Five Things to Consider When Building a Tournament Team
So You Want to Play in A Wiffleball Tournament?
As I sit here in my bed in excruciating pain from traveling 5 hours to play in a Wiffleball tournament in North Carolina, I thought about the 5 things most teams need or go through traveling for Wiffleball tournaments. Every sport is different, but when you tell people you've traveled many miles to play Wiffleball you always get some strange looks and questions. The sport that I played as a kid? Adults still play Wiffleball? There's a Wiffleball tournament? Are you sh*tting me? The questions I get asked always make me smile but many people don't know what it takes to actually get a team and the physical beating ones body takes during the day.
So I figured I would share the five things I feel one needs when they make the crazy decision to travel to an out of town Wiffleball tournament.
1. Teammates You Can Count on (Fanatics)
It seems easy to get a group of your buddys to travel for a weekend and play a sport you all love, but everyone has something going on or they can't always commit. You need 3-4 other players that love playing as much as you and would drop anything (including valentines day) to play in a one day tournament. A tournament may only cost $60 but once you add in a hotel ($100), food ($30), gas ($40) and time it gets a little out of control. It's best to find the most dependable players first, then move onto talent.
2. Understanding Family, Friends, and Co-Workers
Being married and having a career planning to go to a tournament requires multiple stages. First you have to see if you can get the day off and see if your co-workers will cover your workload. Then, comes the negotiating with your significant other to let you go out of town to play in a tournament you won't make any money at. Once your able to navigate through those two huge obstacles you start questioning if you’re truly crazy for putting this much effort into a sport that wont get you any national attention. Plus if you have pets or their human equivalent (kids) you have a even higher road to climb. After the tournament you always have the fun task of telling your co-workers where you were.
3. Endurance, Endurance and Muscle Relaxers
So you got the time off, you talked your significant other into letting you go or tricked her into a “weekend trip” and you have the extra money to spend on a trip to Wiffleball Paradise. Now you need the body of steel. Every tournament I have played in, ran or watch has a common theme for teams playing: downtime. You play early? Great you can start off strong, but you will most likely have to wait for your second game or you'll be finished hours before the other teams and you get to sit around and wait on those games so you can play again. Sitting and waiting simply sucks. Your muscles get tight. You don't have the ability to warm up as fast and you feel like you got hit by a train the next day. PEDs have no room in the Wiffleball, its a kids game! But, I will take muscle relaxers* so I can walk the next day. Being close to 30 and having 30 year olds on your team you start to hate the 20 year olds playing against you. You know they will wake up with minor soreness. They probably even went out clubbing that night while I cried my self to sleep. So us veterans need a advantage.
*I have a prescription so I'm not cheating.
4. Great Teammates
You are going to be spending a couple weeks deciding who is bring what (beer, bats, and balls). You will be playing multiple games and traveling together so you better be able to not beat the crap out of each others. To have a great team makes the trip more enjoyable and the games a blast. Losing sucks but having a team that know how to cut up always helps ease over the heartbreak. Also, play with people around your age and physical abilities. If you are 27 on a team full of 21-24 year olds you will hate how fast they bounce back. If you are fat slow and out of shape you won't play after pool play on a team of marathon runners. So if your teammates are like you, it makes it easier to make fun of them because they suck just as bad.
5. Sense of Humor
After you leave the tournament (win or lose) you automatically start questioning your dedication to a sport most make fun of. The moment you take a line drive to the stomach you start to question your athletic ability. The moment you strike out at a slow pitch tournament you question what the f$%# did you do to yourself. Being able to laugh at your mistakes (your teammates will let you know about ALL of them) and being able to laugh at your teammates will ultimately make the whole thing alot mor enjoyable. Playing Wiffleball is fun but being able to laugh at yourself while everyone else is (come on you're playing Wiffleball) will make it so much more enjoyable. I've seen many sticks in the mud at tournaments and I always question why they would play. If you can't laugh at yourself while I am then you do not need to be around me at any tournament.
I want to thank the great people of Carolina Wiffleball League for hosting Huntington Wiffleball League (Patrick Rayl, Jeremy Ray, Josh Smith, Matthew Thornton, and Andrew Westcott) at your indoor tournament. I had a blast and I look forward to many more tournaments this year and beyond.
