Ramkota Hotel Pierre, SD Saturday 1/26/19

USA Softball SD Executive Committee Meeting

Meeting called to order 8:55 am Central

Present Keith Morrell, Travis Young, John Ewart, Carol Pipgras, Stacie Morell, Paul Aylward, Chuck Bucheim, Steve Riswold, Steve Ruda, Kyle Beaird, Rich Skorheim.

Hand out minutes from 2018 meeting, financial report, and background check forms.

National Meeting was discussed by Young, Riswold, Pipgras, and Morell.

We discussed the national office’s commissioner’s agreement that will be out this spring. Every state will submit a cash balance of $5,000 to protect the incoming commissioners and association in the future.

Gary had his 5-year review and needs to be more of a commissioner and not as much of a promoter. So he will be doing more paperwork versus being as visible at the early tournaments.

USA Softball SD will be creating a new website in the near future. USA Softball joined in a partnership with Sports Engine so that websites are more uninformed in the future. The website will be less cumbersome. Cost is $595 a year. And that is for any state, transition first of April.

Sponsorship rate of a website is the same at this time. We can always sell more advertising. If you want to sell an ad, get a 20% commission.

There will be the All-American Games in OKC again for 12-year-olds. USA Softball SD will again send 5, Tryouts are set for March 2^nd in Sioux Falls. We will be involved, no questions.

We discussed the different softball alphabets. As a body, they have come to the conclusion that we need to do a better job of adapting and be willing to try different things. Teams don’t know or do they care of the affiliation, they just want to play.

Had new elections for the regional rotation, and it will continue to be a 2-year vote. Every state will have a representative to the board. Riz is the Regional UIC for ’19 and ’20.

They did away with the national qualifier for JO tourneys. So teams can go to National but need to go through Carol and Gary to okay any team that wants go to a national. They also can qualify a year in advance which we implement in some of the tournaments that we are hosting this year

Playing Rule Changes: Youth Fastpitch pool play changes, where EP can be anywhere in the line up, and Defensive changes have to be announced, to track runners and such.

Safe Sport will have a 30-minute refresher course for those who took it last year. If you did not take last year, you will need to this year for sure.

SD Bylaws- Requested changes that players can play on two teams in the same city. Proposing a bylaw change to allow adults teams to play in two state tournaments as a team but not as individual players.

The other proposal is in the Youth game, the A division of travel tournament, don’t play league games, and some of the teams don’t want to play in league, proposal is if you don’t play in a league, then you are playing in the A division state tournament or travel versus rec division.

Regional national qualifiers- they are not running the Heartland National Qualifier in 2019, but they will look at it for 2020. And Spring Classic will be a C national qualifier. The pride will pay for the winner’s entry fee into nationals.

Hall of Fame- 2019 Hall of Fame is in Sioux Falls on October 12^th, and 2020 has not been decided. There are 7 nominees for Hall of Fame, Discussion of going to an electronic ballet. Discussed raising the price to $35 a plate as the banquet halls are asking for guarantees, both meals and bar. Plus all the hidden cost such as the mic, decorating, security, clean up. Rich Skorheim made a motion to raise the per plate price to $40, Steve Ruda Seconded, vote in favor.

Scholarships- People for Youth in for $2,500 JO Fastpitch is in for $3,000 and Youth Slowpitch for $500. Did make a withdrawal in 2018 and will reinvest it. This move was suggested by both the giving parties.

Entity Report-

Men’s Fastpitch-Travis Young Trying to maintain, State tourney may have to go against a competing national. Over 40 will run a state with the women’s tournament.

Big Ball- John Ewart - Fees will increase to $250 per team. Didn’t have a 35 and over. Try and run it the same weekend this year if possible. That will be August 24^th and 25^th. Offer the 16-inch tourney on the 17^th of August.

Youth Carol Pipgras- Went through what is going to happen, 184 teams in fast pitch, 90 plus in Slow. This year Watertown will host slow pitch. Sioux Falls will host fastpitch. Looking at making a code change in 14, 16, 18U fastpitch with the league game #s in 2019.

Coed Steve Ruda –State’s were played in Spearfish and Watertown in 2018. 2019 tournament will be in Pierre and Mitchell.

