Tournament Scheduling Gone Wrong

[SportyMom]

Like most softball parents, I have gone to extremes for the sport on MANY occasions. However, today I have the guilty conscience of a parent who let things go too far. This weekend my 14 year old played softball from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 the NEXT morning, not a typo, 21 hours of softball. At the time I grumbled about it a bit and even laughed about the outrageousness of the situation, but didn’t really stop to think about the danger of allowing kids to continue to play while so fatigued. In retrospect we are extremely lucky that no one was seriously injured.

I am posting this because something went wrong in the planning and execution of the St. George Desert Fall Championships. I don’t know if too many teams were allowed given the time frame for completion, or where the breakdown happened. But, we need to make it clear to anyone organizing tournaments in our state that we will not tolerate this again. We are as “die hard” as any softball family out there, but we will not participate in another tournament where games are inappropriately scheduled.

If others agree, then how do we get the message to the right people?

[Mjizzle]

St. George Umpires

We were at the St. George Tournament as well and both umpires we had Friday night for two games in a row were terrible. To travel that far and to pay that much for a tournament there should be umpires who know where the strike zone (not somewhere between the ankles and neck - no joke). Win or lose the game is pretty miserable when the umpires are "wacky" to say the least.

[toucansf]

St George

Was there a weather or maintenance delay that caused it? Or were they actually scheduled that way? Either way, I have only seen games after 1 am once before and it was the final day of ASA nationals after a week filled with rain. Funny that at the College World Series, they never play more than a few games in a day, but the tournament directors think our daughters should be ready to play as many as five in a row.

[momof9]

St George

The tournaments have been on a downhill side for a few years now. We did not receive any tournament information prior to the tournament, we had to report in to a "unmanned" table and then be was reprimanded Saturday for not following check in procedures. I guess next time we will wonder around and find the mystery director.....how about a little customer service from those we pay the money to. Email is *****! When we called and asked for game times on the Monday before the tournament we where told it would be posted Wednesday afternoon----WHY because they are still taking registrations the week of the tournament. Too many registrations for the 14U! Why in your right mind would you schedule a 14U championship game to begin at 12:30, and the if game to begin at 2 am? And they never run on time! We wondered if they held an pre-tournament umpire meeting, things changed from game to game---why can't they all get on the same page with tournament by laws? The seeding of the brackets showed a total lack of staff experience---or hidden agendas?

St George holds us hostage this time of year. The only way to fix this one is to be vocal and demand better customer service from the recreation department. It is hard to tell them that you are not supporting a tournament that is posting late championship game times, when you can not even get your pool games in timely manner.

And NO youth player should ever be put on the field for 21 hours!----Ever! As I sat by the tournament bracket board late on Saturday and listen to the different groups of parents grumble about their possibilities of playing that 12:30 championship game I heard one coach suggest that they move the last few rounds of games to Sunday morning and let the kids go home and rest. He was met with multiple outbursts of "We don't play on Sunday" My thought was, what do you think 12:30 am is........and yes, you played on Sunday!

[momof9]

St George Umpires

NO joke! Our kids all struggled the entire weekend with umpires that had skills below the players. It is a sad when at the end of the tournament you ask yourself--- why did we come here to be frustrated---again?

[Addwaitya]

OUR STATE

I totally agree with Sporty Mom's comment, that was extreme. We were at the tournament also, our 18u girls played from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., which was a very long time and granted they had a break here and there but several of the games were back to back. They played a total of 7 games that day. The reason we have a problem with the tournaments here in Utah is there are too many games scheduled, not enough time factored in for OVERTIME games and the fact that they do not want the girls playing on Sunday day. It is ok to continue a tournament from Saturday until Sunday morning, but it is not ok to let the kids go ... get some sleep and resume the tournament on Sunday day. Sincerely, if the games go past midnight it really needs to end there and resume the next day REGARDLESS of the day of the week.

[hawg1314]

tournament scheduling

Why can't they start the games earlier on Friday and do one round of the elimination round on Friday or do 3 pool play games on Friday and single elimination on Saturday. I coached a 14u team in the tournament and we were put out early but after the uncalled for protest that did not change the out come of a game between the Pirates and Thunder it put us behind a good hour. If the tournamnet director would have stepped up and said game was over because the game out come is not going to change when the winning home team is up with 3 minutes to go. Your kids can call time out and tie there shoes for 3 minutes. I have coached in a travel baseball league for years and we play in tournaments in St. George and they start games on Friday mornings and guarantee each team 4 games. They have up to 10 age groups with more than 20 teams per age group in the same weekend and they have most of the championships done buy 9pm.

[michele.coles]

Outrageous Tournament Schedules

I agree with the sporty mom's comments We played 7 games on Saturday alone and landed in 4th place. Our girls couldn't have probably played any further that night had they won. We as parents who allow our daughters to compete at this level need to recognize the NEED to play tournaments on Sunday. This is not an every weekend ritual and the safety and health of our girls need to come first. I don't believe there is a difference in playing on Sunday at 2am or 9am... Its still Sunday! Tournament directors in this state have their hands tied because if they publicly say we will be playing on Sunday for the Championship games they will not have a good turnout, so in turn they schedule too tight knowing there is no way to get it all in on Friday night and Saturday before midnight.

