Next time you step on to your playing field to participate in your favorite sport, make sure you take the time to say thank you to your clubs grounds keepers. They're the guys & girls who spend heaps of time and put in a huge effort to ensure that the playing surface that you're about to play on is the best it can possibly be.
Some grounds keepers are employed to perform these tasks but for most sports & clubs at grass roots level, grounds keepers are volunteers. They give up their time and effort purely for the love of the game and their club.
Please take the time to say thank you at least once per season. We know it will be very appreciated.
We here at Sports Of All Sorts.com salute our grounds keepers. Without them, our games would not be as safe, exciting & fun!!!!
JASON Tutt's journey to the AFL is as bizarre as any you could find.
The 20-year-old from Ainslie in the ACT wasn't playing in the under-18s three years ago when the likes of Nic Naitanui, Michael Hurley and Chris Yarran were jockeying for top 10 positions in the 2008 national draft.
In fact, he wasn't playing football at all, instead captaining Australia's team to victory in the under-19 World Softball Championships in Yukon, Canada.
Yes, softball, an event played at Olympic level by women and one never previously associated with producing a promising AFL player.
On debut for the Western Bulldogs against Port Adelaide last Sunday, the line-breaking Tutt picked up 26 possessions and kicked four goals, and then promptly signed with the club in a show of faith from both parties.
So how does a softball catcher and short-stop end up being drafted with pick No.31 in the 2009 draft?
"At school I pretty much copied whatever my older brother Ryan did, so when he started playing T-ball I followed," Tutt said.
"T-Ball led into Mod Ball which was followed by softball and baseball once I reached under-12 level. I was still playing Australian rules in the winter."
But so proficient was Tutt at softball that by 13 he was selected to play for the ACT team in the national under-16 titles. Two years later the ACT won the titles with Tutt named as the most valuable player.
After that his progression to the national team was fast-tracked and a trip to New Zealand was followed by the world titles.
"Where we were playing in Yukon is up near Alaska. The games drew big crowds, like 6000 for our final," he said.
"But once I had achieved the world title there isn't much after that in the world of softball. You can play in the US or Japan for six months of the year but the pay isn't great."
So Tutt had to make the call. When chosen for the 2008 under-19 softball team, part of the deal was he wouldn't play AFL in case of injury.
Once he returned, it was time to find out whether he could cut it in football.
He played 2009 with the NSW-ACT Rams, although at 177cm he needed something special given AFL recruiters prefer 183cm and above.
Tutt, an excellent kick, didn't believe he would get drafted and figured he always had softball, or baseball, to fall back on.
"But the Bulldogs gave me a chance and right now I'm very happy they did. I have a long way to go but my first game was a good start," he said. "My old softball mates were great, sending me messages to say how happy they were for me."
Congratulations Jason on a fantastic AFL debut!!!!
It's nearly that time again!!!! Time to drag all last year's softball gear out of the closet and give it the once over! Some gear will just need a clean up and its as good as new. Other bits will need replacing cos you've grown out of it or its just worn out and will need replacing.
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You'll have the choice of the finest, quality softball footwear!
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The word "Sportsmanship" is often overused in today's society but the story of Sara Tucholsky, Mallory Holtman & Liz Wallace is one of the most inspiring stories of true sportsmanship ever!!!
Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky had never hit a home run in her career. Central Washington senior Mallory Holtman was already her school's career leader in them. But when a twist of fate and a torn knee ligament brought them face to face with each other and face to face with the end of their playing days, they combined on a home run trot that celebrated the collective human spirit far more than individual athletic achievement.
Both schools compete as Division II softball programs in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Neither has ever reached the NCAA tournament at the Division II level. But when they arrived for Saturday's conference doubleheader at Central Washington's 300-seat stadium in Ellensburg, a small town 100 miles and a mountain range removed from Seattle, the hosts resided one game behind the visitors at the top of the conference standings. As was the case at dozens of other diamonds across the map, two largely anonymous groups prepared to play the most meaningful games of their seasons.
It was a typical Saturday of softball in April, right down to a few overzealous fans heckling an easy target, the diminutive Tucholsky, when she came to the plate in the top of the second inning of the second game with two runners on base and the game still scoreless after Western Oregon's 8-1 win in the first game of the afternoon.
"I just remember trying to block them out," Tucholsky said of the hecklers. "The first pitch I took, it was a strike. And then I really don't remember where the home run pitch was at all; [I] just remember hitting it, and I knew it was out."
A part-time starter in the outfield throughout her four years, Tucholsky had been caught in a numbers game this season on a deep roster that entered the weekend hitting better than .280 and having won nine games in a row. Prior to the pitch she sent over the center-field fence, she had just three hits in 34 at-bats this season. And in that respect, her hitting heroics would have made for a pleasing, if familiar, story line on their own: an unsung player steps up in one of her final games and lifts her team's postseason chances.
