluate each team. The event is unique from any other, as the showcase is dedicated to each school before moving on to the next. Each school is given 30-45 minutes of a “pro style” workout; from this, players are evaluated and then possibly offered scholarship opportunities. Now entering its third year, the showcase includes teams from New York and New Jersey such as Iona Prep and Bergen Catholic.
An anonymous SEC coach told Brian Dohn of 247 Sports after the showcase last year that he has never seen talent like this ever before in the New England area. “Usually, there isn’t any talent in New England and that is why we shy away from recruiting in this region. But now, I never thought I would be the one to say that there actually is a lot of really good talent there,” the coach said.
The idea of high-level college football and New England football players never really mixed for a long time. Just recently this stigma has started to shift as more and more highly-rated recruits are appearing out of the New England area. A lot of that has the New England football showcase and the coaches behind it to thank.
In 2023 and 2024 I participated in the camp as a sophomore and junior recruit. The camp is a surreal experience that has given me opportunities I only dreamed of as a kid hoping to play college football. Although the experience is high-pressure, the reward makes it that much more worth it.
Chris Oswitt, a junior boarder from Princeton, Mass., believes that the showcase gives students a break from college camps.
“The showcase is an unbelievable experience and opportunity. I believe we had around seventy colleges last year,” he said. “It can be nerve-wracking for sure, but I think at the end of the day if you perform well, you have a chance to receive hopefully a nice phone call or conversation at the end of it and that’s what makes it all worth it. The showcase is just something that college camps can’t fully give you because of the individual scouting that is present.”
Unlike college camps, the athlete is not competing against hundreds of other athletes trying to stand out. The college coaches are at each designated campus to evaluate only the 20-40 players on that given team. This gives a spotlight to each individual and allows them to showcase what they can do instead of possibly being overseen at a college camp.
Seamus McDermott, a postgraduate and someone who has attended this showcase twice, calls it “A once in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as a recruit.”
Generally, as a high school recruit you are left in the dark in the recruiting process and have to take chances at college camps. This showcase completely changes that narrative; players find exactly where they fit in at the college level that weekend, in person.
As it is currently, out of a thousand high school football players, only around 75 of them will be able to experience college football. This number is estimated to be lower when you limit the area to just New England.
