Interview with Ken VanEs of Eau Claire, Wisconsin

Ken VanEs is the Director of Parks and Recreations for the City of Eau Claire since 1985.  Prior to that, among other things, he was the Superintendent of  Recreation for ten years.  During that time, he was responsible for organizing and operating the softball program in Eau Claire.  At that time it still included She-Nannigans which was a national caliber fastpitch team.  He also was tournament director of "The Classic" fastpitch tournament for ten years. Although he never played fastpitch softball with the exception of one game in high school, he still enjoys the game and is an active fan.

Ken is married with three children, Christopher, 15, Katie 12,  and Laura 9.  He was also a high school basketball for 30 years which included working 6 state tourney championship games.  He is also an ordained Deacon in the Episcopal Church.

When the rest of us are thinking about the heat and humidity, Ken is busy organizing the world's best and largest softball tourney hosted by Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  It appears there is some experience in Eau Claire!

1.  At what time did Eau Claire start planning on a bid for the ISC? Early in 1999 the sports marketing manager approached our department concerning bidding on this tournament. We spent the next several months determining if there was enough community interest in doing it. We finally decided to go for it. Our local sports Commission then agreed to put up the money for the bid and we went forward.

2.  If you look at the history of successful host sites, they have always been smaller communities where volunteers play key roles in everything from parking to concessions.  Any comments on the volunteer status in Eau Claire.  How many volunteers would you estimate that you need for the ISC?

I agree!! This event is ideal for a smaller area versus a metro area the size of the twin cities. This event is big enough to draw a lot of attention in this size market. In a larger market this would compete for attention with larger events such as pro sports. We are estimating that we will need in the neighborhood of twenty five to thirty volunteers each hour of the day from approximately 7:30 a.m. to midnight. We are obviously breaking that into shifts of four to six hours. I'm not sure what the total number of volunteers will be when we get done but it will be a lot.

3.  Another thing that is a hallmark of the ISC is local media coverage.  How have you managed to get media support and coverage?

The media support was adequate to start with. They were interested but not really "hot" about it. We found though that they didn't really understand the difference between this tournament and a regular fast pitch softball tournament. Some of the media contacted previous host sights and found out a lot more about the tournament and the size of the tournament. Since then they have been really interested. We're anticipating excellent coverage.

4.  The worst nightmare of a tournament committee is rain delays suspending play and also extra inning games which further delay things.  How would you deal with this if confronted?

Well that is a down side to softball tournaments. We have plenty of experience with the annual tournament that we operate as most years we get at least one rain storm. We have tarps for both infields and we have state of the art material that drains extremely well. So hopefully if it does rain we will be able to resume play quickly. We also, have four extra fields that are lighted and we could use if needed. The issue there becomes being able to have enough umpires and scorers. Finally our two main diamonds are in the middle of a city park where the lights and the noise do not affect surrounding residential areas very much. We have on occasion played almost through the night in order to catch up for the next day. I've been at our local tournament when we had to turn the lights off to play the last few innings in the early AM.

5.  Eau Claire has a long history of being a fastpitch softball community and having successful tournaments.  Also considering the strength of softball in Wisconsin, do you feel that the fan support will be a significant advantage for area teams?

We have had a lot of inquiries and ticket purchases from the areas of Wisconsin that have teams coming. There are five Wisconsin teams in the tournament so I would anticipate that many fans would take advantage of the short trip to Eau Claire to see their favorite team. In addition, we have many fastpitch softball enthusiasts who have not seen a National Championship Tournament. I believe they will all show up for this one since it is the first time in Eau Claire.

6.  I would suspect that you have been involved in endless details.  Do you have anything humorous to share about the small level of details that goes into the planning and execution of an event this size? 

Recently, we had someone who wanted to know how many steps it was from the R.V. Parking to the gate, today we had a person want to know if their dog could attend the tournament and before that we had an E-mail from a person who wanted to make sure that we had canned beer sold in the stands not draft beer. It has not ceased to amaze me what questions and what level of detail you have to plan for. I am fully confident that when we open the gates on August 10th within the first half hour we will get a question on something that we didn't plan for. That's part of the fun of doing this however.

7.  Even though the tourney has not been held yet, would you have any advice for others on anything to do differently?

Yes, definitely. If we ever do this again there are several things we would do differently. One big one is start to solicit volunteers early. The two years from when we were awarded the bid and now has gone extremely fast. We tried not to get lulled into thinking that we had all kinds of time and we didn't think we were. However, now we find ourselves making some decisions that really could have and probably should have been made sooner.

Right now, since we have never done this before it is a little hard to know exactly what's going to happen. The size of the crowds, concessions, traffic issues, rain delays etc. So I think our organizing committee is caught between panic and jubilation that it is finally here. We are anticipating that the next three weeks are going to be one heck of a lot of work but it should be fun and rewarding to bring and event like this to Eau Claire.

Writers note:  I wish to thank Ken VanEs for his prompt and informative responses.  If we think we have headaches, imagine what Ken and the organizing committee are going through now!  Thanks Ken.

Merle Brendeland
mailto:mbrendeland@sauer-danfoss.com