But it was what happened after an overly excited Tucholsky missed first base on her home run trot and reversed direction to tag the bag that proved unforgettable.
"Sara is small -- she's like 5-2, really tiny," Western Oregon coach Pam Knox said. "So you would never think that she would hit a home run. The score was 0-0, and Sara hit a shot over center field. And I'm coaching third and I'm high-fiving the other two runners that came by -- then all of a sudden, I look up, and I'm like, 'Where's Sara?' And I look over, and she's in a heap beyond first base."
While she was doubling back to tag first base, Tucholsky's right knee gave out. The two runners who had been on base already had crossed home plate, leaving her the only offensive player on the field of play, even as she lay crumpled in the dirt a few feet from first base and a long way from home plate. First-base coach Shannon Prochaska -- Tucholsky's teammate for three seasons and the only voice she later remembered hearing in the ensuing conversation -- checked to see whether she could crawl back to the base under her own power.
As Knox explained, "It went through my mind, I thought, 'If I touch her, she's going to kill me.' It's her only home run in four years. I didn't want to take that from her, but at the same time, I was worried about her."
Umpires confirmed that the only option available under the rules was to replace Tucholsky at first base with a pinch runner and have the hit recorded as a two-run single instead of a three-run home run. Any assistance from coaches or trainers while she was an active runner would result in an out. So without any choice, Knox prepared to make the substitution, taking both the run and the memory from Tucholsky.
"And right then," Knox said, "I heard, 'Excuse me, would it be OK if we carried her around and she touched each bag?'"
The voice belonged to Holtman, a four-year starter who owns just about every major offensive record there is to claim in Central Washington's record book. She also is staring down a pair of knee surgeries as soon as the season ends. Her knees ache after every game, but having already used a redshirt season earlier in her career, and ready to move on to graduate school and coaching at Central, she put the operations on hold so as to avoid missing any of her final season. Now, with her own opportunity for a first postseason appearance very much hinging on the outcome of the game -- her final game at home -- she stepped up to help a player she knew only as an opponent for four years.
"Honestly, it's one of those things that I hope anyone would do it for me," Holtman said. "She hit the ball over her fence. She's a senior; it's her last year. … I don't know, it's just one of those things I guess that maybe because compared to everyone on the field at the time, I had been playing longer and knew we could touch her, it was my idea first. But I think anyone who knew that we could touch her would have offered to do it, just because it's the right thing to do. She was obviously in agony."
Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace lifted Tucholsky off the ground and supported her weight between them as they began a slow trip around the bases, stopping at each one so Tucholsky's left foot could secure her passage onward. Even with Tucholsky feeling the pain of what trainers subsequently came to believe was a torn ACL (she was scheduled for tests to confirm the injury on Monday), the surreal quality of perhaps the longest and most crowded home run trot in the game's history hit all three players.
"We all started to laugh at one point, I think when we touched the first base," Holtman said. "I don't know what it looked like to observers, but it was kind of funny because Liz and I were carrying her on both sides and we'd get to a base and gently, barely tap her left foot, and we'd all of a sudden start to get the giggles a little bit."
Accompanied by a standing ovation from the fans, they finally reached home plate and passed the home run hitter into the arms of her own teammates. Then Holtman and Wallace returned to their positions and tried to win the game.
Hollywood would have a difficult time deciding how such a script should end, whether to leave Tucholsky's home run as the decisive blow or reward the selfless actions of her opponents. Reality has less room for such philosophical quandaries. Central Washington did rally for two runs in the bottom of the second -- runs that might have tied the game had Knox been forced to replace Tucholsky -- but Western Oregon held on for a 4-2 win.
But unlike a movie, the credits didn't roll after the final out, and the story that continues has little to do with those final scores.
"It kept everything in perspective and the fact that we're never bigger than the game," Knox said of the experience. "It was such a lesson that we learned -- that it's not all about winning. And we forget that, because as coaches, we're always trying to get to the top. We forget that. But I will never, ever forget this moment. It's changed me, and I'm sure it's changed my players."
For her part, Holtman seems not altogether sure what all the fuss is about. She seems to genuinely believe that any player in her position on any field on any day would have done the same thing. Which helps explains why it did happen on that day and on that field.
And she appreciates the knowledge that while the results of Saturday's game and her senior season soon will fade into the dust and depth of old media guides and Internet archives, the story of what happened in her final game at home will live on far longer.
"I think that happening on Senior Day, it showed the character of our team," Holtman said. "Because granted I thought of it, but everyone else would have done it. It's something people will talk about for Senior Day. They won't talk about who got hits and what happened and who won; they'll talk about that. And it's kind of a nice way to go out, because it shows what our program is about and the kind of people we have here."
We at Sportz Of All Sortz.com salute Sara, Mallory & Liz!!!!! The true meaning of sportsmanship!!!!
