Tournament Fridays??

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Member

• Jan 8, 2010

• #1

With the new year comes the need to tell my boss about my anticipated vacation schedule for the coming year. As a softball coach I always assume that I will need to take off a Friday here and there plus the week of Nationals as a given.

As I reviewed the dates on OFC of the tournaments we are attending, I realized that every tournament list Friday as a start date and therefore I will need to plan to take a vacation day every Friday from mid-May to the last week of July + a week for Nationals the first week of August, simply because I just don't know when we will play.

Roughly 10 vacation days worth of Fridays not to mention the look on my bosses face .

As a TD of one of the established tournaments (that has always started on Friday morning), I get it - its a numbers game and some of those numbers have $$ in front of them. But as a coach/parent, I think that some tournaments have earned it and some haven't and simply running a weekend tournament doesn't necessarily earn you the right to ask teams to play on Friday before 6 pm.

I don't know what the end solution looks like but I think we all need to keep our jobs to pay for this softball ride were on.

 

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• Jan 8, 2010

• #2

Agree 100%! I was looking at the same thing today. must be the snow!

Being a TD myself I have used friday evening games for most tournaments. but I have not started teams that are traveling a great distance until Saturday morning. it is rough to jump in a car for a few hours and then go play a game, even on the coaches.

 

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• Jan 8, 2010

• #3

That's ok I need to take at least 25 days off plus 9 holidays, so Fridays are easy, It's those Wed-Sunday that are the hard ones.. With the costs of some tournaments and time to get games in Fridays are a norm...

 

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• Jan 8, 2010

• #4

It's tough. You have an idea of the schedule you want to play then you see the dreaded "All teams must able to play at 11:00am Friday" line. Like Tangy-M said, one or two a season for top flight tourneys is expected but it seems this is becoming more and more common place. You not only worry about your own vacaton schedule, you have 11-12 other families to worry about also.

The question becomes, "Who decides what tournaments 'earned it' and which ones have not for Friday morning starts?" It will ultimately be decided by attendence. Whatever tournaments you attend that have Friday morning start times, you are telling the TD they earned it.

 

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• Jan 8, 2010

• #5

It is up to the coaches to make a stand and simply inform the TD that they will not participate in that tournament if a Friday daytime game is an option. Once the teams stop registering the Friday game requirements....I'll bet....will go away.

 

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• Jan 8, 2010

• #6

The only reasons to have early Friday games is to accomodate more teams or more gg in the tourney. More teams equal more $$, more gg is a bonus for all.

 

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• Jan 8, 2010

• #7

I agree, and as a TD myself we have not used a friday during our tournament. This year we may have to use Friday to play games as we have removed the baseball diamond as one to use during our Tournament, but all of our teams and only other local teams within an hours drive will play games on Friday, which will also be after 6:00pm start times..

I think early Friday games should be the exception and not the norm.

 

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• Jan 8, 2010

• #8

I am not sure how you can determine who earned it or not. IMO, tourneys should not start any earlier than 6 on Fridays. This is especially true for the kids mostly, If I have to take vacation, it is fine. But tourneys in June should not start earlier because some kids are still in school mid-june and either have to skip school or forfeit. We did have to forfeit once because ultimately, school is more important.

 

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• Jan 8, 2010

• #9

As a TD I think another issue of starting earlier is going to double elimination formats. I know when our July tournament was single elimination we started around 5:00 on Friday with pool play Fri/Sat then got the entire brackets in on Sunday. But when we switched to DE we had to start brackets by Saturday which meant getting most or all pool play in Friday which meant starting earlier. Yes we also increased the number of teams over the years but not that much. Its a tough call. Depending on number of fields available we would have to keep it small and turn away a lot of teams. Not just a money issue but its tough denying teams a chance to play. If too many tournaments start turning teams away teams would end up playing less tournaments.

With the girls still in school during our May tournament we do keep it small and go with no Friday games at all.

 

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• Jan 8, 2010

• #10

The Road Runner Softball Program hosts three tournaments over the summer and each of them is a 6 game guarantee. It would be next to impossible to get the games in if you only use two days for the tournament. We normally try to give each team two games on Friday so it makes the day more worth while.

 

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• Jan 8, 2010

• #11

I'm no TD but your ave. parent. But this was my boss's face when I turned in my vacation for next year. Let's see, 4 tourneys that I leave on Thursday nights= 4 days.
ASA nationals= 4 days.
1 week in NC=5 days.
Total need=3 weeks.
Watching my girls either get smacked or do the smacking..priceless. Wouldn't trade it for the world.

Last year watched an 8 inning 1-0 final score in a semi final. We won. We went onto the state championship. Both pitchers went the distance.

 

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• Jan 8, 2010

• #12

Dbl. Elimination formats almost guarantee a Friday start.
I myself like the Dbl. Elim and have no problem with a Friday start.

The Valley Storm puts on several ASA "A" and "B" National qualifiers during the year but do not have enough field capacity to do a Dbl. Elim so we start Saturday mornings.

 

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• Jan 9, 2010

• #13

Lionsfastpitch said:

As a TD I think another issue of starting earlier is going to double elimination formats. I know when our July tournament was single elimination we started around 5:00 on Friday with pool play Fri/Sat then got the entire brackets in on Sunday. But when we switched to DE we had to start brackets by Saturday which meant getting most or all pool play in Friday which meant starting earlier. Yes we also increased the number of teams over the years but not that much. Its a tough call. Depending on number of fields available we would have to keep it small and turn away a lot of teams. Not just a money issue but its tough denying teams a chance to play. If too many tournaments start turning teams away teams would end up playing less tournaments.

With the girls still in school during our May tournament we do keep it small and go with no Friday games at all.

Click to expand...

Lions - good point on double elimination being one of the causes - that losers bracket accounts for a huge number of games.

 

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• Jan 10, 2010

• #14

Parma Wildcats said:

I agree, and as a TD myself we have not used a friday during our tournament. This year we may have to use Friday to play games as we have removed the baseball diamond as one to use during our Tournament, but all of our teams and only other local teams within an hours drive will play games on Friday, which will also be after 6:00pm start times..

I think early Friday games should be the exception and not the norm.

Click to expand...

Amen to removing your baseball diamond for fastpitch tourneys. However I am gonna miss the hard ground ball up the middle that turns into a screaming line drive to the outfield after it was launched from the baseball pitchers mound As for Friday touney days, I lucked out about a year ago we ratified a contract at work that took us from 5/8hr days to 4/10hr days:yahoo:

 

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• Jan 10, 2010

• #15

I recall one year I figured out we were gone 16 out of 18 days or something like that. It started with a Thursday evening game at Compuware. Then we had to leave for Sluggerfest on Wednesday, followed by a flight from Cincy to Denver for Colorado on Sunday. We returned the following Sunday. I guess you bring it on yourself with a schedule like that, but the Friday morning starts are tough enough, let alone Thursday evening starts.