- Jan 22, 2011
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Got this email this morning. Are they serious?
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22
PGF West / DF Softball Announce 8U Division
People
Dennis Fong
Today at 8:44 AM
To
Coaches and Managers
The 2015 Rec Ball season is in it's final few weeks for many Leagues leading up to All Star and various season ending tournaments. DF Softball has been formerly associated with NSA, USSSA and most recently, All World. DF Softball is now 100% sanctioned with Premier Girls Fastpitch (PGF). For those of you who are not familiar with PGF, this is where the best teams in the country play. PGF is now including a Futures Division for B level teams and will be launching a Rec division within a few weeks.
We are pleased to announce that PGF West/DF Softball will be offering an 8U division at the majority of our events. I've been contacted by many coaches over the past 2 weeks and the interest is high based upon the recent rule changes in another association. We have no restrictions in regards to recruiting players for your teams. We will be playing with 8U rules that are familiar to what other 8U events have been using. I've attached a copy of our rules for your review.
I've included many of you as contacts since we have worked together in the past and you have served as a liaison for your organization. Please pass on this info to the coach or person in you group who would be interested in the 8U division.
So what do you have to do to play in our PGF 8U events?
Registration and Insurance
1) We will be registering your team under the PGF Futures Division. Normally, we would have you register your team through the PGF website. But PGF West/DF Softball will be including PGF Registration as part of your Entry Fee. There will be a registration form on our website that you will submit and we will take care of the Registration from there. The PGF Season is from September 1 to August 31 so we will need to register your team again in September if you play in any of our Summer events up to August 31.
2) Team Insurance - you are not required to purchase PGF team insurance as we accept insurance from any organization. But if you need team insurance, then the cost is $169 for the season and it covers all of the players and coaches on your roster. You can add and delete players as needed and they will be covered.
Some teams are still covered to some degree with their Rec League. Contact me if you are splitting off with no association with a Rec League and starting from scratch as a separate travelball team or group and we will figure out the best path for your team.
Uniforms and Equipment
Starting off a new team without or little support of an established Rec league takes some upfront costs besides the Registration and Insurance. Uniform requirements are very basic; you need a T Shirt with a number on it. So you can go as simple or elaborate as you want. We have had teams go with heat pressed numbers and the girls decorating their T Shirts. We are a dealer for Transfer Express, a company that provides heat press transfers. You can go to Heat Applied Custom Screen Printed - Digital Transfers | Transfer Express and view some of the template designs that they have. You won't be able to change text, fonts, clip art or colors unless you are a dealer but this will give you an idea of what can be done. Contact us if you are interested and I can work out a custom design from their templates and we can have the transfers within 5 days. We press the T-Shirts at Freedom Park so it's about a week to get a inexpensive custom made shirt.
Team equipment includes whatever you need to practice and play the game. Catchers gear, practice balls and possibly portable screens such as Bow Nets are the norm. We have not run any 8U events as of yet so we do not have any used balls available. We are a dealer for Bow Net so let us know if you are interested in purchasing from us. We can have it delivered straight to you.
Friendlies and Tournaments
Bottom line, we will run an 8U event wherever we can gather sufficient teams to play. The biggest thing we need to do is get started and teams onto the field to play games as this is the quickest way for the players to learn. Practices are needed but there is only so much you can accomplish in practices with their current skill levels and attention spans. This includes both the players and parents. Parents also tend to get bored with too many practices. We need to get teams into game situations so that both the players and parents can see what skills the individuals and team needs to work on in practice. Many are not going to start investing in private lesson quite yet but they won't even think about it until they see their daughters play in a game. Let's face it, no parent is going to make a decision to start hitting or pitching lessons from watching their daughter in practices or hearing from a coach that you "Need" to do this. You have to figure out the "balance" of practice to playing games ratio that works for your team.
Areas / Zones - PGF West hosts events in 3 general areas or zones; Bay Area, Central Valley and Sacramento. We also run a few events in Reno. We realize that 8U teams will want to stay as local as possible to hold down the cost and time of travel. Parents at this level are not programed to travel yet as they are used to going to their neighborhood fields to play. So the key is to build core of teams from your general zone so that we can hold local events.
Local events can be associated with our already established tournament dates and locations in your zone or we can also pull together individual dates and locations if you have access to fields. It is nice and more exciting to play in softball complexes but most of you are also OK with playing on good rec fields. Contact me if you or your organization already have established tournament(s) that you want to sanction PGF or if you have access to fields and want to Co-Host events with us. We are already starting with the Belmont Blast with an event on June 20-21 in Belmont.
My general plan right now is to host Zone events 1 or 2 weekends a month. But teams get tired of playing each other, especially if there are only a few teams in the group. So I would like to target at least 1 weekend a month as NorCal/NV Zone War events where we have teams from all of the zones come together. Not only does this increase the number of teams but you will also play other teams from outside your Zone. We have to get together with the Zone coaches to plan out which dates and locations are best.
