Oh, UW Rec Sports, you have done it to me again. Confused me, battered me and brought me down by your decisions.
My name is Adam Hoge and I'm a UW Rec Sports hater.
I love playing intramurals, but I am just tired of the scheduling hassles, rules and mistakes that constantly occur within the Rec Sports offices.
I excuse the officiating because I know it isn't easy to make calls that many professional officials mess up on a day-to-day basis, but I do not excuse the unexplainable rankings/seedings that are used and I do not excuse the postponement of a softball game on a day where it was 59 degrees and sunny.
When constructing the bracket used to schedule the softball tournaments, the Rec Sports offices seed the teams. Who knows how they do it, but certain teams get a bye when others don't—a common reward for teams that have proven that they are better than the rest.
After losing in last year's championship game, we returned with an even better squad this season. For some reason, however, we were given the No. 8 seed.
Obviously, Rec Sports isn't going to know how good all the teams are, but if they are going to seed them in a way that gives some an advantage over others, they have to at least look at who the captains are and keep in mind past years' results.
Instead, we were not given a first round bye and according to the Rec Sports website, we were supposed to play April 5 at 5:30 p.m.—a very inconvenient time to play, seeing how it was spring break and all.
Turns out, the game was actually scheduled for one of the first days back from break, but our captain, Cody Sulzer, was informed the day before the game that there was some kind of mistake and that there was not actually a team scheduled to play us that day. I guess it's good that we were at least seeded higher than Team ""NO TEAM"" (as it is written on the online bracket).
So we move on to the quarterfinals to play the almighty No. 1 seed who we promptly beat 18-0 in five innings. Who throws a two-hitter in slow-pitch softball?
But, oh wait, I forgot something. That quarterfinal game was played this past Sunday, exactly 17 days after the Spring Break early-primetime game against Team NO TEAM.
That was because the quarterfinal game was originally scheduled for April 15—a day that had an observed high of 59 degrees and precisely zero rain drops. Instead of playing softball because of ""bad weather"" we all played stickball and sand volleyball for three hours. We never really got an explanation as to why the game was postponed, but we assume it was because the fields were wet—something none of us have experienced growing up playing baseball in March and April in the Midwest.
Finally, the big day arrives on Sunday, April 22. What a beautiful day. It rained later that night, but we played at 3:30 when it was 82 and sunny. You know, I think I felt a few blades of grass that were moist. We probably should have moved it back a day.
Then there was another problem. Half the guys on our roster were people we had never heard of. Sulzer submitted a 20-man roster via e-mail and Rec Sports probably got 12 of those 20 names right.
After the game, he sent two e-mails to the Rec Sports offices to get the matter sorted out and never received a reply.
Of course, our semi-final game Monday was postponed because it was 60 degrees and partly cloudy at 6:30 p.m. when the game was supposed to start—extremely unsafe conditions for an April softball game. We were notified of that cancellation around 1:30 p.m.
The reason that is significant is because the game was moved to Tuesday, and, as you know, it rained the entire day yesterday. We assumed the game would be cancelled because if you can't play when it is partly cloudy, you would think that you couldn't play when it is raining. This time, however, we weren't notified of the postponement until 4:30, an hour and a half after the Rec Sports' own postponement deadline of 3 p.m.
Who knows when the season will actually end? When this is all over, we will have played a grand total of three games and by then the NBA playoffs might even be over.
Check the UW Rec Sports Web site to see if they add Hoge to the ""Banned Player List."" That is, if they can get his name right. He can be contacted at hoge@dailycardinal.com.
