Hello everyone,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who take time out of your busey lives to coach youth league baseball.

It has been brought to my attension that few people realise what a District Administrator job is or what they have to accomplish for the kids. I want to try to address that here.

The District Administrator in Little League is a volunteer elected to a three year term by the League Presidents assigned to that district. At the end of each term, nominations are requested and a election is conducted by someone other than the DA. To be eligable to be elected DA you must have been a League President in the past and must be willing to devote time to the program.

My personal expirence in youth sports starts at age 5 and runs through age 18. I am a Little League graduate of the Berrien Springs Little League, Berrien Springs MI. When my folks moved back to Missouri, I played Babe Ruth Baseball and Highschool ball till graduation.

One day after graduation, my uncle asked me to help him coach his Little League team, and I did. The next year he asked me to take a team of my own and I did.

The following year I joined the Army to pay for my college education. Every post that I was assigned to had Little League Baseball. It would not be long till I would be asked to participate in one form or another.

When I left the Army, I came back here to raise my family. My son, like many of you wanted to play. I coached him until he choose not to play any more. I continued to be involved as coach, umpire and League President till one day at the district meeting we held an election. There were just 4 leagues in our district at the time. The DA was from Newport and most felt that every thing was slanted in Newports favor. I nominated myself and won the election.

I got envolved. I worked and spread the word about Little League and grew the District from 4 to 14 leagues in 5 years.

Now I am in my third term as DA. I have alienated my family to serve. I devote more hours per week to Little League than I do to my family or job. I think this exprience warrents my using the handle "youthbaseball expert". Anyone else comming into a situation with over 20 years of expirence would be considered a subject matter expert.

I came on this forum not to sell Little League, but to relax and have fun talking about baseball issues. I have read the comments about me and the program. I am not completely in love with anyone program or tied to anyone program. I do not get paid by Little League in any way nor I get anything extra by getting one more league to sign up with Little League.

I like to help the under dogs, give me a situation in which someones is down trodden and I can not help but help the under dog. This gets me on peoples bad side.

I am human and make mistakes. All of us do. But I am seemed to be held to a higher standard than most because of the position. I have although realised that no matter how hard I try, I am not going to please everyone. So, I try to please my self by doing the best possible job I can. If that is not good enough, then the League Presidents can elect someone else to take my place, with my blessing.

My only request is that the next time you think about calling someone a cheater, lier or some other label, remember to think what would they benefit from doing that? Be objective, is there a possible reason other than that? Your team or league is not the only one involved nor the most important one. The collective is.

Now I am going to leave you for awhile. This bickering and argueing is not fun and relaxing to me. I get enough drama from the ballpark and pro-*test*-('") call. Have a great post-season and rest of the summer.

Well put Youth...You do a great job as DA and I have tons of respect for you and what you do...Your correct, you can't please everyone all the time. You can only do what you think is right.

I think i will just leave this thread alone.......

Youth I have honestly heard rumors about you just yesterday. I take them with a grain of salt. I find it very hard to believe that you would favor "Mountain Home" or "Blytheville" as I was told because as you said, what would it benefit you to do so? I also was told and several people I know were told that you receive $2.00 for every child who is in Little League each year. Now, I personally think you probably deserve more than that for putting up with all that you have to, but people are telling this in a negative way as if to say you are trying to make money, not look out for youth baseball. I don't have to know you in order to disagree with this. But, since there is a large group of people from my area with this belief and a literal battle between those who want to go back to LL and those who want to stay out, I thought I would let you in on this while you were "clearing things up" for people. You seem well qualified for your position and for your "expert" title according to your resume and I say it is much harder to do what you do than people think.

The League Presidents inacted a District Registration 5 years ago to pay for all of the district tournament awards and the district office expenses like mail and the plus web site. A complete account of the fund is made to the league presidents each October. The fund normally runs $2-3000 short every year. I pick up the tab for this as a contribution to Little League.

This is just another case of trying to find something to blame me for. But without the fund how does each kid get his pens, metals, how do we mail the asap program that gets each league a 20% discount on the accident insurance and the umpire certifications. These and many more things are done that no one takes note of but would miss if it all stops.

I have attended the regional meeting in Waco for the past 7 years, attended the last 3 International Little League Congresses. These meetings cathered 3 regional tournaments for our district , 1 in trumann and 2 in Blytheville. That made our teams not have to travel to these tournament and got to sleep in thier own beds.

They can continue to talk about this if they want, but the ones involved know that I put in Hundreds of volunteer hours per week compared to the other program Directors like Cal Ripkin who is a Parks and Rec Director who gets a percentage of the concession stand to pocket, the USSSA directors is a cpa that host money making tournaments almost every weekend that he makes a reported $4000 per weekend to pocket and they complain about me paying for awards and buying gas for my truck when on Little League business,

Favoring Blytheville or Mountain Home?
The Blytheville Sportsplex has the best fields and facilities in the District. 3 regulation Little League fields with lights, grass that is like a putting green, grounds crew that is great, paints the field, 3 90 ft diamonds 3 batting cages and the support of dedicated volunteers to run tournaments for large size.

Mountain Homes fields were second to Blytheville. I did share the larger tournament between them. You need hotels and facilities to host big tournaments. These two places has them both.

But, if they mean rulings. The very reason delta got made at me was over a pro-*test*-('") by Mt Home against Delta that I ruled in Deltas Favor and was over turned by Region. It just does not make sinse, but neather does losing $14000 in Trumann this year because of USSSA.

Alot of the reason they lost that money in Trumann was because they ran Sharon off!

If they lost that much I would say they need to look into who is handling their money.
I know they were short but I would have to think it is because of the amount of rain we got this year.

No that was a small part. the reason they loss money was they left Little League and had fewer played home games at fleming field. ask Ronnie Haynes he is on the Trumann park board if you don't think I am right.

I don't understand how leaving LL made them have fewer games??? they played the same teams..??

It speaks volumes to me when they host the invitational tounaments and they advertise "Modified Little League Rules" to get enough teams for thier tournament to even make that it must have been a mistake to go USSSA.

well, that is just for fundraising tournaments. You have to do whatever brings the teams in.

If USSSA wants to stay in league ball they will have to lower the tournament fees and get more end of season organized or everyone will be back to LL.

No they did not. This year they were only able to play delta teams. In years past in the 12 and below ages they played SMC, NEA and Tri-County and in the 13 and above they played almost eveyone in the district. It was almost double the amount of games. Flemming had 2 games a night 4 nights per week. This year few double games per night 3 nights per week most single games.

Trumann did not play Nea and tri county in the past (12 under)

Thats true but if USSSA is so much better, why do you need to draw teams in foe tournaments using some other programs rules???