My guess is Mike did all he personally , POSSIBLY the tourney was actually understaffed to handle any rain at all, when some age groups play and others get sent home it just doesn't set well. The fields that we saw at GAPSS were super fields , brick dust , crowned , very nice. (and we played at 3 diff' locals and I went and watched ball at 2 other places) . You will never convince me that by 2pm AT THE LATEST that the majority of fields were not playable. From 2pm you can run 4 rounds of games . 2 , 3;30 5, 6;30 and even leaves an hour for an 8pm game. And some locations actually had lights I'd guess. The radar was clear after the rain stopped at 10am. would it have taken a large effort ? Yep . But thats what I'd expect from one of top 2 tournies held in ohio.
MD
MD, the scenario you outlined was the exact scenario the tournament board outlined during the rain delay.
As I started receiving reports (while it was still raining) from the high school coaches about the state of their fields (3+ hours/per field to get ready - 40+ bags of diamond dry per field), and I watched the four fields at Liberty Park become lakes right in front of my eyes. Our decision was to wait until it stopped raining and re-assess at 11.
Then I came back to the shelter at Liberty Park where several 16u/18u coaches were sitting, I told them it wasn't looking good based on the reports I was getting and the fact that we had to bring up 10 fields all at the same time by no later than 2:00 (and that didn't include any of the other age groups). I told them we were going to re-assess at 11:00 (I think it was 10:00 at the time). To a man, they told me if there was a chance we were going to keep them around till 2:00 and then send them home - do it now. They all said they came to get college exposure for their players and didn't want to sit around all day for a chance to win a trophy. As soon as I heard that, I made the decision to cancel 16/18 and focus on the younger age groups.
The numbers didn't work for losers brackets at 12u and 14u, the decision to drop the losers bracket was an easy one (welcome to rain on Sunday in a double elimination tournament). The only decision I would have made differently in hind sight the whole weekend was regarding 10u. I overlooked the fact that 10u had fewer teams and was further along in bracket play than the other age groups. By the time I had figured it out, I had already delivered the message and set the action plan in motion. That one is on me.
Volunteers had nothing to do with what happened. If the rain would have happened Saturday afternoon, we would have worked all night to have those fields ready by Sunday. The issue was time - we didn't have enough time.
I will make a comment about volunteers in general however, unfortunately this world is filled with a lot more 'takers' than there are 'givers'. The people who have dds involved in our 3 high school softball programs and do virtually nothing to contribute to their success throughout the year are the same people who did nothing to contribute to the success of this tournament. They know who they are and so does everyone else. I have zero respect for people like that and they will be well served to stay away from me for the next 4 years of my dd hs career. On the otherhand, the people who regularly contribute, contributed as usual regardless of their circumstances (and yes many of them were Olentangy community parents/kids playing for the Turbos and driving back and forth from Pickerington to help).
This will be the last time I will explain myself. I take full responsibility for the decisions that were made and other than the 10u decision, I would make them the exact same way again.
