Tourney Time

This is June and whenever the calendar turns to June, the ol’ baseball coach in me knows that means it is time for the ‘County Tournament.’

The Knox County youth baseball tournament begins on Monday. If you are looking for a great, fun activity and/or if you are baseball fan, I encourage you to attend a game. You can cheer for the team of your choice and see some great baseball in the process.

When I was a coach in Farragut Baseball, Inc. the County Tournament was a part of the planning for every season. The city leagues have a similar tournament. I’m sure the focus is the same for them as well as in other leagues from around the county.

When coaching a team in 8U, 10U, 12U or even 14U, we always planned our season around playing in the County Tournament. It was important at the parent meeting, at the start of the season, that you outline the schedule in such a manner to stress that your team would be competing in the County Tournament in early June (or otherwise, there’d be a mass exodus of beach-bound families from Farragut. Even still, there’d be one or two families who’d invariably plan their vacation for tourney week!).

The tournament was, generally, the last official activity for the team before a 6-week summer break. In that way, it was a great send-off. The fall baseball season – which generally began around the time for the start of the school year in August –  marked the beginning of next year’s baseball calendar.

For training purposes, it was a great teaching ‘carrot,’ too. “Now by the time we get to the County Tournament we… (insert teachable moment: “Want to achieve this skill…” “Don’t want to be making this particular mistake, etc.”).

Different leagues around Knox County served as tournament venues for the various age brackets. Powell might host the 8U brackets, Farragut might host the 10U, Halls might host the 12U and the Knox County SportsPark would have the 14U. In fact, when the Choppers celebrated their 14U championship two Junes ago, they did so on the grass and dirt at the SportsPark.

The players enjoyed the geographic element of this rotation. It would seem that a drive to Gibbs Community Park or to Bower Fields in south Knox County was a long way off! It was fun, too, to get a chance to see the various parks, learn their layout and logistics and to pick up a few pointers along the way – both from a coaching and from an admin point of view.

The last year we were in the 10U age group (then competing as the Farragut Braves), we went to Powell-Levi Field for the Knox County Tournament. We were having such a great season - and were so excited to be representing our league at ‘the county’ - we passed the hat and sprung for a spiffy, new set of bright red shirts to mark the occasion.

It was a great event. It seems like there were 16 teams competing in the field, in our age bracket, that year. We had a bunch of teams going from Farragut (as I recall, there were six or so Farragut teams). A year later, as a young 12U team, we went back to Powell-Levi and there was an equally full bracket.

In those two tourneys alone, we competed against teams from Farragut, Gibbs, Halls, Powell and Seymour. Talk about fun! And in the 2010 tourney, when the Choppers won it all, we faced teams from Carter, Gibbs and Halls.

In so many ways, I think the Knox County Tournament was a great event during those years.

I was sad to see that, this year, the field is greatly reduced. I only saw seven teams had signed up for the 8U bracket. There are only five for the 10U; just four in the 12U. I didn’t see a 14U bracket at all.

It’s a far cry from the glory days of ’06 and ’07 when there were 16 teams competing in a single age group. This year, I only saw 16 teams registered from among ALL the age groups.

Still, I encourage youth baseball fans to go to the Knox County Parks webpage, find the tourney bracket located closest to you and go check out a game.

I suppose these things are cyclic; I guess there could be a number of reasons to explain the lower participation. To be sure, the economy is still tough. It might be that it is harder and harder to come up with the registration fee. Also, I can tell you from our family’s own summer calendar, we’re busier now more than ever. It could be that it is harder to field a team once school ends and everyone scatters after the final out is recorded in the final regular season game.

I hope this is just a down cycle and that we may once again see those exciting tournaments with so many teams competing for the title: Knox County Champion. It’s a great honor to win earn that title and it’s such a fun and amazing event that brings our community together.

JG

Originally posted 6/8/2012