Let me tell you a little story…

Jimbo called me one evening after the Miggle convention in Baltimore, where we both had an awesome time. He spoke to me about wanting to do a tournament together here in Virginia, mainly because our weather is a little better than in Chi-town. I promptly told him: “Not interested”. About seven weeks had passed and I was out helping my wife collect donations for the Police Unity Tour. For some reason Jimbo’s offer was still stuck in my head so I called him back and asked him if he still wanted to do that tournament thing of his. I told I’d be willing to help if he would let us donate the proceeds to the Unity Tour. When he agreed… we were off and running.

Since we hadn’t run a tournament before I thought it was in our best interest to get advice from people who had experience running these things. I spoke to The Landsmans, Pratt, Ruesink, and Reggie. Everybody was gracious (to me) with their time and advice during the initial planning stages. Mike and Delayne went above and beyond helping… because they directed me to get in contact with Ira Silverman. Ira was a Godsend. He not only walked me through the process, he provided me with documents that we used as blueprints on how to run our tournament.

Next we put together a great team of volunteers who wanted to see our tournament come to fruition. Bill Porche (Cal) tech-man and color commentary, Ed Vaughn (Del) Webmaster, Frank Johnson (Indy) seeding and brackets, David Campbell (Cal) graphics, Mike Patton (Ohio) donations, Pat Morris (Ohio) filming, Ray Fanera (MD) kid’s tourney, Biglock (FL) divider assembly and ref, K-lo (MD) ref, and Roo Morgans (MD) announcer.

Our support staff: my wife Lisa, her sister Mary, my cousin Dillon, and my son D.C.

The guys brought boards: Philly, Beltsville, Tidewater, Bill and Reggie.

ALL the generous people who donated items, time, or money for the Police Unity Tour.

Long story extremely short… One or two people didn’t make the SWB a reality; it took a village.

Mike, I really can’t tell you what to do. The decision to run a tournament or not, rests squarely on your shoulders. The only advice I can give you is… Do it if it brings you and those around you joy and fun. You can’t worry about pleasing everybody. You guys play a particular style out there in Vegas. From what I understand it’s the same as LA and similar to the Texas style. There’s your foundation for your tournament. Any promoting and catering should be focused on those coaches first and foremost. If you measure success by the number of coaches in the room, those two areas alone assure that your tournament will be successful. Other coaches who decide to come and party with you guys should just be the icing on the cake. Mike if you believe in what you’re doing, and the guys around you believe in you enough to support your efforts… why worry about anything else?

Putting on an organized event takes serious planning. If you don’t know certain things, find people that do and hit them up for the info. Ask your friends and your league-mates to help out, or let it be known that volunteers are welcomed and appreciated. You being the host… have to do a lot of work behind the scenes. (IE. Making calls, negotiations with hotels, signing contracts, local promotion and advertising, getting sponsorship, getting necessary equipment, dealing with vendors, dealing with the media, and the list goes on and on.)

You’ve got to figure out how much work you’re willing to put into your tournament to make it the vision that you have of it in your mind. Mike, I have more to share with you. Just call me and I’ll explain in detail… you have my number.

- Don