The SWAC BASEBALL tourney is history and thanks God none of our athletes, players, coaches or fans were hurt. The game film has been picked up by the national media, and through no fault of our own, negative images of the conference have been put out there. However, congratulations to both champion Southern University and Prarie View for representing their schools well in a record setting 15 inning championship baseball game.
There will always be different versions of what happened that night because of the shooting. PV will have their version an SU will have theirs. No matter how much SMACK is talked between the two schools, that won't change.
However, the SWAC office can learn some valuable lessons from this incident at its summer meetings this week and move forward. Here are some of the things that might be discussed based on first hand reports of people I talked to, who (both PV and SU) who actually attended the game.
1. The Baseball Tourneyment was well conceived but poorly organized. Fans said there was no support by the city of Birmingham and no media coverage by the city until the shooting. Commish Vowels and his staff did a poor job of publicising the game. There were no local media coverage, game programs, rosters, or brackets for fans buy or to see.
2. The field was in good shape, but the stadium seats looked like they hadn't been cleaned in years. Dust and dirt had caked up on the stadium seats. Someone should have cleaned them before expecting fans to sit there.
3. The safety issued and when to suspend a game really needs to be looked at and discussed by the conference. Safety should always come first, but some fools or kids could always shoot off a round or two in the air or light a firecracker. PV coach did the right thing in pulling his team for safety reasons if he didn't know what was going on. However to suspend a game until the next day after the all clear has been given by the cops sets a bad example. It gives power to the fools who then think they can stop a game at any time. I remember an SEC game once where there was a fire outside the stadium and they just kept on playing (lol) .
4. Lastly, the SWAC Office needs to just break down and admit that the only way they are ever going to make any money off of one of these chamionships is to put the game in a SWAC city where at least one of the top contenders resides. Hell, just do a coin flip or let a cities bid on getting it.
5. After this incident, do they really think fans ever want come back to Birmingham now or for any kind of SWAC Championships.
There will always be different versions of what happened that night because of the shooting. PV will have their version an SU will have theirs. No matter how much SMACK is talked between the two schools, that won't change.
However, the SWAC office can learn some valuable lessons from this incident at its summer meetings this week and move forward. Here are some of the things that might be discussed based on first hand reports of people I talked to, who (both PV and SU) who actually attended the game.
1. The Baseball Tourneyment was well conceived but poorly organized. Fans said there was no support by the city of Birmingham and no media coverage by the city until the shooting. Commish Vowels and his staff did a poor job of publicising the game. There were no local media coverage, game programs, rosters, or brackets for fans buy or to see.
2. The field was in good shape, but the stadium seats looked like they hadn't been cleaned in years. Dust and dirt had caked up on the stadium seats. Someone should have cleaned them before expecting fans to sit there.
3. The safety issued and when to suspend a game really needs to be looked at and discussed by the conference. Safety should always come first, but some fools or kids could always shoot off a round or two in the air or light a firecracker. PV coach did the right thing in pulling his team for safety reasons if he didn't know what was going on. However to suspend a game until the next day after the all clear has been given by the cops sets a bad example. It gives power to the fools who then think they can stop a game at any time. I remember an SEC game once where there was a fire outside the stadium and they just kept on playing (lol) .
4. Lastly, the SWAC Office needs to just break down and admit that the only way they are ever going to make any money off of one of these chamionships is to put the game in a SWAC city where at least one of the top contenders resides. Hell, just do a coin flip or let a cities bid on getting it.
5. After this incident, do they really think fans ever want come back to Birmingham now or for any kind of SWAC Championships.
