Texas Thoughts???

[jessexy]

Anyone have thoughts on Texas hosting this year's National Championships?

People had plenty to say after Blaine last year and leading up to Plano this year, but what are the afterthoughts?

Weather?
Fields?
Location?
Technology?
Facilities?
Coverage?
Volunteers?
Night-Life?
Travel accessibility?
Hotels?
Restaurants?

Just covering some of the questions people had leading up to the tourney

[Ben Clark]

Well, as far as restaurants and night life, those are both covered by a little place we like to call Restaurant Sports Bar. I'm sure all of the volunteer staff will agree.

[Pinball]

the only complaint that i think people can register is:
-It was really hot, really hot
-Fields were really hard and the far fields #6 and $7 were really pathetic, and those fields the B Consolation games were on.
-The Stadium was AMAZING
- Staff was nice, espcially the "water boys and girls"
- Had to pay for the trainers (besides championship game)?? What was that??
- warm up mixes were questionable (now i am just being picky)

OVERALL JOB WAS AWESOME!!!

How about next year having the Womens game, then the Mens B then A. Seems to be the smart thing as the womens game is so diffrent from the mens and they draw a diffrent audience.

[CP18]

the only complaint that i think people can register is:
-It was really hot, really hot
-Fields were really hard and the far fields #6 and $7 were really pathetic, and those fields the B Consolation games were on.
-The Stadium was AMAZING
- Staff was nice, espcially the "water boys and girls"
- Had to pay for the trainers (besides championship game)?? What was that??
- warm up mixes were questionable (now i am just being picky)

-Tuesday and Saturday were Hot. You could not have asked for better weather on Wed, Thurs, and Friday. Cool enough where everyone wore jackets in the morning. Most players will admit, playing in heat, is better than 40 degrees and drizzle.
-All consolation games for the most part got the shaft when it came to quality of fields. Want to play on the best fields throughout the tourney, WIN. By no means were the back fields 'pathetic' Most fields in North Texas will be hard, and fast, due to the climate and part of the country.
-The Championship Stadium was amazing. Need to get the semis in there next year.
-On the trainers, if you didn't have to pay, I am sure everyone and their brother would have gone and gotten their ankles taped.
-Music is generic for the fans which covers little kids, teenagers, parents, and grandparents. The music is not meant to get 'players' fired up. For that, wear your IPOD during warm ups.

GREAT JOB DALLAS!

[Ken Lovic]

Keep 'em coming guys. We are always trying to improve the event and anything you can add will help. Not sure if the stadium will have us back after the field goal incident ... we shall see.

Weather- I thought was perfect. Yea it was hot on 2 of the days but otherwise IDEAL!

bathrooms- i wanted to see more of them. I know that everyone hated running to one location which was no where near most of the fields.

FINALS- we had to do womens in between the A and B so CSTV could cover the finals of Womens and Men A.

[teslax14]

The first day of games (Tuesday) was VERY HOT! Besides that, Dallas was much better than Minnesota. I would rather play in the heat any day over the cold. I agree with the bathroom situation. Playing on field 7 made it a long walk to the restroom so many of the players on my team decided to just pee behind the bench seeing that the grass could use some liquid. Little did we know that there was a school right behind our bench which lead to the cops being called...we didn't pee there again. Dallas was GREAT!!!

[Dulax31]

I have to admit, I wasn't all that hyped when the tourney got moved from Minnesota, but Plano was sweet! Hopefully they will decide faster next time about the tourney location.

Weather - beautiful, except for the first day (that was heat stroke hot).

Fields - some of the fields were just garbage, field #7, and #8 might has well been paved, it was like playing in a parking lot. Those are the only fields I played on so I can't say anything about the other fields, they seemed to look about the same, but the championship stadium was Sweeeeeeeeet!

Location - Flights to Dallas were under $200 each. City was great, alot to do and see, but everything was a little spread out. It took us 20 minutes to get to the fields.

Technology - Lights, Scoreboards, Speakers, and Live updates couldn't get much better, awesome work.