Perhaps we should look to the baseball way of doing things, we always complain that our girls don't get field time or the support they deserve. I am unhappy with the double standard that many of the same parents allow their sons to play in championship games on Sunday but not their daughters.

[tcthunder]

St George Recreation

The St George recreation department is not the blame here. The AFA tournament director and officers are the one's at fault. The root problem: poor planning in terms of time between games. There was not sufficient time in between games for field preparation and the possible overtime game. Every game was destined to begin late because of this poor scheduling. Consequently, each subsequent game begins later and later. And then to compound matters, when there is a protest because of the poor communication between umpires, those running the clock, and that information being communicated to the coaches of the teams, it results in frustration for everyone - parents included.

My question is, why start the tournament so late on Friday? It used to be that we would start at 5pm and now games start at 6pm. With as many teams that were in this tournament (21 14U teams and 40+ with all ages), the first round of bracket play should have started on Friday for the 14U division. I don't understand why we can't start at 4pm on Friday and then with those divisions that are larger, have the first round of bracket play begin on Friday.

[momof9]

Thats interesting but....

I am sure that I wrote a check out to St George recreation. Its their director, fields and staff. AFA is a contracted organization no different than ASA or USSSA. If you want to make things better you need to start with the ones taking the money, St George posted this tournament not AFA.

[lvsb]

My daughter played until 5:00

My daughter played until 5:00 in the morning after starting at 9:30 the previous morning. Being that it was 5:00, I didn't think so clearly about the risks of having her play that length of time and that late. Their reaction times are slowed as well as their physical reflexes. Their muscles were sore and it was cold. Luckily, no one got anything more than the regular bumps and bruises you get with softball, but I cringe to think something worse could have happened. If we had it to do again, I might think twice. I don't think we could have pulled our girls off the field because they were so determined, but they shouldn't have been put in that position. Utah has got to look at other ways of doing things. We have been to tournaments in other states and they can schedule without these late, (or early) times. There are many formats they can use other than the standard one. When we first got to St. George, they had the championship game schedules for 9:30 p.m. and the "if" game at 11. Next time I looked at the bracket an hour later, they had the championship game scheduled for 12:30 a.m. and the "if" game for 2:00 a.m. I don't know how it changed so soon, or drastically, but I wonder if people would have played knowing the second schedule. We all know things can make a tournament run late, but that late????

[softballjunkie]

Outrageous Tournament Schedules

Saturday night was one of the most rewarding nights I have ever had as a coach...but as I sat back and let the whole night sink in on the drive home after only three hours of sleep. I realized how lucky we really were .. I saw 24 girls giving everything they had battling every inning in two fantastic games ,but I also saw girls falling asleep in the dugout, girls sleepwalking out to position, balls wizzing by fielders that they would normally have the reactions to grab. I saw girls that were playing with very little to eat or drink because the snack bar had been closed for hours , fields that had been played over time and time again without being dragged or chalked because the grounds crew went home about 9pm. Yet our girls were expected to stay out and play these games!!!
Not only St George but Utah as a whole has to make some big changes when it comes to how we do things and what we put these girls through.

We play in many out of state tournaments and have never played more than 5 games in a day and have never played later then 9pm.
I think Utah can take a lesson from Las Vegas . We played in a 25 team tournament back in Oct. We played half a day on saturday and the whole tournament was finished by Sunday late afternoon .. That was about the same amount of time allotted in St George but in Vegas we had a 5 game guarantee not a 4 game guarantee and they had less fields .. Wow how do they do that?? Is it magic?? How about just plain old common sense and consideration for the players playing the game and the familys .. I just cant understand why Utah cant figure this out..
I agree with most of the post that I have seen but the anwser is not just to bump up game times on Friday!! Even with one bracket game played on Friday night we still would have played well into the AM .
Michelle hit it right on the head we have to start playing games on Sunday!!! I respect the culture and the feeling of those that do not want to play on Sundays but i think the saftey of these young Athletes far out weighs any personal views for a few games a year..

But then again I'm just a coach what do I know!! J.B.

[Legacy97]

Lesson Learned???

It does not appear that any adjustments have been made for the 12U this coming weekend.

27 teams are entered. Pool Play starts at 6pm on Friday; with bracket play starting Saturday at 8am.

[softballjunkie]

Get ready to play on sunday...

St george rec just hired a young lady named krista to run the softball operations .
Krista just started last wed, they hired her out of CO and has been involed with many of the large tournaments that are held in CO. she had last weeks tournament dumped on her lap , Although I was not happy about things I now feel she did her best with what she had to work with, only having two days on the job. .
she was not happy about last weeks events and was quite embarrassed that fell under her watch. She assured me that would never happen again and she was going to start making big changes in the way tournaments are run in St George starting this coming weekend with 12 and 16u ..
I'm glad to see St george rec is thinking outside the box and brought in someone from out of state to infuse new ideas and views ..
Good job SG Rec..
My guess is you better get ready to play on sunday!!!

[Legacy97]

We are Ready!!

I hope so John. Our team will play on Sundays.