Friendly or Tournament? The general rule is that we need at least 4 teams to run a tournament bracket but we can do it also with 3. Friendlies are scrimmage games that we don't keep official score, can run the game the way we want and with drop dead times with no awards. This is an economical way to play games and we generally charge about $50 per game to cover costs. Tournament format is usually 3 pool games on Saturday and elimination rounds on Sunday. Depending upon the number of teams and other factors, we will also consider running a Bonus Game for the losers of the first round on Sunday. This gives teams at least 1 more game but does not count. It's basically a Friendly game. We can also run a full Silver bracket at select events where we play out the losers of the first round games to a championship. The entry fee to these events are a bit higher to cover the cost of extra games and awards.
So we are willing to host games and events virtually anywhere that 2 teams want to play even a double header.
Dates and Locations - When can we start??? We are ready to start running games as early as May 16-17. We have an established tournament schedule now and will include an 8U division at any of our dates and locations. Our upcoming calendar currently includes:
May 16-17 - Freedom Park Sacramento
May 23-24 - Freedom Park Sacramento
May 30-31 - Freedom Park Sacramento
June 6-7 - Freedom Park Sacramento
June 6-7 - Martinez
June 13-14 - Freedom Park Sacramento
June 20-21 - Freedom Park Sacramento
June 20-21 - 8U only tournament in Belmont - click for info
June 20-21 - Reno
June 27-28 - Freedom Park Sacramento
July 4-5 - Freedom Park Sacramento
July 4-5 - Brentwood
July 11-12 - Freedom Park Sacramento
July 11-12 - Bay Area TBD
July 18-19 - Rainbow Fields Modesto
July 25-26 - Freedom Park Sacramento
July 25-26 - Brentwood
Aug 1-2 - Freedom Park Sacramento
Aug 1-2 - Mistlin Fields Ripon
Aug 7-9 - Midnight Mayhem - 40 hours of softball - Sacramento
Aug 15-16 - Bay Area TBD
Aug 22-23 - Bay Area TBD
Aug 22-23 - Joe Herb Merced
Aug 29-30 - Brentwood
September - our Fallball Season start with a full schedule of events into December.
I've been cramming a lot of information in this email. What I'd like now is to see who is interested in joining us and how we can work together to build an 8U division. Please pass this on to any coach or league representative that you think may be interested. We are extremely excited about starting up our 8U division.
Feel free to contact me by email or give me a call. Again, we can start as early as May 16-17 in Sacramento if teams are ready to play event Friendly games. Our success with the 8U division is dependent upon getting core groups in each zone to seed our events. I will be sending out more updates shortly as I receive input from everyone.
Thanks,
--
Dennis Fong
PGF West / DF Softball
PGF West Regional Director
CLOSE
22
PGF West / DF Softball Announce 8U Division
People
Dennis Fong
Today at 8:44 AM
To
Coaches and Managers
The 2015 Rec Ball season is in it's final few weeks for many Leagues leading up to All Star and various season ending tournaments. DF Softball has been formerly associated with NSA, USSSA and most recently, All World. DF Softball is now 100% sanctioned with Premier Girls Fastpitch (PGF). For those of you who are not familiar with PGF, this is where the best teams in the country play. PGF is now including a Futures Division for B level teams and will be launching a Rec division within a few weeks.
We are pleased to announce that PGF West/DF Softball will be offering an 8U division at the majority of our events. I've been contacted by many coaches over the past 2 weeks and the interest is high based upon the recent rule changes in another association. We have no restrictions in regards to recruiting players for your teams. We will be playing with 8U rules that are familiar to what other 8U events have been using. I've attached a copy of our rules for your review.
I've included many of you as contacts since we have worked together in the past and you have served as a liaison for your organization. Please pass on this info to the coach or person in you group who would be interested in the 8U division.
So what do you have to do to play in our PGF 8U events?
Registration and Insurance
1) We will be registering your team under the PGF Futures Division. Normally, we would have you register your team through the PGF website. But PGF West/DF Softball will be including PGF Registration as part of your Entry Fee. There will be a registration form on our website that you will submit and we will take care of the Registration from there. The PGF Season is from September 1 to August 31 so we will need to register your team again in September if you play in any of our Summer events up to August 31.
2) Team Insurance - you are not required to purchase PGF team insurance as we accept insurance from any organization. But if you need team insurance, then the cost is $169 for the season and it covers all of the players and coaches on your roster. You can add and delete players as needed and they will be covered.
Some teams are still covered to some degree with their Rec League. Contact me if you are splitting off with no association with a Rec League and starting from scratch as a separate travelball team or group and we will figure out the best path for your team.
Uniforms and Equipment
Starting off a new team without or little support of an established Rec league takes some upfront costs besides the Registration and Insurance. Uniform requirements are very basic; you need a T Shirt with a number on it. So you can go as simple or elaborate as you want. We have had teams go with heat pressed numbers and the girls decorating their T Shirts. We are a dealer for Transfer Express, a company that provides heat press transfers. You can go to Heat Applied Custom Screen Printed - Digital Transfers | Transfer Express and view some of the template designs that they have. You won't be able to change text, fonts, clip art or colors unless you are a dealer but this will give you an idea of what can be done. Contact us if you are interested and I can work out a custom design from their templates and we can have the transfers within 5 days. We press the T-Shirts at Freedom Park so it's about a week to get a inexpensive custom made shirt.
