Latest on ASA State Championships

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ok... don't shoot me .... in the dec 4th state meeting it will be recommended to hold the states on July 4th weekend. Reason being GAPS in on July 7-9. but will be voted on...

Hall of Fame Qualifier is being checked on right now.

anything else i can do please asks, however i'm a nobody...

Ron

 

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Sure will be interesting to see who goes where now, won't it?

 

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I really think you guys need to get together b/c I know my team held out of GAPPS based on the fact that I was told states would most likely be the same weekend as GAPPS; now with that being said, GAPPS is already closed for the 14U age bracket and has a waiting list. This is just really frustrating and I'm sure I'm not going to be the only coach upset if it gets changed to the fourth of July as we were not planning on playing that weekend. I know it's not your fault Ron and I really appreciate all of your updates, but it sure would be nice knowing this ahead of time.

 

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loveforsoftball2, what team are you with? I was hoping that the 14U field was as strong as in years past, but it doesn't appear that way.

 

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Yes, I am all for getting together and coming up with solid dates for all the teams and tournament venues. ? Personally I think that the attractive ASA tournaments need to be on the same weekend of every year; ?this at least lets teams able to schedule their summer. ?This also enables ASA to feel comfortable with when they schedule their States.

GAPSS announces their tournament dates way in advance, so that teams can form their schedules. ? ?July 7-9 is not the most enticing weekend to hold a tournament, to be honest. ?My opinion is that it is too close to the States. ? Next year we will evaluate again when our tournament will be held, but it is our goal not to bounce around from weekend to weekend. ?This is not only unfair to the teams, who then have no idea when your tournament is, but also to other tournament cities who have held those dates for some years.
JMHO.

 

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Yes such as our tournament which was bumped from our traditional weekend of July 7-9 because ASA couldn't get enough umpires for both tournaments.

 

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Am I understanding this correctly? ASA wants to schedule the state tournament in the same time frame that a number of teams have committed to playing in Colorado at huge ASA tournaments. If I am not mistaken, even most of the Gold qualifiers avoid this date. In addition, to that, this is the weekend that NSA has typically held their State tourney, and this is a year when NSA nationals is in Columbus. I understand the dilemma of GAPS, Stingrays, etc on scheduling, but it would seem ASA has gotten things backward again.

 

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I remember when we started our tourney 6 years ago we were the first tourney that marketed our event before the first of the year. By the second year we were full before Christmas. One of the reasons is that teams could count on that date and not have to wait until all the tourneys were set. Some can do that earlier than others. Because of that it has always been my feeling that NSA and ASA should have their meetings earlier in the fall. That way TD's could avoid their "state" events, or other large events. NSA has always been consistant with their dates. And they protect their long standing events dates (that is why we had to switch years ago). I am not sure that ASA always is. Because their age group National Qualifiers are not held on the same weekend their is nothing TD's can do to avoid them - or bid on them in most cases. I know in our case we do not have the option to wait until November to secure the fields or hotel rooms. It just is not possible.

 

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I continue to question ASA's commitment to fastpitch softball in Ohio.

 

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You have to congratulate Mike Flanagan and Ohiorays for filling or nearly filling their respective tourneys in the first week of November. There is a market out there for quality tournaments and their waiting lists is a testament to that. When will ASA realize that tournaments are market driven and that they are not the be all to end all? I agree with the Bear, it will be interesting to see who from Ohio will go ASA when NSA is in our backyard and ASA puts up so many roadblocks to attend their states and qualifiers.

 

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Keep it on the weekend of July 7-9. ?GAPSS is a new tourney that is still working out glitches. ?It's convienent for the Central Ohio teams but not really a strong draw for the top teams who are more likely to want to attend both State and the Colorado tourneys.

 

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Thanks coachdad,

While it would be nice and take off from August-June and not do anything with our tournament, I just don't think it is doing teams any good by waiting that long and for them to have patience while we get our act together. Many, many comments have been made from various people how convenient it is to have 6+ months to work on hotels, travelling, etc. I understand some tournaments don't have the luxury of that much time in advance, but then again I also ask myself just how much time some of these tournaments spend at all on their venues.

Lionsdad, you hit the nail on the head. ASA couldn't supply enough umpires on one date for 2 large tournaments, so one gets moved and another gets moved. Trust me, that whole situation was very hard to deal with. We will stick with one constant date in the future and never go thru that again. Whether ASA can oblige us, that is to be seen.

 

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Tigersports,

Kinda off the subject, but what glitches are you referring to? ?No one works harder at a tournament venue then us (in my opinion). ?Glitches is a strong word to use, and if you want to send me a private message we can discuss these "glitches".

Also, your comment... "It's convienent for the Central Ohio teams but not really a strong draw for the top teams"... I think some of the "top teams" who are in our tournament will take exception to this statement. We have some of the best teams playing in our tournament.

