When you’re a club coach or a travel ball parent/player, what are some of the key boxes you want to check before signing up for an event?
- Good competition? Surely.
- Impressive fields and facilities? Yes, please.
- Nice location and things to do? Definitely…
- And, how about one people frequently overlook: excellent umpires? Oh, yes… of course!
When it comes to all the above, Chad Stears—the 45-year-old college softball umpire, medical professional by day and tournament director for what has been the Diamond State Invitational events held in Arkansas—has more than pleased the teams on the fields.
He has also brought in some of the top umpires in the sport who work with him, say, in the Big 12 or SEC games and they don’t mind too much getting to do a few games with Stears and then kick back on the lake houses he provides in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Definitely a good gig if you can get it!
An umpire for 21 years in the SEC and 17 seasons in the Big 12, Stears has worked in the brightest of lights for the sport including the Women’s College World Series and is also known for bringing in his well-qualified peers and friends for three-man umping crews, even in 10U ball!
When not calling games in the college spring seasons over the last several years, the husband and father of a one-year-old son has been putting on some of the top club tourneys in his area under the banner of Diamond State Invitationals working with USSSA running for many years previously.
But that’s going to be changing in 2023 as Stears has announced this week that he will be moving his series of club events to compete under the Premier Girls Fastpitch (PGF) corporate umbrella starting next year.
“Yes, I’ll be joining PGF in the Fall of 2023,” he told Extra Inning Softball on Monday, “after I’m done umpiring college ball in the spring of next year. We’ll then have eight events next fall and then four in the spring of 2024 and eight more that fall.”
A key benefit for the event director will soon be his ability to spread his expertise and success into events across the region.
“One of the good things about joining PGF is that I can then run tournaments not just in Arkansas, but also in Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas and Louisiana in the fall of 2023,” he added.
Well-respected for his Diamond State Invitations in Arkansas, Stears has a reputation for doing well in the younger age divisions.
“Chad and his vision of tournaments for 10U through the 13U age group is a perfect fit for PGF and the Midwest,” says Robb Behymer, the head of Top Gun Events—including the prestigious Top Gun Invitational, one of the summer’s top travel ball events—who also works closely with PGF as the company’s State Director for Arkansas.
Moving forward, Stears’ events will be under a new name: Diamond Legacy Events, but they are expected to have the same appeal to players, parents and coaches who have flown in from out-of-state to participate.
Families, for one thing, can get houses to rent, frequently on the lake in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and then compete in Majestic Park which has various fields constructed to resemble Major League Baseball parks.
“Getting to Arkansas is the hardest part,” Stears laughs, “but once there they all love what we provide them. There’s good quality of teams and high competition plus, with my background, we are able to pull in high-level umpires who we fly in and pay more.”
Is that, we ask, a key reason he’s been able to have such success with his events, even while having more than two decades of work in his “day job” (umpiring)?
“Oh yea!” Stears confirms. “Few others take care of the umpires like we do. We put them in lake houses in Hot Springs because—and I feel strongly about this—if you take care of them, they’ll want to come back and work with you. The umpires can be working 10-to-12 hour days and, obviously, they have to do a good job, but if you take care of them and they’re happy, everyone wins.”
So how did one of the longest tenured Power 5 umpires get introduced to PGF?
Tournament director Jeff Mac, who spearheads the PGF Super Select Events out of Michigan and is the overseer of more than 16 tournaments annually, was Stears first contact on the road to the recently finalized relationship with PGF.
“Jeff has great competition at his events and we reached out to each other through mutual respect and the talks started then,” Stears recalls. “We were picking each other’s brains on how to make our events better and he told me he was looking for someone who cares about the sport like he does. I told him that I was looking to expand into doing events outside of Arkansas, and Jeff called Robb (Behymer) to recommend me… that’s how it began.”
The Diamond Legacy Events & Stears’ move to PGF was made official this week after being in the works for a while. Though four different companies tried to sway his decision more recently, Stears insists:
“I’ve had my mind made up for a while because PGF will allow me to do what I want to do, and with a lot of support including Robb’s strong social media presence which will definitely help as well.”
Next fall, there will be the Diamond Legacy fall tournaments scheduled for Oct 27-29, 2023 at ages 12U and 13U and then Nov. 3-5 for the 10U and 11U age groups at the Majestic Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with 64 teams and a 5-game guarantee.
Stears promises that the same quality ambience, facilities and, yes, umpires will be there along with his always-present personal involvement with the teams, players, parents and coaches.
“It makes a big difference,” he concludes, “when you communicate directly with the parents and coaches. I want them to know that they’re important as well and, though my wife Tiffany hates it, I always walk away with more friends than I had before.”
— Brentt Eads, Extra Inning Softball