Team equipment includes whatever you need to practice and play the game. Catchers gear, practice balls and possibly portable screens such as Bow Nets are the norm. We have not run any 8U events as of yet so we do not have any used balls available. We are a dealer for Bow Net so let us know if you are interested in purchasing from us. We can have it delivered straight to you.
Friendlies and Tournaments
Bottom line, we will run an 8U event wherever we can gather sufficient teams to play. The biggest thing we need to do is get started and teams onto the field to play games as this is the quickest way for the players to learn. Practices are needed but there is only so much you can accomplish in practices with their current skill levels and attention spans. This includes both the players and parents. Parents also tend to get bored with too many practices. We need to get teams into game situations so that both the players and parents can see what skills the individuals and team needs to work on in practice. Many are not going to start investing in private lesson quite yet but they won't even think about it until they see their daughters play in a game. Let's face it, no parent is going to make a decision to start hitting or pitching lessons from watching their daughter in practices or hearing from a coach that you "Need" to do this. You have to figure out the "balance" of practice to playing games ratio that works for your team.
Areas / Zones - PGF West hosts events in 3 general areas or zones; Bay Area, Central Valley and Sacramento. We also run a few events in Reno. We realize that 8U teams will want to stay as local as possible to hold down the cost and time of travel. Parents at this level are not programed to travel yet as they are used to going to their neighborhood fields to play. So the key is to build core of teams from your general zone so that we can hold local events.
Local events can be associated with our already established tournament dates and locations in your zone or we can also pull together individual dates and locations if you have access to fields. It is nice and more exciting to play in softball complexes but most of you are also OK with playing on good rec fields. Contact me if you or your organization already have established tournament(s) that you want to sanction PGF or if you have access to fields and want to Co-Host events with us. We are already starting with the Belmont Blast with an event on June 20-21 in Belmont.
My general plan right now is to host Zone events 1 or 2 weekends a month. But teams get tired of playing each other, especially if there are only a few teams in the group. So I would like to target at least 1 weekend a month as NorCal/NV Zone War events where we have teams from all of the zones come together. Not only does this increase the number of teams but you will also play other teams from outside your Zone. We have to get together with the Zone coaches to plan out which dates and locations are best.
Friendly or Tournament? The general rule is that we need at least 4 teams to run a tournament bracket but we can do it also with 3. Friendlies are scrimmage games that we don't keep official score, can run the game the way we want and with drop dead times with no awards. This is an economical way to play games and we generally charge about $50 per game to cover costs. Tournament format is usually 3 pool games on Saturday and elimination rounds on Sunday. Depending upon the number of teams and other factors, we will also consider running a Bonus Game for the losers of the first round on Sunday. This gives teams at least 1 more game but does not count. It's basically a Friendly game. We can also run a full Silver bracket at select events where we play out the losers of the first round games to a championship. The entry fee to these events are a bit higher to cover the cost of extra games and awards.
So we are willing to host games and events virtually anywhere that 2 teams want to play even a double header.
Dates and Locations - When can we start??? We are ready to start running games as early as May 16-17. We have an established tournament schedule now and will include an 8U division at any of our dates and locations. Our upcoming calendar currently includes:
May 16-17 - Freedom Park Sacramento
May 23-24 - Freedom Park Sacramento
May 30-31 - Freedom Park Sacramento
June 6-7 - Freedom Park Sacramento
June 6-7 - Martinez
June 13-14 - Freedom Park Sacramento
June 20-21 - Freedom Park Sacramento
June 20-21 - 8U only tournament in Belmont - click for info
June 20-21 - Reno
June 27-28 - Freedom Park Sacramento
July 4-5 - Freedom Park Sacramento
July 4-5 - Brentwood
July 11-12 - Freedom Park Sacramento
July 11-12 - Bay Area TBD
July 18-19 - Rainbow Fields Modesto
July 25-26 - Freedom Park Sacramento
July 25-26 - Brentwood
Aug 1-2 - Freedom Park Sacramento
Aug 1-2 - Mistlin Fields Ripon
Aug 7-9 - Midnight Mayhem - 40 hours of softball - Sacramento
Aug 15-16 - Bay Area TBD
Aug 22-23 - Bay Area TBD
Aug 22-23 - Joe Herb Merced
Aug 29-30 - Brentwood
September - our Fallball Season start with a full schedule of events into December.
I've been cramming a lot of information in this email. What I'd like now is to see who is interested in joining us and how we can work together to build an 8U division. Please pass this on to any coach or league representative that you think may be interested. We are extremely excited about starting up our 8U division.
Feel free to contact me by email or give me a call. Again, we can start as early as May 16-17 in Sacramento if teams are ready to play event Friendly games. Our success with the 8U division is dependent upon getting core groups in each zone to seed our events. I will be sending out more updates shortly as I receive input from everyone.
Thanks,
--
Dennis Fong
PGF West / DF Softball
PGF West Regional Director
