14 Highlights from My First Year As the Wacky Warriors Tournament Director
As September (Childhood Cancer Awareness Month) draws to a close, I figure it’s about time I do a recap of this year’s Wacky Warriors charity softball tournament, which took place on September 6th and 7th. For those of you who don’t know, the Wacky (Warriors Against Cancer in Kids and Young adults) Warriors tournament was started by Nick Raitt and his mom Lori Brower back in 2008. This was the first year I was the Tournament Director, and I am still humbled to my core.
In June of 2023 when I first reached out to Lori to see if my dad and I could take over running the event, I knew it would be a ton of work. Between my initial inquiry and when this year’s tournament took place, I had many doubts, but I kept feeling like I was supposed to carry on this tradition in honor of Nick. Being the Tournament Director this year showed me just how much love, sweat, and tears had been put into the annual event over the previous 16 years, though.
This year we had 27 teams play in honor of 29 Cancer Cuties (a couple of teams played for two). For some teams this was their first year playing in this special tourney. Others have been part of the Wacky family for many years on end. I even had some players tell me that their moms had played in the tournament when they were younger! 🥹
I quickly lost count of how many people thanked me for continuing the tournament after Lori and Lee announced that last year would be their last year running it. I definitely worked my tail off and lost sleep, but my efforts were paid back tenfold. The thank yous meant a lot, but it most definitely wasn’t just me making everything run smoothly (or mostly smoothly 😉) behind the scenes. I had a LOT of help making the weekend a success. (If you helped out and I forgot to tag you on Facebook, I’m so sorry!!!) Please know that I appreciate EVERYONE’S help immensely.
I know I’ve already forgotten many of the tender moments I was privileged enough to experience throughout the tournament weekend, but here are several highlights.
- We enjoyed seeing all of the teams’ different uniforms—many of which were designed and created based on their assigned Cancer Cuties’ likes and interests. (The team that played for Lincoln even wore dinosaur tails! 🦖)
- We spent two full days at the ballpark watching talented girls play softball for a cause bigger than just their desires to win. 🥎
- One team arranged a car show for their car-loving Cancer Cutie. 🚗
- One team sold rubber duckies as a fundraiser in honor of their Cancer Cutie/the Live Like Mak Foundation. (Makenna loved her Jeep. For those of you who don’t know, people often leave rubber duckies on Jeeps for their owners to collect. It’s a Jeep club thing. 😊 Josh and I own two Jeeps, and by the end of the tourney weekend, people had left 6 or more rubber duckies on our Jeeps.) 🦆
- Cancer Cuties and/or their siblings got to sit in dugouts, do coin flips, run the bases, assist with medals, and so much more. 🎗️
- I was able to talk to each team before they left, give them this year’s shirts (dark purple this year), and thank them personally for playing in our tournament. (This is a wonderful Wacky tradition the Browers started.) I cried during every single team conversation. And I’m not usually “a crier”. 😭
- We were able to match over $13k worth of donations that went directly to the Cancer Cuties’ families. (Writing out and handing over those donation matching checks was my very favorite part of the weekend.) 🤑
- Our beloved “bow lady” who’d sold her adorable, handmade softball bows at the tourney for many years wasn’t able to make it this year. Instead, she decided to donate ALL of the bows and lanyards she’d previously made to Wacky Warriors and told us to keep all of the profits. 💛
- I got to see, hug, and/or visit with MANY of my fellow childhood cancer mom friends. They’re my sisters from other misters, and it always fills our souls with gratitude when we’re together. 👭
- I got to sit and talk with many of my family members and friends (old and new) as they volunteered their time to help me with everything. 🥰
- Two different local media outlets (Fox 13 News and the Tooele Transcript Bulletin) came out to interview people and run stories on the tournament. 📰
- Five lucky winners received fun raffle prizes donated by Webcraft (a home decor craft company), Hugs from Hughes (a nonprofit that gives away Minky blankets), Spirit Goat (a health and beauty shop), and Bridgerland Adventure Park (an adventure sports park in Garden City). 🎁
- I was able to make arrangements with Tony Parks from the Bees and get each Cancer Cutie’s family six free tickets to the Bees’ Go Gold for Childhood Cancer Awareness game in September! ⚾
- We had many conversations with people about their excitement to return to play again and/or help next year for the tournament. 🤝
While all of the girls played their hearts out, since it was a tournament, there could only be one team that won first place in each age bracket. We handed out medals to all of the first and second place teams, though. 🥇 Here were the winning teams for each bracket:
- 10U—Utah Magic 2014
- 12U—Twisters 2012
- 14U—Regulatorz 2010
- 16U—CV Vengeance
As expected, I learned a lot this year, and I’m already looking forward to making next year better. If you are interested in helping with next year’s tournament (e.g. fundraising, sponsoring, setting up/taking down, scorekeeping, umpiring, etc.), please don’t hesitate to reach out! You can also learn more about Wacky Warriors by going to the website: https://wackywarriors.org/.
💛 Becca