The Journey · Day 13
When the Relationship Entered a Transition
Journey Marker: 2014 | Chickasha, Oklahoma — Wayne Burns, Steve, and the Bridge to 2015
By 2014, Chickasha felt established.
We had been holding the Brian Crawford Memorial Tournament there since 2010. We had survived weather, learned from cancellations, adjusted how we scheduled events, and developed what I considered a good working relationship with the city.
But something important was changing.
Not the fields.
Not Brian's tournament.
The administration.
For the years when our relationship with Chickasha developed, the Parks and Recreation director I worked with was Wayne Burns.
Then Wayne left.
My recollection is that he accepted another Parks and Recreation position in Kansas, possibly McPherson. I want to leave the specific city as recollection until I verify it against a contemporaneous record.
What matters to this part of The Journey is what happened during the transition.
From the Historical Record
The surviving USSSA record identifies the 9th Annual Brian Crawford Memorial as beginning March 21, 2014, at the Chickasha Sports Complex. It records 59 teams and $12,613 in team-entry-fee activity. The later Hidden Valley reconstruction calculates a minimum of 109 games.
Those numbers document the tournament activity.
They don't document what was happening administratively behind it.
That part comes from my memory.
Before Wayne Left
Firsthand Memory
Before Wayne left Chickasha, my understanding was that he had already taken care of what was necessary for the 2015 Brian Crawford Memorial Tournament to return to the Chickasha Sports Complex.
My recollection is that Wayne had taken it through the City Council process and secured approval for 2015.
He had handled the paperwork.
From my perspective, the next tournament was already taken care of.
That matters because Wayne's departure did not feel like the end of our relationship with Chickasha.
There was continuity.
Someone else would administer the department, but Brian's tournament already had a path into the next year.
Then Came Steve
My recollection is that an existing City of Chickasha employee named Steve was designated to oversee Parks and Recreation after Wayne left.
Steve wasn't a new city employee.
Quite the opposite.
This was going to be his final year before retirement.
I remember him describing himself to me as something of “the closer.”
The way I understood his description was that when a city department needed attention, he could be placed there to address issues, tighten things up, and then move on.
I don't present “the closer” as an official city title. That is how I remember Steve describing his role and how I understood it.
And Steve wasn't necessarily Wayne's long-term replacement.
He was the bridge.
Wayne had left.
Steve would oversee the department during his final year.
Then, after Steve retired, somebody else would become the Parks and Recreation director.
The Fields Were the Same
I noticed a difference during Steve's year.
From my perspective, things felt more policy-driven.
More structured.
More rigid than what I had experienced previously.
That doesn't mean Steve was wrong.
It doesn't mean Wayne was right.
They were different administrators.
But I began learning something I hadn't really considered before.
The fields hadn't changed.
The lights hadn't changed.
The parking lot hadn't changed.
Brian's tournament hadn't changed.
The person administering the facility had changed.
And that could change the experience of using the facility.
Looking Back
Years later, Integrity of the Game would lead me into much larger questions about public facilities, governance and institutional continuity.
But I wasn't asking those questions in 2014.
I was living through my first real administrative transition at a facility where we had built a successful relationship.
Looking back, I see something else now.
Wayne's departure didn't immediately break the relationship.
In fact, according to my recollection, he had already helped carry Brian's tournament forward by taking care of the 2015 approval before he left.
Steve then became the bridge.
That taught me something about continuity that I wouldn't fully appreciate until later:
A relationship between people can create opportunity. A good transition can help preserve it. But eventually the system has to survive without the people who originally built the relationship.
That test was coming.
“The fields hadn't changed. Brian's tournament hadn't changed. But the people administering the relationship were changing—and I was beginning to understand how much that mattered.”
Question for the Reader
When a successful community partnership survives because people understand and trust each other, what should be carried forward when those people leave—the relationship, the policy, the written agreement, or all three?
Next on The Journey
Because of what Wayne had already put in motion, the Brian Crawford Memorial returned to Chickasha in 2015.
The surviving USSSA record shows the 2015 event beginning March 27, with 34 teams and $7,354 in listed team-entry fees at the Chickasha Sports Complex.
But Steve was approaching retirement.
Another transition was coming.
And this time, Brian's tournament would be dealing with an administration that had not been part of the relationship Wayne and I had developed.
Next on The Journey: When the Bridge Ended—and a New Administration Took Over.