by AlwaysImprove » Tue Jul 08, 2014 8:37 pm
I think you guys have gotten off track a bit. If you think Premier was about one person, well you must have your head stuck so far in the sand. The whole sport basically moved over. Trust me, do not waste too much of your energy thinking they did it because of one person.
Most every high end coach back then was kind of done with ASA not listening to coaches. There were a few that were more let's see what develops, but most were pretty supportive of going a different direction. ASA was more than content in fueling coach vs coach disagreement to constantly justify their overly umpire focused approach. "See their, them coaches just cannot get along, well, whatta you gonna do?" "I guess we'll have to go to Johonson City for that huge table of samwiches they make."
Pool games are not and should not be about time in hotel rooms. It is about either 1) getting ready for the big show (pool games would count) or 2) additional opportunity to showcase kids (pool games would not count). Those two sides are always going to be in contention. In fact most people find themselves on both sides of this fence. As a Sophomore, DD was looking for any time she could to get in front of coaches in play. By summer of her Junior year, she was signed, and what do you know, we immediately thought it would be better use of pool play to prepare the team for competition.
Now you can say hey, looking there, there is no right answer, so you we have to have the tournament in Midland. But it turns out it is ok that there is not really a right answer to this problem. That you can still have a pretty great tournament in a place that is pretty easy to travel too. And you can still have active debate about how the tournament is structured, and be open minded to changes that appear to make the tournament stronger.
Talking to PGF guys, they get some money for hotel rooms, but they spend that same amount housing umpires, so net net it is a wash. I never get a sense that they are trying to have longer tournaments to maximize profit. That was common thinking from driven by the way tournaments were organized in ASA. In PGF, they can be more transparent and just raise team fees.
Anyway pDad's statement seems correct. The founders of PGF, all the big teams at that time felt having larger teams created stability in their ability to go to nationals year in and year out. The only way to do that was to have more than 15 players. The only way to do that was to have some value on your team for those subs. So they wanted to have pool play not count. (he never said ASA did not have pool play).
The problem is that umpires are just too removed from the motivations of the common parents, players and coaches that are playing the game. I am not a huge fan of the overly focus on recruiting in the game. But you cannot just ignore that recruiting is a part of the game. Removing umpires from the compromise portions of the equation, has allowed PGF to be more focused on what orgs, teams, coaches and players are looking for in the game. Turns out you can largely go out and hire some umpires, and do pretty good at it.
Softball was the only sport I knew of that was being run by their umpires. If your arguments 100% about rules or equipment rules etc. then that might make sense. But that is really only about 10% of the total view of the sport.