The Journey · Day 15
When I Stopped Looking for a Weekend and Started Building an Operation
Journey Marker: Fall 2015 | Choctaw, Oklahoma — Application, Interview, and the Bouse Sports Complex RFP
Yesterday's story ended with me looking for another place to hold Brian's tournament.
The $10,000 nonrefundable requirement I remembered being presented at Chickasha had changed the calculation. I wasn't looking for a new career. I wasn't trying to operate a public sports complex.
I needed fields.
Choctaw kept coming up.
Firsthand Memory
While the new Bouse Sports Complex was being planned, I remember a friend periodically calling and asking what I would do with different parts of a baseball complex.
What would I do with the infields? I said artificial turf because I had lived through enough rainouts.
What would I do with the backstops? I preferred netting instead of chain link.
In my later oral history, I remembered learning afterward that Choctaw had approved turf for the eight infields and netting around the backstops.
I do not present those conversations as proof that my suggestions caused the City's design decisions. They are my recollection of how I became increasingly interested in what Choctaw was building.
I Thought Maybe This Was the Door
Then I learned Choctaw was hiring a Parks and Recreation director.
I was retired from the fire department and doing some substitute teaching. One day, while sitting at a computer, I found the job posting.
It was about to close.
I applied.
My memory is that I submitted the application before the deadline and received confirmation from the city clerk that it had been received.
After the position closed, I waited.
Eventually, I spoke with the city manager and was told they had not received my application. I explained that I had confirmation. I was asked to send it again.
I did.
Then I received an interview.
I remember the city manager driving me around Choctaw and showing me the parks.
And I remember allowing myself to believe something.
Maybe this was where Brian's memorial was supposed to go next.
There was discussion of field sponsorships. In my mind, I could see Brian's logo on those fields. I was thinking bigger than a tournament weekend now.
I was imagining permanence.
I didn't get the job.
That hurt.
But the story didn't end there.
The Door Changed Shape
After the Parks and Recreation position was filled, I still needed a place for Brian's tournament.
So I contacted Choctaw about getting a weekend.
My recollection is that I later received a call telling me the City's direction had changed. Rather than having the Parks and Recreation director simply operate everything at the new complex, Choctaw was going to seek outside proposals for the field operations and for concessions.
I was invited to submit one.
So I did.
What began as a search for one weekend turned into a proposal for year-round operations.
I remember assembling an extensive response covering leagues, tournaments, scheduling, officials, fees and how I believed the complex could operate.
I initially pursued both the field-operation and concession opportunities, but I was told the two functions would be separated.
I chose the fields because tournaments were where my experience was.
At the time, I wasn't building a governance model.
I was solving a problem.
From the Historical Record
Unlike some earlier parts of The Journey, this transition is anchored by contemporaneous documentation.
A December 2, 2015 City of Choctaw acceptance letter states that Brian Crawford Memorial's proposal was dated October 23, 2015, that a presentation followed on October 30, and that the City accepted the proposal to operate the baseball and softball leagues and tournaments at Bouse Sports Complex.
The letter also states that our proposal was not selected for concession operations and that a contract would follow.
That letter changes the nature of the story.
Memory tells me what I was thinking. The document tells me what happened.
Looking Back
Years later, when I began formalizing Integrity of the Game, I could see that those early tournament years had been preparing me for responsibilities I did not recognize at the time.
Fields had to be scheduled.
Teams had to be coordinated.
Entry fees had to be collected.
Officials had to be managed and paid.
Choctaw was where those lessons were about to become much larger.
I had spent years being the person asking someone else for fields.
Now I was being invited to become the organization responsible for operating them.
That meant schedules.
Officials.
Leagues.
Tournaments.
Money.
Contracts.
Relationships with the City.
And responsibility when something went wrong.
I didn't know it yet, but this was the beginning of the education that would eventually move me from tournament director to facility operator—and much later, from operator to researcher.
The later BCM Sports research framework describes Bouse as the point where the memorial organization moved from being a facility renter and tournament user into recurring municipal facility operations, league administration, gate activity, officials management and municipal usage obligations.
The view of youth sports was about to change because my position inside the system was changing.
“I went looking for three days to hold Brian's tournament. What I found was an opportunity to learn what happened the other 362 days of the year.”
Question for the Reader
When an unexpected setback opens a much larger opportunity, how do you decide whether you are truly prepared for it—or whether the only way to become prepared is to step through the door?
Next on The Journey
On December 2, 2015, the City put it in writing.
Brian Crawford Memorial had been selected for the field operation.
A contract was coming.
And the responsibility I had spent years watching from the outside was about to become mine.
Next on The Journey: From Tournament Director to Facility Operator — Building BCM Sports at Bouse.
The Journey is a continuing first-person series tracing the path from family, baseball and memorial work to research, public accountability and youth sports reform.