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I have been an ADA Division Representative for St. Charles County, Missouri for years and when it comes to the American Darters Association Championship Series, I am usually on the worker bee side of the table. When I was invited to attend the Mid West Regional in Kansas City it wasn’t as staff but as a participant! Although, I play in local ADA leagues, I got to experience this tournament in the eyes of one of our darters.
The trip from St. Charles to Kansas City is about 3 hours. I decided to hitch a ride with 3 other ADA members from my area that I pretty much only know from playing darts together! A short drive later we checked into our room, dropped off our stuff and headed to the bar. Since I wasn’t working, I was able to order beers, hang out and spend time with other members-which we don’t normally have a lot of time to do while working.
Ashley Brockman, one of my road trip buddies, who is also an ADA Division Rep, asked me to play in the Saturday Neutralizer Women’s Doubles event with her. Since I have always worked at these events I have never had the opportunity to play so I had to take a minute to absorb what she had just asked me! I agreed, and off to the ADA registration table we went.
One thing that I love about the ADA is how organized they are about their tournaments. Each member has an ADA membership card that you present at the time of registration and payout. It looks like a credit card and keeps track of all your stats and events you are eligible to play in. It was cool to have to use mine own to register for our Womens Doubles event.
After you register for an event and the brackets are drawn you check the leader board for your match sheets, whom your opponents are and what board you will be playing on. This was all new to me and I got a little freaked out when the sheets were handed to me. I looked at them and it looked like it was written in French! Since they are printed out at the time of the event they look different than our weekly scoresheets and I always work the registration and payout table so I have never had to deal with these sheets before at a tournament. I knew I could have asked Karl Remick, the tournament director but he was busy assisting someone else and I knew I could come up with my own solution. Scanning the room I came up with an idea. I made a dash to my friend and Virginia ADA member Mark Youngblood (YB), whom I know would fill me in on what I was supposed to do. YB has been attending ADA events for years and is really nice and patient so I knew he would be able to help.
It’s a good thing he wasn’t playing at the time because he helped with the paperwork and taught us what the format was (which was listed on the schedule but when you have YB you don’t need a schedule ;). A few hours later, Gloria Remick who was working the payout table said, Tiffany-let me check your card for payout, and I said, oh we didn’t win anything. I handed over my card and low and behold we won 4th place and had payout! I knew it was double elimination but I had no idea that we were in the money. Now I totally understand how players don’t think to check their cards at these events. Ashley and I got to spend the rest of the evening hanging out with players from different areas and cheering them on during their matches and spending our winnings on beer and food.
I was telling Gloria a few days later that even though I missed working this Regional I really enjoyed getting to be on the other side of the table and experiencing the tournament from an ADA darters perspective.
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