This weekend I had the pleasure of visiting the St Louis crew for their
1st Annual Gateway Invitational Judo Tournament. Most people follow this blog because of my love of my greyhounds, but those who know me in person also know that my other reality is a love of Judo. The group at White Dragon Judo have been regulars at our Tennessee State Judo Championships. They have seen the tournament system that I wrote evolve over the years and were interested in using it for their tournament as well. Truthfully, I was a little hesitant, because the stress level of running a tournament is right up there with moving, divorce, and loosing ones job not to mention that this would be the first time I had used the software for a tournament other than our own. The president of TN Judo, Mr Michael Ostrowski, heralds from that area, and he encouraged me to give it a try. My instructor, Terry Spencer, also said he would go up and help me with what ever needed doing.
I have to say that these are warm and generous folks who made every effort to run a great event. They ran three mats and had purchased three 40 inch flat screen TV's for the score board displays. They rounded up all the computers I needed for registration, bracketing and running the tables. They had high quality referees to judge at the mats and held a ref clinic before the event began. The volunteer score keepers got into the groove pretty quickly and very soon things were flowing smoothly.
Barbara Raney from 1000 Smiles Photography was also there taking action shots of the matches.
So this weekend I left my boys at home in pursuit of my other passion, but a mere 6 hour drive put me home to be greeted by their wagging tales at midnight Saturday, and in time for some grey play adventures on Sunday afternoon.
Thanks to every one for having me down and putting up with my ornery nature while scheduling the matches. Overall I think it was a very successful weekend.
