WDMSC Premier Games - Friday, Apr 4

Left the house bright and early at 7:30AM. Ran low on blank white card stock last night for Skillzys® printing and needed to pick some up on my way out of town down in Cottage Grove at 8AM.

The WDMSC Premier Games had contracted with my company to produce what we call Tournament Tagzys™ to give to all the participants this weekend.   These are custom bag tags that players can use as keepsakes and collectibles depicting their tournament travels and competitions.  I was going to be at tournament check in that evening to get the Tagzys™ to coaches and team reps to in turn distribute to their teams this weekend. 2,500 pieces in all, including Tournament MVP and Star of the Match Bragzys™ and Controlling the SEAS™ Skillzys® for the U11 age groups as a pilot program for the WDM club.

I really haven't done much in terms of promoting this company since its inception about a year ago.  I took out an ad in Soccer Times last March, but that's about it.  I've tested different lines of the products with my girls this last year, as have a few other coaches in the club with their teams.  We've also outfitted our MTA Juniors program with some items as well, but never really made an advertising push as the initial product lines have continued to be honed and tweaked.  This weekend would mark the first real foray into getting the good word out about what the company has to offer to 128 teams from multiple Region II states.  It's as good of a start as any I guess.

Made the turn onto 35E south from Hwy 494 around 8:30AM and settled in for the 3 hour drive south to Des Moines.

About an hour into the drive, I got a phone call from my manager that an email had gone out regarding the status of the tournament. Bad weather was forecast for the weekend and tournament officials were going to make a decision by 10AM on Friday morning as to whether or not the tournament would go on as scheduled.

Crap. That would REALLY suck.  From a soccer perspective, I would much prefer to come down for 2 games on Saturday then head home, rather than see a complete weekend cancellation. Weather for Saturday looked a bit cool, but definitely playable.  The girls were excited for the trip and it would be a huge bummer for them to find out that we were not going after all.

From a Skillzys® perspective, I had over $4K in product in my backseat.  Not that I was worried about not recouping expenses from the tournament if it was a no go.  I would be more disappointed in all the hours put in securing the contract and printing/prepping for the event.

I then spent the next 20 minutes talking to other MTA coaches to make sure people knew what was going on. "You're already on your way down there?!?!" was the typical response when I told people I was on the road. "Are you pulling over until you know the tournament is on for sure?" was the typical next comment. Nope.  Not stopping nor turning around.  Stupidly confident and refusing to admit that they were going to call the whole thing off, I kept on heading south.

About 10:30AM the Tournament Director called me and let me know it was game on for Saturday for sure.  Yes!!!!  They'd play Sunday by ear and try to make a determination on Saturday morning about Sunday. The way I looked at it, we were going down for two games. Anything past that would be a bonus.

Arrived at the Sheraton in West Des Moines around 11:30AM. Checked in and then went to work preparing for the tournament check in which fortunately was going to be held on the second floor of the Sheraton, making it convenient on a number of fronts.

Some of the girls began arriving around 3PM and a handful of them met me down at the check in room to help bundle the Tournament Tagzys™ and set up the display table. It was really cool that they (B-Money, Babes, Em, Normy, T, and Payt) were willing and able to lend a hand... would have been a tough go without them.

We spent the next two hours working together, and were ready to go at 6PM when check in started.

Since I was committed to check in from 6PM to 10PM, I had our captains Babes and Payt take the girls on a light job and stretch at 7PM in the parking Sheraton parking lot.  Yep, Mark sends his girls to run around in a parking lot.  Hate away...

The girls had a 9PM in-their-rooms curfew, and got settled in for the night.

Long, mentally exhausting day for me.  I was looking forward to the soccer this weekend.

* * * * *

The girls have been coming together nicely the last part of the winter and we were playing some of our best soccer to date.  I think that's why I really enjoy this age group as some significant improvement is clearly apparent coming into the U12 summer season. 

We are getting better defensively and extremely dangerous in the attack.  In fact, over the last three years there has only been one team at our age group that has managed a clean sheet against us - that was Carmel (IN) in the fifth game of the Eclipse Challenge Cup (Libertyville, IL) last fall. 

Looking at the coming weekend, we are seeded as the #1 team in the U12G 11v11 flight.  I like the way the tournament is set up this year.  12 teams in 4 brackets of 3.  You play two group games on Saturday, with the group winners moving to a semifinal and then a consolation game with the other 3 group winners.  All other teams would match up against teams that finished either second or third in their respective groups.  That meant that if we could win our group, we would almost guarantee two tough games on Sunday, regardless of whether or not we managed to win our semifinal game.  So, my goal was to get us out of group play on Saturday against VSA Elite (IA) in the morning and then FC Barrington (IL) tomorrow afternoon.