COOKEVILLE – Cookeville’s Cane Creek Sportplex received the honor of being named a National Softball Association Outstanding Park in 2014, and with 31 tournaments scheduled at the facility during the 2015 season, the staff is excited for the season ahead.
“These are all scheduled with tournament directors who have had successful tournaments with us in the past,” Cookeville Leisure Services Athletics Superintendent Jim Crea said. “So we expect them to be a success again this year.”
The Cane Creek Sportsplex is equipped to host youth or adult softball fast pitch and slow pitch as well as youth t-ball, coaches and kids pitch baseball games, and each tournament means crowds of people coming to Cookeville from across the state and region to play ball. Of course, when they are here they eat in Cookeville restaurants, purchase gas from Cookeville convenience stores and, for larger tournaments, stay in Cookeville hotels.
“For an adult men’s tournament, you will have 12 to 15 players per team and about half of them will bring someone else with them,” Crea said. “For a high school tournament, you will get mom and dad and maybe siblings, and for a youth tournament, you add aunts and uncles and even more people to
that.”
Multiply that by 20 or more teams per tournament and the economic impact for the area grows.
In 2014, there were 31 weekend tournaments scheduled between March and October, the most ever in a season at the facility. In 2015, another 31 tournaments are on the calendar.
The day before a tournament, the fields are prepped by a crew of workers that does all of the grooming, dragging and base, mound and fencing adjustments to make sure the field is ready for incoming teams.
That work, along with the professionalism of the Sportsplex staff helps the facility become one of the National Softball Association’s 2014 Outstanding Parks.
The award was announced at the NSA’s annual meeting where tournament directors come together and review all the parks they visited during the season.
“First, our facilities are well-kept,” Crea said. “The directors and teams also appreciate our professionalism. We always have staff on hand should anything come up that they need assistance with during the tournament.”
Those things, Crea says, give everyone coming to the Sportsplex a positive impression of, not only the facility, but Cookeville as a whole.
The Cane Creek Sportsplex only hosts sanctioned tournaments, meaning the tournament is played under the umbrella of an organization like the National Softball Association, the World Softball League, or the
Baseball Players Association and follows the rules set by that organization.
For a full listed of tournaments scheduled at the facility this season, visit http://www.cookeville-tn.gov/ls/ccsportsplex/.