Tournament help needed

[Sparky Guy]

I make it picture day, too, and everyone shows up.

HUGE mistake unless the company you have doing the pictures can accommodate that many teams at the same time. It takes hours to shoot that many players and teams. You'll have teams standing around for a long, long time. People will get tired of waiting and leave.

The rec league I was involved with years ago had more teams than that with the boys and the girls. They would have everyone there at opening day for the ceremonies, parade and raffle drawing. That is too much to try and organize at one time. They would have a picture day set up at an indoor facility in case it rained. All of the teams were scheduled with a specific time for their pics. Even then it would run behind.

 

[BuckeyeGuy]

We talked and figured we can get them through quick enough. He's got a LOT of photographers, and there's a lot of space where we're at.


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[BuckeyeGuy]

We usually line and dress the fields every other game that way we only have to have 2 crews of volunteers since they alternate fields and that cuts down on the number required. i.e. 1 and 2 after a game and 3 and 4 after the next. This cuts down on material usage as well as the need for manpower. I suggest 4 per crew. You could get away with 3 but when they are dressing fields in between games the extra rake down a baseline and extra pair of hands to stretch the string for chalking helps out immensely time-wise.

It sounds as if you have a good handle on it so Good Luck and I hope it's a huge success for you and your league!

We should have a Gator for dragging between games, but I'm sure I can wrangle 8 for the fields.

I don't know that I have a handle on it, but I feel a little better about the idea lol!


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[YOCOACH]

One other thing to mention. How are you going to seed the teams for Sunday. Can your pool or round robin games end in a tie? If so, how do you determine a winner? Runs scored, runs against, wins overall? We typically go by wins first and runs scored if it's a tie, then runs against. If it's still a tie between some teams, then go to runners that reached third base, then second base, then first base then hits, Make sure you have it in the rules that you'll be using the home teams' scorebook or even better, a volunteer qualified scorekeeper. More volunteers....I know Also, make sure it's in the rules for the pool play tiebreaker to seed the teams. Another thing, I'd play ITB in the single elimination play in event of a tie. Make sure that's in the rules sent out also along with the modified ASA rules you'll be playing under.

 

[redbirdone]

Probably a lot of them won't care, but there are so many more who simply do not know anything about it. If I'd known way back when we started I bet DD would have been interested. She got interested in getting better as soon as she found out about the option to play for better teams. Those are the girls my Select teams want to attract.



I will have 3 fields: 2 HS and 1 MS all on the same campus
Not sure on how many teams, figured that might be dictated by the number of fields? Don't want to go crazy...fewer is probably better
One or 2 days, doesn't matter.
Community Select level, and it's early season so not too serious
Unknown on the volunteers - if I can determine a minimum needed I can probably find them
There will be no balls out of play, I forbid it.

Let me make sure I understand this:

You want to have an opening day ceremony with your 60 rec teams all there at once, plus put on a tournament for other teams? Am I reading that right?

Tournament format is probably the easiest part of your idea. The infrastructure looks like your biggest challenge. Do not underestimate what it's like to have that many people on hand at once.

Putting 60 teams participating in ceremonies/pictures/etc, plus another 10-15 teams playing in the tournament in the same space on only 3 fields is asking a lot. Do you have enough parking? Bathrooms? We play in a lot of tournaments at 4 field complexes with 15-20 teams on hand at any one time and it gets rather crowded, and the line for the girls bathroom can get long and concessions can get overwhelmed. I can't imagine 75+ teams at once in one complex. That's at least 700 cars, and probably well over 2,000 people on hand. You need to make sure your infrastructure can handle this. Especially the bathrooms part if you plan on having 750 girls there.