Facilities - Great layout and awesome work putting it all together, but I don't think anyone really used those tents teams rented out though. NEED to get semi's in the Stadium!!!!

Coverage - Awesome, getting better every year!

Volunteers - Great, but seemed kind of clueless at times, but hey thats why they are volunteers! Wish Minnesota could have had them.

Night-Life - Awesome, lots to do!

Travel accessibility - Good parking, good location, Plano was much larger then I think we were all expecting. Kinda took a long time to get around P-town.

Hotels - Ours were a great price and good service, kinda far from the fields though.

Restaurants - Great, lots to choose from, I LOVE Sonic!

[Kevin OBrien]

Well, as far as restaurants and night life, those are both covered by a little place we like to call Restaurant Sports Bar. I'm sure all of the volunteer staff will agree.

I hear they're a franchise operation. I myself am planning on trying to get the rights to the Wooster MA and Columbia SC locations....

Care to throw in for a slice of the RSB pie? It comes with lesbians, bad music and karaoke....

[Ben Clark]

Well, as far as restaurants and night life, those are both covered by a little place we like to call Restaurant Sports Bar. I'm sure all of the volunteer staff will agree.

I hear they're a franchise operation. I myself am planning on trying to get the rights to the Wooster MA and Columbia SC locations....

Care to throw in for a slice of the RSB pie? It comes with lesbians, bad music and karaoke....

Actually KOB, it's Worcester. You had better hope no Worcester townies read this board. If they do, it's already too late for you.

But seriously, come on down to Restaurant Sports Bar! Free box lunch!

[shrekjr]

Weather - I would think any weather you might see in future years was seen at one time or another last week. It could be consistently the same all week, or it could very easily be like it was...drastically different every day. The only thing we didn't have last week was ice/sleet, which is rare but does occasionally occur in Texas, even in May.

Location - There is an older stadium (Clark) in Plano that is the same size as Kimbrough and is in the process of putting down the same type of new turf as we speak. However, it is right on the highway (hwy75) and much more convenient than Kimbrough. But as I said, Kimbrough is much newer, and VERY nice

Technology - I thought all of Sonny's guys did a great job. The only technology problem I knew about was the CSTV truck wanting to tie into the PA system and Kimbrough isn't set up to do that. The other thing I noticed on Saturday was too many people trying to talk on the same radio channels. We either need more channels or less people who think they are in charge of something.

Facilities - The problem with putting the semi's in the stadium is the conflict with spring football practice. There were high school spring games in Kimbrough Monday, Thursday and Friday. I don't ever see them willing to give up those dates. However, when Clark has the new turf soon, that will open available dates for football or lacrosse.

Bathrooms on fields 7 & 8 will definitely be addressed!

Coverage - Again, great job by Sonny's crew. However, I do believe we (local group) need to do a better job of publicizing the event.

Volunteers - LOTS of volunteers, both local and national. As far as being confused, you can thank USL for that. EVERYDAY, USL would change the game schedule without the local volunteers being informed. I was even there one day (Friday?) when USL did bring a list of changes, but even that list had already been changed and wasn't correct. The result was volunteers showing up to fields late, showing up to fields with no teams playing, and worst of all, not being able to answer questions! There certainly needs to be a better line of communication from USL to the local volunteers. I can understand shuffling teams between brackets in consolation games to avoid playing certain teams again, but I don't understand why a bracket of game times and fields can't be set at the beginning of the week and not altered.

[azlaxmax45]

awww cmon now...the weather wasnt THAT bad...comin from an az player


bathrooms: a few port-o-johns and we'd be solid.

fields: game fields were stellar, practice fields could have been better, but not that big of a deal.



only real problem some of us had was the scoreboard for the non-championship games. it was put in a corner, obviously to prevent it from getting hit with a shot, but if you were on the sideline it was kind of hard to see the score/time, so the only thing we could think of was getting an extension cord or something and putting it more towards the middle of the endline, maybe behind the fence so it wouldnt get hit.

