Embedded Files
After talking with several of the Regulars who haven't been showing up as often lately and giving this a lot of thought, I've come up with a plan for how we're going to run our Thursday Night Hoops group moving forward.
Let me apologize up front for the length of this blog post. There's a lot of ground to cover here.
I want to start by making a few points clear up front:
There's no way to handle this where someone isn't getting the short end of the stick. Either the guys who've been playing with us the longest or the new guys who have recently started playing with us. Without some type of changes, everyone will be unhappy.
There are no bad guys here. As I describe how we got here and what our plans are moving forward, I don't want anyone to feel like I'm criticizing them or to take anything personally. I'm not blaming anyone who invited their friends to join us. I'm not blaming the guys who want to play with us. I'm not blaming anyone for not policing things better. I'm just explaining how we got here.
But without someone willing to be the bad guy, we're going to be stuck where we're at.
I considered several different options on how to make some changes for what seemed the most fair:
One suggestion was limiting it to the first 15 people who showed up each night. But I didn't like this option, because the guys who have been playing with us the longest could get bumped by the newer guys just because they got there first.
I also considered just looking at seniority. Who has played with us the longest. But that didn't seem right either, because someone could have just played a handful of games with us a long time ago and consider themselves grandfathered in.
So what I've decided is the most fair is dividing our group into Regulars vs Subs. The criteria to make that distinction is the cumulative total number of nights playing with our group over all four years.
So I've given my best guess at ranking everyone based on how many times I think they've played with us over those four years and I've made Trystan be the cut off for last official person we'll be including in the Regulars vs the Subs.
Click On This Google Sheet Below To See It Full Sized
I know that this list of Subs is missing quite a few names. I only had the names that Scott passed along to me.
But the main distinction that really matters is whether you made the cut of Regulars or not.
And I know that there are going to be several guys who ended up on the Subs list who have been playing with us quite a bit these past couple of months who aren't going to be happy with where they ended up.
But if you look at the number of people we already have on our list of Regulars, that's 24 guys. And you really don't want more than 15 guys showing up on any one night or that's just too many guys.
I want to be transparent and say that this wasn't a decision that I made lightly.
As the luck of the draw would have it, it seems like Judo and Jeff from the Subs list have been on my teams more often than not and I already consider them friends.
And I know that some of the guys on the Subs list like Judo, Nate Edgar and others have given money to Scott in the past and probably felt like that made them part of our group now.
But we just have too many guys in our Regulars. We should have cut it off earlier and let other people know they could play with us as Subs. But we didn't do that earlier and I apologize for that.
So going forward, here's how we're going to handle our Thursday Night Hoops group:
1) There's no limit on how many Regulars can show up. While there are 24 names on this list, I'm sure it fluctuate quite a bit up and down. I'm guessing some nights we'll get 10 and some nights we'll get 17.
2) As a Sub, if less than 15 Regulars show up, you can play with us that night. But you'll just be considered a Sub.
The way we'd determine how many Subs get to play is by free throws. The Regulars are automatically on teams.
Any open spots that are left are filled by Subs until the total number of people playing for the night reaches 15.
3) Regulars need to pay $5 every night they play. You can either pay me in cash or my Venmo is https://venmo.com/BrianCalibrate
You're paying to be guaranteed a spot to play.
4) Subs don't have to pay because it's a gamble on whether or not you'll get to play with us on any given Thursday.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
I tried to think of the most common scenarios that could happen with this new system going forward. Here's some of the most common FAQ's that I could think of:
What Happens If There's Less Than 15 Regulars To Start With But More Regulars Show Up Later?
I think this is actually likely to happen sometimes. If you're a Sub and there's less than 15 Regulars, so you start off playing with us, but more Regulars show up later, then you can keep playing with us as long as you're on the winning team that is still on the floor. But once your team loses, you'll get bumped. That obviously doesn't mean you need to leave the Y or anything. You'll just need to move over to another court.
Are These Regulars and Subs Lists Carved In Stone?
Not at all and that's why I think this is the fairest way to handle this. If someone is on the Regulars list and they stop showing up, then they will slowly start moving down the list. And if someone is a Sub who regularly ends up playing with us, then they could eventually earn a chance to become a Regular. But keep in mind that will only be the case if we have less than 15 Regulars showing up a lot of the time.
I Can't Afford To Pay $5 Every Time We Play
I don't want the money to be a dealbreaker for any of our Regulars. There's nothing to be embarassed about. Just reach out to me privately and I'm sure we can work something out.
Can I Invite My Buddy To Join Our Group?
Not without talking to me first. I can't see any time in the foreseeable future where we'll be adding any more Regulars to the group. But you never know.
I Don't Think This Is Fair And I Think We Should Handle This Differently
There's probably no perfect solution, but this is what I've decided after talking to some of the long timers in the group and giving this a lot of thought. If you're mad and want to leave, we have lots of guys who want to play and you're welcome to start your own group. Not to be harsh, but as the guy who is paying money to reserve the court and who started this group in the first place, I will listen to everyone's feedback, but I get to make the final call.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I'm sure this will be a bit of an adjustment the first few weeks, but I hope once the dust settles and some of the Regulars start coming back, things will get back to normal.
Some of our Regulars have been out with SY being in Korea until the end of May, Matt's wife is pregnant, Tristan has been busy with his kid's school activities and a few others stopped showing up because it just got too crowded.
So we'll see how things shake out with these new changes.
Not everyone who is going to be considered a Sub now is on the text thread, so this will probably come as a surprise to some of them.
I would appreciate help from the Regulars in spreading the word so I don't have to do all the heavy lifting on my own.
Thanks for taking the time to read through all of this and let me know if anyone has any questions or thinks of anything that I didn't cover here.
Page updated
Report abuse