I want to start off by making it clear that the Tucson Basketball League, now in its 39th year, is a labor of love for me. In almost four decades, I have never made a penny running the League. (I break even or lose a little money each season for tax purposes.) I am, unequivocally, the worst businessman EVER! I didn't want to start off by complaining about things and then later stating how much I enjoy running the League. That would be the equivalent of something in Journalism called "burying the lede." (Yes, that's the way "lede" is spelled in the newspaper business.) It would be like if you read an article in the paper that started out with "The play 'Our American Cousin' was being performed at Ford's Theater last night and it drew a big crowd, including the President and his wife." The second paragraph would describe the plot of the play and who the stars were, and then, in the third paragraph, it would say "Oh, by the way, the President got shot while watching the play and is now dead." 

That's burying the lede.

Charles Dickens began his book "A Tale of Two Cities" with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." That's me at the start of a new season. We've got a lot of returning teams that are joined by a crop of new teams. Everybody is 0-0 with a full season ahead of them and the hopes of winning a Division championship in December. Those are the best of times. The accompanying worst of times involve teams that come and go with a callousness that defies description.

At the end of every season, we circulate sign-up sheets for teams that might want to play in the next season. There's no hard sell. Most teams want to return; some don't. We have teams that play in the summer and then their guys go off to college out of state. We have guys this time of year who just want to stay home on Sundays, watching football and drinking beer. There are lots of reasons why a team might not want to come back (some just take a season off and then come back refreshed). I wish those guys well and thank them for having participated. There are no hard feelings. The Tucson Basketball League isn't for everyone.

Here's the bad part. The teams that are scheduled to play the first week of the new season are generally teams that lost in the first round of the previous season's playoffs. That means that, for them, there is a gap of four or five weeks. Some teams, during that gap, might decide that they don't want to play despite having signed that sheet. That's fine. But what makes the start of the season un-fun is that many of these teams, for whatever reason, either decide to tell me that they're not playing a day or two before the season starts (after they're already on the schedule for Sunday) or they simply don't show up for their game. That causes a forfeit, after which I have to pay for the refs, the scorekeeper, the courts, and insurance, AND give the team that showed up an extra game. Those costs add up really quickly. I actually budget for a certain number of forfeits in a season, but if the actual number exceeds my estimate, I lose money for that season and that kinda' sucks.

This past Sunday, three different teams just flat didn't show up. No last-minute phone call, no apology, no nothing. I texted all three team captains that night and not one has returned my text. I sure hope they enjoy playing outdoors. Five other teams told me on Friday or Saturday that they wouldn't be playing this season. 

THEN, I have one of my scorekeepers contact every team that will be playing on Sunday and let them know how much they are expected to pay that first day. (Returning teams pay half in each of their first two games, while new teams must pay in full their first day.) I had a new team come with $83.00 and ask if they could just make payments as the season went along. I actually gave them back $90 and said that they should start saving up for the Winter season that starts in January. 

Finally, I had a guy come up to me and say, "Wow, you have all these teams and they each pay this much money. You must be rich." I explained that if we have x teams and they each pay an entry fee of y, then we take in xy dollars. But then, I have all of the aforementioned expenses throughout the season and I have to spend a large amount of money on Championship shirts at the end of the season. With luck, we take in xy and xy goes out. All too often, we take in xy, but xy+n goes out. 

That guy had to have gone to a charter school.

Ahh! I feel so much better having gotten that out. Let's have a great season.