[tboward]

Dont think they can be beat! I love watching someone enjoy a box lunch!

[LAXADAZICLE]

Thanks Texas! We had a great time. Everyone was very friendly and helpful. The facilities were great, and the weather was beautiful (excluding Tuesday) There were tons of restaurants and many of them went above and beyond the call of duty for our group. We went to Fort Worth one day and checked out the Stockyards, the Cattleman's Steak House and Billy Bob's. We are looking forward to watching the game on CSTV, sounds like you did a great job on that as well. We waited too long and the USLIA sports shirts had sold out. Any chance of more of those becoming available? Thanks to all the people that made it all happen. I'm sure it was a lot of work and we appreciate it!

[horn17]

I have to admit, I wasn't all that hyped when the tourney got moved from Minnesota, but Plano was sweet! Hopefully they will decide faster next time about the tourney location.

Weather - beautiful, except for the first day (that was heat stroke hot).

Fields - some of the fields were just garbage, field #7, and #8 might has well been paved, it was like playing in a parking lot. Those are the only fields I played on so I can't say anything about the other fields, they seemed to look about the same, but the championship stadium was Sweeeeeeeeet!

Location - Flights to Dallas were under $200 each. City was great, alot to do and see, but everything was a little spread out. It took us 20 minutes to get to the fields.

Technology - Lights, Scoreboards, Speakers, and Live updates couldn't get much better, awesome work.

Facilities - Great layout and awesome work putting it all together, but I don't think anyone really used those tents teams rented out though. NEED to get semi's in the Stadium!!!!

Coverage - Awesome, getting better every year!

Volunteers - Great, but seemed kind of clueless at times, but hey thats why they are volunteers! Wish Minnesota could have had them.

Night-Life - Awesome, lots to do!

Travel accessibility - Good parking, good location, Plano was much larger then I think we were all expecting. Kinda took a long time to get around P-town.

Hotels - Ours were a great price and good service, kinda far from the fields though.

Restaurants - Great, lots to choose from, I LOVE Sonic!

Thats only because you got lost like 6 times, and didnt know the 5 minute short cut to the field......

[OldRamAlum83]

Weather - I would think any weather you might see in future years was seen at one time or another last week. It could be consistently the same all week, or it could very easily be like it was...drastically different every day. The only thing we didn't have last week was ice/sleet, which is rare but does occasionally occur in Texas, even in May.

Location - There is an older stadium (Clark) in Plano that is the same size as Kimbrough and is in the process of putting down the same type of new turf as we speak. However, it is right on the highway (hwy75) and much more convenient than Kimbrough. But as I said, Kimbrough is much newer, and VERY nice

Technology - I thought all of Sonny's guys did a great job. The only technology problem I knew about was the CSTV truck wanting to tie into the PA system and Kimbrough isn't set up to do that. The other thing I noticed on Saturday was too many people trying to talk on the same radio channels. We either need more channels or less people who think they are in charge of something.

Facilities - The problem with putting the semi's in the stadium is the conflict with spring football practice. There were high school spring games in Kimbrough Monday, Thursday and Friday. I don't ever see them willing to give up those dates. However, when Clark has the new turf soon, that will open available dates for football or lacrosse.

Bathrooms on fields 7 & 8 will definitely be addressed!

Coverage - Again, great job by Sonny's crew. However, I do believe we (local group) need to do a better job of publicizing the event.

They played the Big 12 tournament at Clark on the smaller fields which I believe are natural Turf. I thought they were better fields and the fields backed on to each other. Both have stadium seating. Would be great for the Semi-finals. Any Colorado or Texas players out there? They played on both, it would be interesting to see what they had to say. Kimbrough was really nice but that nexturf looked kind of soft and slow at times. The ball just died on the field on several over throws.

With regard to the coverage Sonny and company did a great job. My only criticism is that the promoters should've put up USL/USLIA banners the Friday before the tournament. I have a friend who lives only five blocks from Russell Creek and he never would've known about it without me calling him. Can't they get the schools with Lacrosse programs to put up some posters?