Everything is great - in theory

Ah, humble beginnings... Sideshow Bob did some dork searching this weekend and dug up some interesting items from the archives of a season gone by in the DC Kickball scene. And I do mean DC Kickball, not just kickball in DC. It seems that there were some admirable thoughts from the league's founder in the not so distant past and in a place not so far from here. But we all know that even the road to kickball Hell is paved with good intentions.

I submit from the founder's blog archives:

DCKickball Manifesto What would the perfect kickball league be like, if you were building it from scratch and could learn from the past?


A noble start and very understated. Here are some of the ideals for the founder's perfect kickball league:

Reward Volunteers People who volunteer to help run the league play for free. That's the least a league could do. This applies to board members, team captains, and season-long referees.

Communication Create a website to effectively communicate important information: The current week, game match-ups (locations/times) Results from past weeks Maps/directions to fields News/blog BB boards Set-up listserves for all relevant entities in the league: the captains the board each team

FUN! Priority #1 is to reach an agreement with a bar over drink/food specials for kickball players.
Having tables set-up in advance is a plus. Once all costs are accounted for (insurance, equipment, overhead, etc), all money is directed to the "party" account. Three parties (pre/mid/post) are probably sufficient. Insufficient attention has been paid towards making the happy hours more fun. This will be rectified.


I play in DC Kickball and think it is fair, a year and a half after this post, to see how it has help up to its original manifesto. Let's keep in mind that at the time, DC Kickball was a non-profit and since has been turned into a business. I think that matters.


Reward Volunteers: the original concept was a clear departure from WAKA, where the founder of DC Kickball served as uncompensated division president. From speaking board members they do play for free but the season long refs I'm not sure do. If someone has info to the contrary please let me know.


Communication: The website does tell you where you are playing, when, and the times but are not particularly attractive. If there is a team listserve for captains to communicate to players, none of mine have ever used it. As we know from past entries there was an interactive blog that since a few posts from me here has been shutdown and is used now just for announcements. Their now is a league message board that you have to be pre-approved to be on and if you disagree with anything you are usually flamed quickly.


Fun: This is the second (after communication) if not MOST important aspect for many kickball players - is the league fun? I think it's difficult to say that most are not. However there were certain goals in mind for the beginning of DC Kickball. The first, "... reach an agreement with a bar over drink/food specials for kickball players" was acheived. The second, "Once all costs are accounted for (insurance, equipment, overhead, etc), all money is directed to the 'party' account", may have been the case in season one but has not been this year. In fact, now 25 percent of the money left over goes to the division for the party. That's only 5 percent more than the Kash guys!


The third, "Three parties (pre/mid/post) are probably sufficient" has been upheld. You do get three parties and also a flip cup tournament. The last, "Insufficient attention has been paid towards making the happy hours more fun. This will be rectified" To my knowledge there has been no schedule for happy hours officially from DC Kickball. I don't know why, I guess it's just not a priority. Thus, this has been a failure.


I think overall out of these three goals, the first is half achieved, the second half achieved, and the third half achieved. Thus in my ranking of leagues DC Kickball rates about the Kash guys one because they are cheaper and they do give 5 percent more back to parties. But that's not saying much.


It seems that in the beginning the founder had the right idea - let's make a league that's player friendly, fun, and less expensive and better than WAKA. As a non-profit this goal seems to have been met. Since it has been made a business though it has become WAKA jr. - smaller scale, a little cheaper, a little more given back. He makes the money, kickballers do the work - sound familiar? At least the volunteers get to play for free.


That's hardly the "ideal kickball league" he was going for. But then, Communism is good in theory too.