Women’s Slowpitch Stacie Morell – Women will be dropping a division, so no division 6. The state will be the weekends of July 20^th and 21^st and then also July 27^th and 28^th. Look at moving the Women’s state off youth state weekend in the future and going into August. Offer a Women’s open the same weekend as Men’s Open and D.

Men’s Slowpitch Gary and Keith - Last year ran tourney’s by committee, Mike, Duane, Keith, and Gary. Numbers were okay. Did hand out a questionnaire and only got a couple of responses. But we did visit with most leagues during the spring as well as at state sites. The feeling is there is a need to move teams up. Look at only doing one E tournament instead of 2 tourneys. A lot of new area commissioners coming on board.

Milo “Mike” Miles has resigned and we want to thank him for his years of service to USA Softball. I am hoping that we can still count on Mike for support in the years to come in the league as well as states.

Umpire Association Steve Riswold, Chuck Bucheim, and Rich Skorheim - Four new Elite umpires this year, Duane Meyer, Dennis Thompson, Jarod Hettich, and Beth Noles.

Blues across America featured 5 SD umpires in 2018. Next weekend, January 31^st through the 3^rd of February the biannual UIC clinic will be held in OKC. We will have 14 SD umpires going as well as Steve and Gary.

The SD Umpire Clinic will be April 6-7 in Yankton. There is info on the web as well as Facebook.

Executive committee report – SD with the structure we have built over the years is in the upper half of fees for adults and the bottom half in youth registration fees. We may need to look at this in the future. With that said the balance looks good. We did get a couple more registrations in this month with a couple more to come.. Some leagues are being surprised with added fees from there city. Hopefully, USA Softball has taken care of the insurance for them but now they are adding utility fees, maintenance fees, deposits.

Publication- We will be changing to Sports Engines website in the near future. The National Office wants more uniformity with everyone’s web page and has chosen Sport Engine. If you have youth in athletics, good chance you are familiar with Sports Engine as it is used by Hockey, Baseball, some of our softball leagues, and others in SD now.

Tournament USA is still a requirement for all national tournaments. Insurance: No major incidents but a number of smaller claims were up some.

Registration: Online registration is available for youth individual registration at the registersusasoftball.com web site if you so chose  

Unfinished Business:

There will be 1 disqualification hearing Sunday morning. There will be 3 more in February & March.

New Business

Men’s slow pitch plans bring back Rec 2, with the help of leagues to let us know who is in the bottom half and top half of their rec league and will be held the last weekend of July in the west and first weekend of August in the East. The following week would be the E, and teams that play Rec they can play the E tourney, then the 3^rd week would be the B/C open and D with E Teams allowed to move up. All deadlines will be the Sunday night before the state. Also, all draws will hopefully be drawn on Facebook live.

Sioux Falls will have the girl’s slow pitch, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 u for the first week of August. Sioux Falls got the Northern division the last week of July. Rapid, go the girls 12 u, and 14 u B. and Watertown have the 12 u, 14 u, C the last weekend of July.

Will try a Native tournament, but been asked if it could be held after the United Nations in Bismarck. Host in Rapid or Pierre third weekend of September. May run a first responders tourney at the same time.

Youth coed tourney will be back in Watertown the 2^nd weekend of August. Last year was the first time ever and had a good response.

2019 we will reverse the men’s slow pitch tourneys and allow teams to play in 2 tournaments in the lower divisions only, Rec 1 and 2 as well as E. Will change the name of the B-C Open to Open and continue to run with the D. The tournament will be held in Pierre again in 2019. Consideration will be made to also host a Women’s Open the same weekend.

These changes are at this time 2-year experiments and can be changed back if they do not work.

We also discussed continuing the relationship with the Ramkota in Pierre. With the double booking of meeting rooms and Ramkota’s new reservation system, it was suggested that we look at other facilities in and out of Pierre for the future. We will include the Pierre Ramkota in those discussions though as we have had a good working relationship in the past.

With no farther business, the meeting was adjourned at 11:42 by President Aylward.

Submitted by Gary Young

Notes from Steve Ruda.