Mike Flanagan
GAPSS

 

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For those ASA diehards out there this is one of the reasons there is still a lot of life left in the NSA. If they are just out for money then at least they make it easy on us - their customers.

Trying to lay out team schedules for the big tournaments is tough enough, ASA/NSA need to keep the same weekend for State events or put out a schedule that would cover a couple years at a time.

 

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Bink--I'm the head coach of the Breakers of Rocky River (14U). I was also surprised to see that there were not more NE Ohio teams or any Pitt teams.

I played travel ball for 8 plus years and ASA was always cream of the crop. Granted, I was a player, so I'm not sure where some of you are going with this "tournaments are just out there to make money" thing b/c most tournaments, that are done right require a lot of hard work. Now that I'm a coach, it's just extremely frustrating that ASA does not coordinate events with other big tourneys such as GAPPS or Colorado. There are other big name tournaments that haven't even posted their tournament dates yet either, so who knows what other conflicts will arise. Each team has a preference of what caliber of ball they will play so, like what most people have stated, it will be very interesting to see who goes where.

Basically there is nothing we can do about it this year as what is done is done. But I truely hope that whoever is in charge of this business starts listening to those who play the game and devote their time and efforts to softball. Fastpitch is finally growing and now is the time to exploit that, not complicate matters by making teams choose between hot ticket tourneys.

 

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I echo what everyone else here is saying.

If ASA holds its State on June 30-July 2, the same weekend as NSA State, it requires teams to make a choice between the NSA WS in Columbus or shooting for ASA Nationals, assuming NSA requires you to play its State. ASA can ignore the NSA State if it wishes, but if it does it will find its State tournament with very few teams any time NSA holds its WS in Columbus, which is about every other year.

If ASA holds its State on July 7-9, it conflicts with two other high-profile ASA tournaments, GAPSS and the SGS Shootout (which also has an official NFCA Showcase camp). If ASA holds its State on June 23-25, it conflicts with Sluggerfest at 16-U and 18-U. The week before that conflicts with Compuware.

Of course, the solution is for ASA Ohio to have a plan beginning in August of each year for the following year. The July 7-9 weekend, or its equivalent, makes sense each year. GAPSS and any other big ASA tournaments could probably be moved. But this takes someone in ASA Ohio to be in tune with Junior Olympic fastpitch. Does ASA have anyone in Ohio who concentrates solely on fastpitch? If so, I am not familiar with that person.

The total lack of organization is frustrating. When the customer cares more about the business than the owner, it's a pretty helpless feeling.

 

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Since GAPSS is an ASA event, I think it would be crazy for our tournament to not want to work with ASA and obviously not have any conflicts with their state tournament. On the other side of the coin, I would think ASA would want to work with us also so that we compliment each other. I have never been contacted by anyone in regards to this. Actually, besides the local ASA chief umpire and OHSAA official, I don't think anyone outside of ASA Columbus knows the size of our tournament and how we promote ASA. That to me is truly sad.

I have absolutely no problem moving our tournament to another weekend (not 2006), as long as that is the weekend it will be EVERY YEAR. In the future, it would be great to have these discussions with ASA higher ups. I am, however, not holding my breath.

 

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loveforsoftball - I also noticed the lack of NE Ohio and pitts teams in the GAPSS field. ?I think that one of the reasons for this is that many of these teams might not want to travel to Columbus 3 weeks in a row, which they could do with GAPSS, Stingrays and NSA Nationals. ?Teams probably felt that they had to choose and most chose Stingrays (4 wolfpack, 1 Ice and 5 pittsburgh teams) over GAPSS (3 lasers and 2 Ice teams). ?None of these teams are listed in both tournaments. ?The late addition of the NSA Nationals just make decisions more difficult.

Unfortunately, I do not think that any amount of cooperation between ASA and the TDs will help keep these two tournaments seperated because it seems that the Stingrays are subject to the whims of The OSU and field availability.

Another factor that may have contributed to the lack of pitts teams at GAPSS is that the pitts Power is hosting their ASA Eastern qualifier that weekend. ?They have this tournament the weekend after the 4th of July every year (what a concept ?;D ;D ;D). ?I am assuming that most of the pitts teams will want to go there. ?As a side note, I checked out the PA ASA web page and they have a Junior Olympic coordinator.

 

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An ASA corridinator? That makes way too much sense

Columbus could be a hot bed for some decent tournaments, and I think we have them, but with all the dialog going on, and all excellent points I may add, this is very concerning to us and our tournament. We know that ASA is the way we want to go, but issues like these are what makes tournaments start looking at other sanctioning bodies.

 

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rumor.... ther ewill be a new JO commisoner next year within ASA (State)