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Monday, March 24 Erin's High School Project Start of the League For 12 years before SRSA came along, the girls of Scripps Ranch had to play softball as a part of the boys’ Scripps Ranch Little League. This meant that age divisions and rules were set up by the Little League Organization for every association. However, in ASA, each local association may set its own rules, but it must be within ASA guidelines for the development of players. For example, stealing, bunting, substitution, etc would be decided by the local leagues for recreation play, but ASA rules would be used for tournament play. For these reasons, Scripps Ranch softball aligned with ASA, in order to have more control of rules and to help the girls better their skills. On August 24, 1990 SRSA was created with improved rules, a new board, and a new start. SRSA History Timeline August 1990- On Sunday, August 24, at Jerabek Park, a meeting was held to discuss the future of softball in Scripps Ranch. In order to enhance the level of play, a unanimous decision was made to transfer the league from Little League Softball to American Softball Association (ASA). Thus it was on that date that the Scripps Ranch Softball Association (SRSA) was created with Tom Hankins as President and Aaron Freiser as Vice President. March 1991- The first season of SRSA was launched at Cypress Canyon Park on March 9. There were 17 teams, 180 girls (ages 6-16), and 4 divisions (seniors, majors, minors, and rookies). March 1993- On March 6, the 3rd season began with a record participation by 245 girls and 20 teams. Bob Swan also took over as President of the league. June 1993- The Scripps Ranch All-Star team hosted their 1st tournament on June 17-20, with 27-30 teams from leagues all around San Diego. With the success of the tournament, the Scripps Ranch All Star Tournament became an annual event. October 1993- SRSA started participating in GSF (Girls Softball Federation) or Fallball, which held double-headers every Sunday. This was a way to let the girls improve their skills in the fall as well as the springtime. March 1994- The 4th official season of SRSA began with a record 287 girls and 26 teams. March 1996- For the beginning of the 6th season of SRSA, the league installed a new President, Marci Exner, and had more players than ever before with 320 girls and 32 teams. March 1997- With the start of the 7th season of SRSA, the league increased to 370 girls and 37 teams. June 1997- The 10u Scripps Ranch All Star Team became the 1st Scripps Ranch team to play in the finals of the Scripps Ranch All Star Tournament with a 2nd place finish and a 9-4 loss to the Bonita All Star team. February 1999- Before the start of the 9th season of SRSA a t-ball division was added to include younger girls ages 5-6. June 1999- The 10u All Star team became the first Scripps Ranch team in SRSA history to win the Scripps Ranch All Star Tournament. March 2000- For the 10th season anniversary, SRSA was happy to announce over 400 girls were to participate. Also, Brad Foltz takes over as president, making some big changes with the draft and the divisions by splitting Minors into Minors A, B, and AA. December 2001- The Fallball 10u and 9u Scripps Ranch teams placed 2nd in their divisions for the North County Winterball Tournament. March 2003- When the 13th season of SRSA was about to commence, the league was pleased to announce that 3 of the 4 home fields were completely renovated and that there would be a record 450 girls. June 2003- For the first year, there were three All Star teams for 10u, Falcons (A-team), Hawks (B-Team), and the Condors (C-team). The 11th Annual Scripps Ranch All Star Tournament bragged the largest showing ever, with 78 teams and 7 Scripps Ranch teams all advancing to at least the quarter finals and the 12u team finishing undefeated. July 4th weekend, 2003- For the first time in league history the 12u All Star team qualified for the California State Tournament by placing 2nd at Districts. At state, the All Star team went 1-2 with losses to Valencia and Vista and a win over Torrence. The girls had an impressive season playing in six tournaments and reaching the finals and semi-finals in every single one. They also beat previously undefeated teams such as the Thousand Oaks All Star team (2003’s State Champs) and Bonita Valley All Star Team (2002’s National Champs). November 2003- 8 teams participated in Fall Ball, with 4 in the Mira Mesa league, 2 in the North County league, 1 in GSF, and 1 independent team (14u San Diego Thunder). June 2004- Scripps Ranch swept the El Cajon All Star Tournament with 1st place finishes in the 12u, 10u, and 8u divisions. Also, the 10u Falcons became the first Scripps team to win the South San Diego District Championship qualifying them for the State tournament. July 4th weekend, 2004- The 10u Falcons, champions of 4 Southern California tournaments, finished 5th at State’s in Lancaster. They lost the first game, but rallied back to win four consecutive games, which qualified them for Nationals. August 2-9, 2004- The 10u Falcons went 7-2 (2-0 in pool play, 5-2 in bracket play), beating 5 state champions to place third. They only lost to Bonita Valley, the eventual National