 

[bmakj]

I would suggest maybe a one day rec league tournament if your goal is to expose rec families to travel ball and try to get people interested. for this, I would do a one day, not same day as your OC. If needed invite/recruit some teams from neighboring rec leagues. 3 game guarnatee, start early, two pools, winner of each pool plays for first, 2nd finisher in each pool plays for third, etc. 3rd finisher in each pool plays, etc. and if you want to give folks a taste of the level of play in travel, maybe invite 2 or 4 travel teams to play a double header (two games at different times, so all can watch at least one). this way you can keep it a little lower key as well (in a week probably no one will remember who won this rec league tournament).

nearby soccer association did this a couple of years ago, but on larger scale (ie hosted a large tournament for rec level teams). was a good day, every one had a three game guarantee, went into evening (half their fields were lit).

 

[Shants]

Volunteer

I don't even know which questions to ask lol!

I live in Columbus, am retired and looking for volunteer opportunities. I love softball, having played fast pitch back in the 1960's and during my stint in the US Army in the late '60's. I regularly played slow pitch until I reached 55. I have no experience in what you are attempting to accomplish but am a fairly fast learner and willing to devote time. Please contact me at your convenience either on this site or through my e-mail which is kimlswanson@att.net. Best of luck to you in organizing your event.

 

[BuckeyeGuy]

Let me make sure I understand this:

You want to have an opening day ceremony with your 60 rec teams all there at once, plus put on a tournament for other teams? Am I reading that right?

Tournament format is probably the easiest part of your idea. The infrastructure looks like your biggest challenge. Do not underestimate what it's like to have that many people on hand at once.

Putting 60 teams participating in ceremonies/pictures/etc, plus another 10-15 teams playing in the tournament in the same space on only 3 fields is asking a lot. Do you have enough parking? Bathrooms? We play in a lot of tournaments at 4 field complexes with 15-20 teams on hand at any one time and it gets rather crowded, and the line for the girls bathroom can get long and concessions can get overwhelmed. I can't imagine 75+ teams at once in one complex. That's at least 700 cars, and probably well over 2,000 people on hand. You need to make sure your infrastructure can handle this. Especially the bathrooms part if you plan on having 750 girls there.

Yeah, potentially a mess. I think the school is open for bathrooms plus we'll have portas there. Figure most of the people will show up, take pics, leave. But we have enough parking, I think. It's a big place. We'll need to put the kids in the football stadium I think. Hey, I'm still not sold that this is doable lol!

OK, I keep trying to post an image of the place but it's uploading too small.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2104827,-83.0201557,1042m/data=!3m1!1e3

The northernmost field is our MS field, the 2 side by side at the bottom are our varsity and JV fields.

 

[BuckeyeGuy]

I would suggest maybe a one day rec league tournament if your goal is to expose rec families to travel ball and try to get people interested. for this, I would do a one day, not same day as your OC. If needed invite/recruit some teams from neighboring rec leagues. 3 game guarnatee, start early, two pools, winner of each pool plays for first, 2nd finisher in each pool plays for third, etc. 3rd finisher in each pool plays, etc. and if you want to give folks a taste of the level of play in travel, maybe invite 2 or 4 travel teams to play a double header (two games at different times, so all can watch at least one). this way you can keep it a little lower key as well (in a week probably no one will remember who won this rec league tournament).

nearby soccer association did this a couple of years ago, but on larger scale (ie hosted a large tournament for rec level teams). was a good day, every one had a three game guarantee, went into evening (half their fields were lit).

I would be OK with this, but the rec season starts only a few weeks before. The select teams will have been working for much longer, plus our select commish wants in lol!

 

[bmakj]

regarding the rec tournament, was not suggesting that you have rec play select/travel teams, but that you invite maybe two travel teams to play a double header against each other (two games, so that all can get a chance to watch without conflicting with their own games) so families get a chance to see the level of play. Have all the rec teams in a tournament format. This will give them a real feel for a tournament. I really cannot see a bunch of rec families hanging out to watch (unless they have relatives or close friends playing)a travel tournament for more than one game. Kids will get bored, and parent have other things to do.

Please note I say families, because it is not just a matter of convincing the kids, you have to convince kids AND parents (big commitment from both to do travel).

That soccer rec tournament a few years ago gave a lot of families and idea of what travel soccer was like (ie it consumed entire Saturday, not just three hours).