Illinois Travel Teams going to USA

[Westwind]

Bloomington was always my favorite place to work. Teams and fans enjoyed going there, they treated umpires and staff very well, and they really take care of the place with a great paid/volunteer staff. Unfortunately, the "drop in team numbers" for USA has really hurt them. I know they have a few scheduled (but nothing like the past) and I hope to get up there.

Now I wonder how many games of my DD’s you umped! I prob coached in a few! Have some great memories there.

The old ladies at the front gate could be a real pita. It always hacked me off that they wouldn’t put someone at the back gate so everyone didn’t have to go all the way through the complex to get to the back fields.

Pekin ... I've never worked up there. Another victim of the USA old boy's club. I heard the Avanti's Dome deflated and closed ... I always hated when my kids played in there. Too dark and too cramped.

I always hated The dugouts in Pekin. Also hated Avanti Dome. Dark.

 

[warbird]

The USA folks are trying to regroup from a large portion of the "old boy network" retiring in the last few years, and there is a lot of damage to repair.

Amen to that! It was bad 6-7 years ago. I hope USA softball is able to re-establish in IL.

 

[warbird]

Now I wonder how many games of my DD’s you umped! I prob coached in a few! Have some great memories there.

The old ladies at the front gate could be a real pita. It always hacked me off that they wouldn’t put someone at the back gate so everyone didn’t have to go all the way through the complex to get to the back fields.

I always hated The dugouts in Pekin. Also hated Avanti Dome. Dark.

And the dome lobby always smelled like sewer.

 

[The Man In Blue]

Now I wonder how many games of my DD’s you umped! I prob coached in a few! Have some great memories there.

The old ladies at the front gate could be a real pita. It always hacked me off that they wouldn’t put someone at the back gate so everyone didn’t have to go all the way through the complex to get to the back fields.

I always hated The dugouts in Pekin. Also hated Avanti Dome. Dark.

I worked there quite a bit up until the year before COVID. Not sure why I didn't make it up there much ... might have been a new UIC/assignor? (There were two that I worked a lot for, then the third one was coming in. He's already gone from what I heard.) Before that, I had been going up there for 5 or 6 years, I think.

I'll actually be up there for a baseball tournament in a few weeks ... if you want to grab drink!

I'm not one to remember specific teams/coaches/players, but I usually recognize organizations. What teams were you guys with?

When my girls played, I hated those ladies too. When I started working up there, I fell in love with the grumpy old bags. I say that lovingly. I think I told the story on here about them buying me donuts for tossing out a "big wig" coach who was an a-hole to them earlier in the day.

 

[The Man In Blue]

And the dome lobby always smelled like sewer.

I always got more of an old sweat-socks left in the gym bag smell. I may have heard that they had some sewer issues at one point though.

 

[Fury_Mike]

Since you mention Central IL, I will say you may need to look at a different issue ... USSSA is essentially taking over. There are very few USA tournaments in the area this year.

Springfield's main org which hosted USA has folded and a guy has been running a lot of USSSA tournaments in the area.

Bloomington doesn't have near as much going on as they have in the past.

Peoria has largely toward USSSA at the larger facilities.

The USA folks are trying to regroup from a large portion of the "old boy network" retiring in the last few years, and there is a lot of damage to repair.

I agree, and USA in Northern IL, WI and the Chicago metro are fighting the same thing. PGF has gotten stronger, and NAFA is stronger in the Northern IL area

 

[The Man In Blue]

I agree, and USA in Northern IL, WI and the Chicago metro are fighting the same thing. PGF has gotten stronger, and NAFA is stronger in the Northern IL area

I have never even heard of NAFA ... Well, there was the one time when the kid with the speech impediment was telling me about rocket launches. Yeah. I said it.

 

[Fury_Mike]

It’s based out of Minnesota. For the most part it’s B/C softball, but with so many water downed team, it’s grown

 

[Ronan1001]

I worked there quite a bit up until the year before COVID. Not sure why I didn't make it up there much ... might have been a new UIC/assignor? (There were two that I worked a lot for, then the third one was coming in. He's already gone from what I heard.) Before that, I had been going up there for 5 or 6 years, I think.

I'll actually be up there for a baseball tournament in a few weeks ... if you want to grab drink!

I'm not one to remember specific teams/coaches/players, but I usually recognize organizations. What teams were you guys with?

When my girls played, I hated those ladies too. When I started working up there, I fell in love with the grumpy old bags. I say that lovingly. I think I told the story on here about them buying me donuts for tossing out a "big wig" coach who was an a-hole to them earlier in the day.

I can imagine the look on Coach's face when he couldn't find his "big wig"

 

[SoftballDad78]

We are also in Central Illinois (Peoria) and at the lower levels like 10u or 12u there are plenty of tournaments. This age cutoff thing is throwing a monkey wrench in our team and organization not just because of what we want to do as coaches, but because parents don't want to move their kids up uless they have to (which makes sense, some of them are very undersized and will get killed in 12U) so we are still deciding. But I'm not worried about enough games to play, there will most likely be HOI (which will be 10-14 games) and almost all of the tournaments we have played this year are just unsanctioned but have plenty of teams and plenty of competition. I'm sure being officially sanctioned as USA or USSSA is really important at 14U-18U but it just seems like a big headache to me now. By the time kids are 14u, the extreme size differences are mostly gone (unless they are just never going to be big kids) and it might make sense to just skip the second year in 12U (under the USA rules) and move up to 14U and be fully able to qualify for any tournament.

BNGSA guy, in the HOI email chat, there was someone from your organization VERY adamant that BNGSA would not be changing their age cut-offs and would be sticking with USSSA. Has that been decided?

People are all worked up that the Illinois 10U USA State Tournament only has 2-3 teams registered, well the USSSA state tournament only has 5 (and is at a nice park Louisville Slugger), so neither one is looking real good on attendance if you ask me.