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Street Kids Banquet Closes Out Season

Minix, Richard and sponsors among those honored

By Street Kids Organization Director, TJ Jorgensen

South Bend –

The Zolman Tire/Street Kids/Tanel softball team put another season under their belt and closed out the 2006 season with a smash, holding their annual awards banquet at the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend Saturday evening.

The night was highlighted by a 10-minute video montage and featured an outstanding buffet dinner, complete with two main courses (Salisbury steak and ham), several sides, appetizers, desserts and a drinks bar, including a bartender.

Every player received a plaque from the team for another outstanding season, which featured three league championships, three tournament wins and a record of 89 wins against only 24 loses. Joe Richard was awarded the Gold Glove Award for his outstanding defensive play this season and Hank Minix received his Forest River/Starcraft Most Valuable Player Award for the overall best performance for the season. A few sponsors were able to make the event and received plaques from the team in thanks for their sponsorship this season. All of the sponsors will receive their plaques at a later time.

The event started around 4pm with appetizers and drinks while players and friends of the organization that attended the event socialized prior to dinner, which was served around 5pm. Following dinner, I led the entire room full of people – unbeknownst to any of them – downstairs of the Hall of Fame to the theatre room, where I debuted the end-of-the-season video, which served as a look back at the entire season. The video concluded with a special thank you to all of the Street Kids sponsors. This video will be available online in the next several days. If anyone desires a copy on DVD, please email me.

Following dessert, the awards ceremony began and I made a brief speech about the team this season, the players and the future of the Street Kids organization. I also thanked all of the people involved with the preparation of the banquet, including JR Shapiro who played a key role in helping with almost everything, including set up and tear down. Others that were thanked included:

Justin Sears, a player on the team who works for Clark Foodservice in South Bend. Clark provided all of the food for the event.

Tony Hardiman and his mother helped by cooking the ham.

My wife, Courntey Jorgensen helped by cooking the Salisbury steak and making a chip dip for appetizers. Courtney has been very patient with me all season as I worked hard to take care of this team. I appreciate all that she does for me and this team.

Alan Nutting was instrumental in helping the Street Kids to not only get tablecloths and the warmers for the food, but having the College Football HOF host the event.

Joe Richard and his girlfriend Brenda cooked the macaroni and the scalloped potatoes.

Jeff and Tina Arnold came down from Kalamazoo to help set up, and also provided a dessert.

Mike Lentych volunteered his time as a bartender.

Billy Hayes helped out with all of the soda pop and drinks.

Chad and Emily Doan for helping with setup. Emily also took most of the pictures throughout the night.

Danny Fleming recorded the event on video.

I then went on to speak of how much I appreciated all of the players on the team and then announced the big news of a joint effort with the Hall of Fame to host what could be one of the largest softball tournaments ever to come to the Michiana area. The event will be directly tied in with the HOF’s enshrinement festival in July. The winning team of this tournament, which will be heavily promoted by both the Street Kids and the HOF, will be featured all throughout the enshrinement weekend, and will be able to meet the enshrinees, and current Hall of Famer’s that will be at the event.

This is one of the biggest things to ever happen to not just the Street Kids, but to softball in this area. We are so excited about moving forward in 2007, and with our new ventures with the Hall of Fame, next year should be a banner year for the Street Kids organization and teams.

Both Richard and Minix accepted their awards and thanked those that voted for them, their teammates and most importantly, the sponsors.

“Without you guys, we wouldn’t even have a team, let alone a nice banquet like this,” Minix stated during his acceptance speech. They also thanked me for my work with team this season, which was very appreciated, although not necessary.

KC Pocius, one of the founding fathers of the Street Kids team back in 1978, presented the “New Kid on the Block” award to, of all people, my 6-month old daughter, Isabella. It was her first award of any kind and I thank KC for his clever idea and thinking of her.

Xave Creary, one of the other founding fathers, could not make the event but sent a letter and asked that it be read at the banquet. Unfortunately, I ran out of time… ok, so I forgot to bring it… so here is his letter in its entirety, copied right from his email:

“Sorry I had to miss the banquet.  Hope everyone is having a great time.  Congratulations to Hank on the Forest River/Starcraft MVP award which was well deserved.  It was clear from the first time that we first saw Hank at the indoor batting cage south of town last winter that Street Kids were going to be a different team this year and Hank was the major reason for this difference.  So continue to swing away (but, to borrow a phrase from TJ, "NOT TOO HARD when I'm coaching 3rd base”).

Congratulations also to Joe on the Gold Glove Award.  (I guess you finally learned to hit the cutoff man).  Seriously, it's well deserved for steady, reliable, versatile, and sometimes spectacular defense that's sometimes not appreciated by all.  Someone who's played outfield can appreciate how well you handle those screaming line drive knuckle balls, as well as those tough bounces on that dry, hard, pothole filled outfield at Rose Park.  Keep up the good work and let your ankles heel up a bit this winter.

Congratulations also to TJ, who is without a doubt the "Manager of the Year" as well as "General Manager of the Year".  Also, he is the 'Web Master of the Year" as well as the recipient of the 1st Annual Colbert Award as "Reporter of the Year" for his post game MADE UP interviews.  Seriously, congratulations on a managing job well done (that many often feel that they can do better but no one else wants to do).

See you all in March, first warm day at Boland (or maybe even sooner for those serious addicts who consider 40° in January or February ideal softball weather).  Go Irish.”

Overall the night went very well, and everyone seemed to have a great time. Several people came up to me after the night was concluded and thanked me for such a grand event. Others called or emailed on Sunday letting me know how much they appreciated not just the event, but the entire season. One person even went as far as saying that I set the bar so high this year with the big blowout and awards ceremony, that its going to be hard to follow up next year.

I want to thank all of you that came up to me at the banquet, as well as those that called or emailed me. Even though I do this because I choose to, it is still nice to hear that all of my efforts are appreciated.

We have a lot to look forward to in 2007 and a lot of work in the winter. From the team standpoint, we will hope to begin hitting in the next couple of weeks. From a management standpoint, I am continuing to work on Street Kids Care, our division of the organization dedicated to helping in the community, as well as working with bringing our wonderful sponsors back for the new year. We will also be very busy working with the City of South Bend, along with the management staff at the Hall of Fame on the enshrinement tournament.

In closing, and I know I have said it a lot, I want to again thank everyone who helped to make this season a success: The players, the wives/girlfriends/friends/fans that have come out to our games supporting us (sometimes in bitter cold or steaming heat), the many non-players who helped out this year, and most importantly the sponsors. Without you, as Hank put it earlier, there would be no season. Nate Zolman and Zolman Tire is our chief sponsor, and I believe we have represented Zolman Tire with the utmost professionalism and I was sad to see he could not make it to the event but Chad Doan accepted the plaques on Nate’s behalf.

Many people think that playing ball is free. Nothing is free. Just because you didn’t spend any money as a player doesn’t mean that someone else didn’t spend the money for you to play. If you want to play in tournaments, you pay. If you want to play league ball, you pay. Our sponsors make it possible for us to play all year and from the bottom of my heart, I thank you. I hope I did a good job in representing your company through the website and in league play, and I hope you all return next season.

I made a highlight video from the banquet, which is about 100 megs in size. If you have a fast internet connection (DSL, Cable, T1), you can download it and view it on your computer. You can download the file from here. If you are unable to click on this link, go to www.streetkidssoftball.com/banquetvideo.html and you can download it.

Well, its getting late on Sunday night, and me and my family are all getting sick so its time for me to start taking care of them. Happy Holidays and see you next year!