It is softball leagues like West Stanly, North Carolina who are the backbone of Dixie Softball. A league built on community ball and not yet contaminated by that scourge of youth sports, travel ball.
While at the Darlings World Series I was fortunate enough to be able to stay at a lake house furnished by the Efird family of West Stanly. Arnold King, Darlings Commissioner, Gordon Hobbs, DSI Vice President-Emeritus and Preston Leonard, DSI Vice President also stayed at the lake house. While fishing during the day before the games started we made acquaintance with a construction crew who were building a boat house next to the lake house we were staying in.
One of the men on the construction crew had a granddaughter who was participating in a softball tournament being played in Charlotte, North Carolina. How the tournament begins and ends is crazy in my opinion. Teams arrive and play a couple of days of meaningless games. Then they play the real tournament in a series of games unlike the way Dixie Softball plays its tournaments.
The grandfather told me that he was disappointed that at the tournament in Charlotte the girls were not introduced at an opening ceremony and were not treated with the special treatment that the Dixie girls received at the Darlings World Series. As you can read in the article written by Jim Lisk of THE STANLY NEWS & PRESS all the players and coaches are showcased at the opening ceremony and if not introduced individually at the ceremony (most Dixie World Series introduce all players and coaches at opening ceremonies) they are individually introduced before the ball games begin.
The sad part about the grandfather's story was that his granddaughter could have had the honor of playing in the 2007 Dixie Darlings World Series and being treated with much fanfare and given royal treatment. I will have more to say about this part of the story in another article and discuss the bad effects that travel ball is having on community sports and why, if communities do not nip travel ball in the bud, their community sports program will be overran and destroyed by the travel ball idiots of the world.
Obie Evans, President
Dixie Softball, Inc.
ames E. "Obie" Evans, President
1101 Skelton Drive
Birmingham, AL 35224
Phone: (205) 785-2255