THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE: Thursday, November 5, 2015

In theory, many of these big club softball tournaments nationwide are “exposure” tournaments.

As in, many of the best players in the country come to one site to be seen by college coaches.

Local teams have gone to tourneys like this for years.

But North Idaho Xtreme 18-and-under coach Travis Smith said he’d never seen anything like what he — and the team — encountered at the D9 Sun Classic Fall Showcase tournament at the ESPN Wild World of Sports Complex last weekend in Orlando Fla.

The tourney is an actual “exposure” tournament. The Xtreme was scheduled to play 10 games in four days, each against a predetermined opponent.

There was no pool play, no bracket, no champion crowned.

That wasn’t the purpose.

Coaches were there to see players, and well, if they wanted to see a particular player do something ...

“A couple times I had a batter hit three times in a row, because a coach wanted to see that,” Smith said. “There were over 300 college coaches here. On Day 1, there were 40 some college coaches watching our game. We got real lucky to be in this tournament.”

If a player got a hit and a college coach wanted to see her hit again, they put a runner on base for her, and she hit again. And maybe again.

“I’ve never had this happen to me before,” Smith said. “I had a coach that wanted to see certain pitches, so I have to call that sequence.

DOUG COX knew Henry Hamill for more than 30 years. In the early 1970s, when Hamill was coaching a state championship team at Thompson Falls (Mont.) High, Cox was coaching some strong teams at Bonners Ferry High.

Later, they were assistant football coaches together at Coeur d’Alene High in the late 1980s and early ’90s, and at Lake City High for a few seasons after that school opened in 1994.

“I lost a good buddy,” Cox posted when he heard the news about Hamill, who lost his battle with cancer on Oct. 11 at age 67.

I reached out to Doug for a Henry Hamill story.

“I will start with one of my favorites,” Cox said. “When Henry and I started coaching together at Coeur d’Alene High in the mid-80s, he wanted me to ride up to Thompson Falls with him so he could talk to his dad. Finally on a Saturday, we drove up to Thompson Falls.

“We get there and he drives to the golf course. So we start playing golf. We get to No. 5, a par-4 dogleg left hole. Where the fairway started turning left was a big larch tree. After I have hit about four shots I am on the green. I look back and Henry is standing by the tree. Finally, after about 15 minutes, he gets up to the green. I asked him what took him so long and he said that he was talking to his dad. Evidently, years before, his dad had made a chip from the tree and holed it for an eagle. So that was where his dad wanted his ashes buried.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.