Champions. February 2005- With approximately 400 girls signed up to play, SRSA becomes one of the largest leagues in the county. Also, Craig Brown becomes the next League president. May 2005- The first ever movie night is held at the fields with a showing of Sandlot. July 2005- The 8u Falcons take 2nd in Districts, but there was no State tournament for the 8u division yet. 2006 season- This season marks the 15th anniversary of the league. Don Robinson becomes the new League president. June 2006- The first 14u team is formed winning 1st place in the Super League (includes Mira Mesa, Poway, Rancho Penasquitos, and North Shore). June 2006- The 8u team goes undefeated and wins Districts. The 12u and 14u team played in the State Tournament, with the 14u team placing 2nd. The 8u team participated in the “Celebration of Champions” (a newly added round robin tournament for the 1st and 2nd place teams of Districts). August 2006- The 14u team wins 3rd out of 56 teams in Nationals. September 2007- Paul Pelland becomes the next League President.
Monday, March 24 Erin's High School Project - Interviews/Fun Facts Notable Alumni
Megan Alleman (pitcher)
Alexa Datko (pitcher)
Rachel Brown (pitcher)
Brad Foltz- How long were you president for? -Four years (2000-2004). However before I was president, my first year involved with the board I was in charge of publicity (sending things into the newsletter, flyers about registration). Then after that I took over scheduling. I also changed the uniforms and the logo (which is still used today). I worked with the people from Active Graphics to come up with it. Before me came Marcie Exner as president and she really got the ball rolling in improving the league. She took on a lot by herself. As president what kind of responsibilities did you have? -Basically everything falls to you more or less. The key thing with that is getting good people to do the different jobs. You oversee other people that volunteer, for example, the people who run the snack bar, do the schedule, organize the clinics, collect sponsors, take care of the fields, organize the All-Star tournament, order the trophies, and organize team pictures. The registrar and equipment manager are also important jobs. You make decisions along with the Board, so a lot of organizing, a lot of soliticiting people to be on the Board. The other thing that I did quite a bit of was reorganizing things, such as evaluation clinics and the draft. Do you know when did minors split in to A, B, and AA? -I was president when that happened. We split those divisions during my first year as president (2000). Was there any particular reason why you split those divisions? -Yes, because the ability level in the top kids and the bottom kids in that division was significant. It wasn’t as much fun for the kids who weren’t as good, so we wanted to give them a chance to succeed. What we did was make the rules different, so the top group for that age division we would have girls pitch. For the bottom division, we would have the girls pitch a little bit, but then have the coaches pitch and not have strike outs. That type of thing. Basically the bottom line was that we wanted everyone to have fun and we wanted everyone to be able to play with someone of their ability level. In this way, the girls with less talent would be able to have fun and still succeed and the girls with more talent could be in a more competitive environment. Were there any significant events or accomplishments while you were president? -First of all, I think my biggest accomplishment, was getting good people to help and be a part of the league, Doug Lampbell, Craig Brown, Mike Johnson, Steve Hodsgen, the whole Board. People that brought a lot and with their help we went from a league that just had a draft and games to a league that had clinics for the girls and the coaches. We got much better facilities (fields), sponsorships that provided a lot of money to help the league expand, and the competitive level of the better players went from not being able to compete with the teams in the county to being some of the best teams in the county. The whole community got behind the league and supported and participated in it. That was a huge accomplishment. We also added emphasis to the All-Stars and preparation for the All-Star season. So, we started earlier in the season with clinics and evaluating the girls who had All-Star potential. We were so far behind the other leagues that we had to pick it up. The practices and commitments were also much more intense in an effort to be able to compete. And also along the way, the coaches learned to be better coaches, and the league just evolved in a lot of ways. You said earlier that you changed the draft. How did you do that? -Initially the draft had an evaluation clinic, where coaches would just watch girls field some grounders, and hit some balls. Everybody did their own thing, took their own notes, and things like that. A lot of girls didn’t even come to it. Then you would have a draft where you would sit around and people would say ‘my daughter knows so and so, I would really like her to be on my team.’ Everybody would just say ‘ok, you can have her.’ By doing the draft this way, a lot of teams were very uneven. Sometimes a team would have 7 or 8 of the best girls in the league and other teams wouldn’t be very good at all because those coaches were just starting out in the league and weren’t familiar with any of the good players. During my first year, my goal was to reorganize the evaluation clinics. We gave each girl a numeric rating based on what all the coaches thought. The girls did a variety of drills (not just a couple grounders) and all the coaches gave them a number, which was complied into a consensus number. This way all the girls were ranked, so that any coach who came to the draft had an objective ranking of each girl. Even if they didn’t go to tryouts, they would be able to know where a girl’s ability level was compared to all the other girls. We also made changes to the draft. It used to be if a team gets first pick, the next gets second pick, and so on, then the next round the team would get first pick again and so on. What we did was match pitchers and catchers up, so that if you got a highly ranked pitcher you would not get the best catcher. We also implemented the snack draft, so if there were say 5 teams the draft would go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and the next round would go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. We made a really strong effort to make sure every team had good players on it and that the league was balanced. We wanted every team to have a chance to compete against other teams and not go a whole season without winning. Also, myself and later Craig Brown, we would supervise the drafts to make sure nothing was going on. Our biggest priority was just to make sure the teams were balanced. What was the most rewarding part of being involved with this league? -It was several things. One was just all the friendships that I made personally with people, all the friendships and experiences I had with the different girls I coached and got to know. The feeling of accomplishment that I had with the teams I coached, when after a lot of work we succeeded, like having girls that weren’t very good bond and feel like they were contributing to the team. Also, it was the satisfaction of seeing an organization get stronger and stronger and being able to contribute to the community in that way. It’s also very rewarding to see girls I used to coach around the community all grown up and successful.
How were you involved with league? -My daughters were playing when it was still Little League, they were like 8 years old. In 1991, the league shifted from Little League to the Scripps Ranch Softball Association under ASA. The people who mostly set up the league were Tom Hankins (the first president), Tom Steinke, and Bob Swan (the second president). I coached minors in 1991 and did a lot of assistant coaching after that. I also was on the Board as a coach coordinator for the league for a couple years. My biggest involvement though was due to the fact that I was president of SRCA, which meant I could get things done politically, like improve the fields. During your involvement, what were some significant events or accomplishments? -The league started just about the time Cypress Canyon Park opened, before that we only had Jerebek Park and Miramar Ranch Elementary School to play at. Little League controlled all those fields, so when the league was formed they moved to Cypress and continued to use one Jerebek Field (J1). When Cypress first came online it didn’t have all the facilities that were in the planning drawings. While the drawings showed backstops for all four fields, originally the big field was the only one with a backstop. So from 1991-1993, we managed to get all the backstops put in and we also had the big field set up with lights. Also during 1993, Bob Swan took over as President and played a huge part of creating the Scripps Ranch All-Star Tournament. He was an instrumental part in getting the All-Star teams to participate in lots of tournaments. After that I helped a bit around the league, then by 1995 I was out of the league because my daughter started playing travel ball. What were the divisions like when the league started? -When the league was set up, it was done purely like ASA. There was an 8u division (rookies), 10u division (minors), 12u division (majors), and 14u division (seniors), and some of the smaller girls still played t-ball with Little League. Also, there was only one All-Star team per age group, unlike what they are doing now. What was the most rewarding part of being a part of this league? -Teaching girls to play softball and to have fun. Just teaching the girls to throw, catch, bunt, and hit, the fundamentals of the game. The idea of softball is to just have fun and enjoy the game. If you win you win and if you lose you lose. As long as the girls get to try all the positions and learn to enjoy softball, that’s when I have fun. Fun Fact: In 1991-93, when the league was putting in the rest of the backstops, temporary ones were put in until they could be replaced. Once they were replaced, some of them were taken to Scripps Ranch High School and used to create pitching areas for the girl’s softball field.
Sunday, March 23 Erin's High School Project - The SRSA History Handout: ET's High School Project |
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