101 softball teams invade Bloomington

Bloomington is the prime location for several things: basketball, tailgating — and softball tournaments.

This past week, the city played host to the USA/ASA National Fastpitch softball tournament for the 19th time. It marks the largest Bloomington tournament since the Under-16 National Fastpitch Tournament in 2004.

A total of 101 under-12 teams participated in this year’s event.

However, bringing an event of such magnitude is not  simple, and the city must have a strong rapport with events.

“It’s a long process, year after year, building a reputation of being able to handle a tournament like this,” tournament director John Turnbull said. “You’ve got to be able to run it, and you’ve got to be able to follow the rules.

“Two years ago we bid on this tournament, and we were selected to host it based on our reputation, based on our community and based on the package that we presented that said we could successfully host this tournament.”

The city gains more than visitors when tournaments  roll around: The economy is boosted as well. Bloomington expects this to garner more than $1 million, Turnbull said.

Turnbull also said the city hopes the tournament will allow the parks department to make $20,000.

However, the parks department and other government departments aren’t the main benefactors.

“It’s not looked at as a single event — it’s looked at as a community-wide sort of thing,” Turnbull said. “It brings in a lot of revenue for the hotels and restaurants.”

Given all the money generated from the tournament, it is clear that those involved are spending some serious money.

Many teams use fundraisers for tournament fees, but the rest typically falls on the parents.

Dawn Viles, mother of an athlete for Team Smith from Chino Hills, Calif., said being involved in travel softball is a big investment.

“We play about one tournament per month,” Viles said. “The tournaments are all over the country, so we spend a lot of energy and time traveling.”

For Team Smith, every parent is on his or her own as far as coming up with the money for the expenses.

“We have a meeting at the beginning of the year where we let the parents know our goals and what we need for the season,” Viles said.

Sean Kelly, a parent from Houston supporting Texas Storm Elite, said he feels planning is a huge part of being involved with travel softball.

“These tournaments are like our family vacations, so we plan just like we would a vacation,” Kelly said.

The Texas Storm Elite play in nearly 50 tournaments a year, and the cost of eating alone can put a huge stress on a family.

“Sometimes it’s lunch meat from the grocery store, or if there’s some extra money we may go out to eat,” Kelly said. “It all really depends on our situation for each tournament.”

The cost might be hard for some, but it is hard to put a price on the memories and the fun.

“In the end, it doesn’t matter how much money we are spending at these tournaments, because we love to watch our girls play, and we love to be able to spend time with them and watch them do what they love,” Kelly said.