I’m sure these guys at the APBA Football Club Tournament weren’t a challenge (From L to R: Patrick McGregor, John Cochrane, Ray Dunlap, Bob Tassinari, Greg Wells, Greg Barath, Jerry Zajack and Geoff Giordano)
We’re now on the fourth roundtable question with our awesome tournament organizers. They told us about the origins of their respective tournaments as well as some of the creative methods they’ve implemented for their tournaments. Last time, we found out about their approach to tournament rules.
Now organizing a tournament is a lot of fun and very rewarding (I’m beginning to find that out myself). However, there is a lot of work involved and sometimes, there are a few bumps in the road. When you get a group of APBA fans at one event, unexpected things happen and quite honestly, it doesn’t always go as planned.
My question this time around to everyone is…
“What is the most challenging aspect of organizing an APBA tournament? As much as you love doing it, what keeps you up at night?”
…here are the responses from all nine organizers.
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Skeet Carr – APBA Game Company National Tournament |
“Probably to make sure you have enough help. With a large number of participants things can get pretty backed up if you don’t have enough help.
However, it doesn’t keep me up at night. These days, at the conventions, you are only playing for a little trophy. Being with friends and getting bragging rights is what you are looking for. This makes it pretty easy to keep things going and not having to uncover people cheating. There are always some people who still take it way too seriously but you will always have this. The convention you were at in Lancaster years back, there was a $500 first prize. That is the only time we have ever done that.”
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John Cochrane – Robert Henry Memorial Tournament |
“For this tournament, making sure that the adults I invite will stay within the spirit of the thing, which is, again, wholly unlike any other tournament that I know of. I need people who are more worried about the kids having a good time than they are about their own win/loss records. This is why it has always been invitation-only, in spite of the occasional aspersions that have been cast my way as a result.
Within this context, I need at least as many adults as the number of people Brian brings from the BGC. These kids have their own league at the BGC and play against each other every day all summer. The point is for them to play against the adults, most of whom are people who have been active in the APBA community for many years; that’s the big thrill for the kids. To make this happen I need every division to be at least half adults, so that each kid plays a majority of his group games against “us.”
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Ron Emch – Glass City APBA Baseball Tournament |
“First and foremost is obtaining a decent venue. Fortunately, that fell in place for me when I joined the local Elks club. It was not that expensive, had room to easily accommodate 32 players, good lighting, food available onsite, etc.
Next is just getting enough firm commitments from the players. My fear was that no one would want to play at my tournament. Fortunately, that was not the case. I was hoping for at least 16, but would have loved 32. I think I ended up with 20 or 22. What really helped me was that I probably had 5 or 6 friends locally of mine who had not played at all or had played very little of APBA baseball join us for the day. The experienced APBA players were very helpful and guiding when playing these guys.
I had some last minute add/drops which can also cause some angst, but I felt had that covered. I had my brother lined up as a swing man to make sure we would end up with an even number of teams. Also, if need be, I was prepared not to play.
If anything kept me up at night, it was the little kid in me that couldn’t wait until the day came for the tournament.”
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Jim Fraasch – Twin Cities APBA Baseball Tournament |
“I really look forward to our 2 TCABT events each year, so really any time I put into organizing is not really a challenge at all. Guys that know APBA, and realize these tournaments are going to be a regular occasion, have all added their support as far as helping communicate, helping recruit new players, etc.
The one downside, or just part of the deal is that with encouraging guys to enter the tournament, you also are aware that “life” commitments arise, sometimes at a bad time, so as an organizer you are going to have to manage handling an entrant dropping out before the tournament. I think all of us have had to deal with this at our tournaments. In the big scheme of things, it really is not that big of a deal.”
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Geoff Giordano – APBA Football Club Tournament |
“Keeping everyone interested during downtime was my nightmare scenario. Dr. Rebecca Peterson, known to all at the official APBA tourneys, was a tremendous help and moral support, as was Pat McGregor, who could only attend on Saturday. Had we had the hoped-for turnout of about 24 people, with some players serving as “refs” and stat-keepers for games others were playing, the room would have been abuzz with a bit more activity. You also hope everyone likes the food if you preorder.
We went with a basic light-lunch package, which included free admittance to the museum and the room rental, including basic the basic AV podium and Internet access. We used an online-based signup sheet, but it’s easy to see how something like that could get out of hand if people begin to email you their team(s) for the tourney instead of using the sheet — so basic administrative details are certainly a constant for any organizer. it was fairly easy to ensure we had enough dice, boards, fields and cups. Zajack and Barath brought their own dice towers.”
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Jim Saska – Chicagoland World Series APBA Tournament |
Saska vs. Schuyler at the July 2014 Chicagoland Tourney
“One of the challenges that Doug and I faced was the venue. We started off holding them in the Woodstock Public Library which offered a great big comfortable meeting room and a small kitchen, and for the right price (free). However, we were restricted to the hours that the library was open 9am to 5pm, which didn’t leave a whole lot of extra time for socializing or extending the time in case the tournament ran over.
That is what kept me up at night. What if it was 4:45pm and we still had not finished our tournament? My backup plan was to move the tournament to the basement of my house, which was only a block and a half away from the library. After our first couple of tournaments, we decided to look to secure another venue where we had more flexibility.”
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Ken Schulz – Linda B Schulz Memorial APBA Baseball Tournament |
“Well I don’t recall anything keeping me up at night haha but I suppose that the most challenging thing for this first year was finding a nice venue that didn’t break my bank account. Unfortunately it was a little pricier than I expected but I learned and now our second tournament on July 9, 2016 will be much cheaper without jeopardizing the quality.
I give a shout out to my best friend and oldest brother Darren “the Stat-master” for hooking us up with a new location. He introduced me to the game when I was 5 years old and still does a lot for our league and tournament behind the scenes. I am better looking so I am the frontman!”
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Doug Schuyler – Chicagoland World Series APBA Tournament |
“As we have done more tournaments the challenges seem to be fewer and fewer. No shows are tough because then you have to make changes last minute.
Jim Saska found a great location at the Grayslake Historical Society that makes things easy and people have enjoyed the venue. At the end of the day, you just want people to come and have a great time and I think we have been successful with that 95% of the time.”
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Rich Zawadzki – Greater Michigan APBA Baseball Tournament |
“Nitpickers: this is a “bone of contention” for me; namely that there are nit-pickers out there who you have spend all your time accommodating, and would rather win in a “cheap” way, than just doin’ the right thing.
Thankfully, I did not have any issues. The guys at the GMABT were great!
Cancellations; no-shows. There are certainly things that nobody can help (Funerals, family emergency, flu, etc.), but last year, I had someone who committed to come, and was an absolute no-call and no-show.”
One last one…
…and it’s probably one of the best. Another thank you to the nine guys for their great responses! You can find all of the Tournament Organizer Roundtable interviews at this link.
