San Francisco tournament opened the NAGVA Season with the BANG! And all these was made possible by the one and only Jonny Sloan aka Sheona Traylor. I am really sad that I missed this tournament since i LOVE the Bay Area so much and the people living there but had to make a choice of staying in Seattle for 2 of my dearest friends.
Jonny posted a BIG THANK YOU note on his Facebook page tonight and here's what she had to say...
Booze, Boys and Balls: Patriotism at Its Best- San Francisco NAGVA Tournament Recap
Ladies and Ladyboys...Jonny worked so hard for the tournament and made sure that the weekend will be cheap for all the players and made all arrangements with transportation, host hotel, facility an easy access for everyone. As what she said, a lil glitches here and there but its an SF come back so there's definitely room for improvement. Reports say that the weekend was so much fun for everyone and players are definitely looking forward for the growth of the tournament.
I can’t believe it is all over. And it all started with a simple thought of “what if” and the dream of “what if” turned into a possibility, albeit an extremely exhausting possibility… As I returned from the New York NAGVA tournament earlier this year, my “what if” was “What if I could bring a volleyball tournament back to San Francisco…?” and with a simple phone call to Saga Vae, we got the ball rolling and the dream soon became a reality.
Things started falling into place instantly. Truth be told, I never expected it to happen. Secretly, I never wanted it to happen. I knew the plan to hold a San Francisco tournament would be, at a very minimum, quite ambitious, tiring and stressful, so I was hoping when I made the inquiry into a gym space (in my opinion the most difficult item to secure for a new tournament), I would be declined. After a few days, the verdict was returned and, unlike the Casey Anthony case, the news was good: The gym was available on a 3-day weekend and we could book it right away. Realistically, I was expecting the same answer I’ve gotten for possible gym space for the past few years at other venues when trying to start a league here in SF- unavailable, too expensive, or lost in a vortex of bureaucratic paperwork through the City of San Francisco. So when I did receive the good news, I wasn’t quite prepared to take the next steps. But here went nothing: the initial seeds of San Francisco Red, White and Blue Ball were planted and I had to take on the task to nurture this to full bloom.
As a former student at CCSF in addition to a member of the men’s club team, I knew full well exactly what kind of budget the school has to work with to fund the sports programs- little to nothing. It became instantly obvious to me who our beneficiary would be. The women’s club team at CCSF would be chosen as they were the more established program. With little to no budget, all fundraising is usually done by the girls themselves or by the head coach. With that in mind, it became my driving force to make this tournament as successful as possible to establish San Francisco as the “go to” destination for the opening of the NAGVA season and to get these girls some money to make their program more successful. It is my hope that with our $3500 donation raised by the tournament participants, we are able to provide these girls with a means to further succeed with their amazing program.
I am especially grateful to all of my volunteers and everyone who provided me with support along the way. Ryan Brady, Neal Franzer, Kevin Yamashiro, and Lonyl Palao to name a few. You guys gave me some great advice to get me started on the journey.
Special thanks to Balta for all the advice and getting the pool play and schedule together for me. The data entry spreadsheet for the pool play results worked out great. Also thank you for staying up so very late on Saturday night to help me adjust the brackets and schedule after that BB team was bumped up. We had some major glitches with scheduling but we made it work for the most part.
Great thanks also goes to Jet and Jonathan Daclison for your support with the referees and making sure their assignments were taken care of. Also to Miran Turner, Jason Wong, and Tim Mcklinsky for the NAGVA duties. Miran you are always so very calm and professional with your RC duties and I would love to have you back year after year. Thanks also to Jay Roby for your work at registration and helping out the guys doing RC stuff.
My thanks also to Sergio Rodriguez for getting those awesome medals from National Trophy taken care of. They looked great and definitely represented San Francisco and the Red, White and Blue Ball!
Saia Reupena, you rock sister. Those last minute t-shirt designs were amazing. You are talented in so many ways I just am in awe of how you do it. Thank you for all your help at registration too. You made that line go by easy breezy style.
Thanks to Shane Armstrong of Lucky 13 Printing for whipping out all those shirts. I know you stayed up till all hours finalizing the product and I am so pleased with your work. You did an awesome job and your t-shirts as always looked fantastic.
Thanks to Bruno Gaborit for getting us hooked up with delicious lunches through Revolution Foods. Your delivery staff were very timely, friendly and professional.
Thanks also to Jessie Torres, Nate Gonzales and Robert Leduc for all the admin type things you did for me at the tournament. I seriously would have gone crazy if you guys didn’t step it up and rock out those items for me. Also to Tim Mcklinsky for staying up REALLY late on Saturday night to help me get those brackets ready even though you had to be up early for your Sunday elimination rounds.
Extreme thanks to my assistant Jarrad. I realize you are completely oblivious to volleyball and what we do, but you caught on super fast and you kept me calm, sane, and less stressed out and for that, I will always be grateful.
If I forgot anyone, thanks to you too of course!
And final thanks to all the participants of the tournament. You guys made this successful. I was very happy to see so many familiar faces and make so many new friends. My friends list pre-tournament was hovering at the 420 mark and is now over 585 just from tournament people and it keeps growing. I am overwhelmed by the positive feedback, but I encourage all feedback so I can bring an even better tournament next year. Please send an email to talljonny@gmail.com and make sure to fill out a tournament evaluation form found at http://www.nagva.org/docs/11.pdf The only way to make sure this tournament goes even better next year is to provide feedback!
As for next year, I will attempt to do one of two things: 1) Expand to another venue to allow better scheduling or, should 1 not work out- 2) reduce the amount of teams per court. I realize the biggest negative aspect to this tournament was an extremely late elimination round, and for this I apologize. But if you can think of anything else, please feel free to include it!
And finally, I am out of t-shirts, but if anyone is interested in a tournament t-shirt, they will be available for $15. (Tournament participants inquire about a discount, verifiable through your team rosters...) I realize not everyone got a t-shirt because we ran out of the desired sizes, so this is my olive branch to those that did not get a shirt. I will have a PayPal link set up some time in the near future for this.
I look forward to bringing you another San Francisco Tournament next year. Stay tuned for a post about final results and your all-star and MVP awards within the next couple of days! Been trying to get some R&R and destress so I'll have your results soon!
Much Love,
Jonny Sloan
And the best part of the tournament was making a donation of of $3500 to the CCSF club team coming from a very cheap tournament. Jonny promises to post results soon and currently trying to recuperate from the weekend! (she definitely deserves it)
Great Job Jonny! You already know how ChaCha feels about missing this tournament so don't give me a hard time anymore, PLEASE? LOL!
Congratulations to the organizers, participants and winners for the fun filled weekend!
not using xoxo,
ChaCha
