SI softball tournament turns 10: Organizer Bill Asbury credits city of Du Quoin
It gets Bill Asbury in the gut every time. Watching 28 softball teams marching into the Southern Illinois Center last weekend, so happy to be in Du Quoin and eager to play, he knows he did a good thing 10 years ago when he started the Girls Indoor Winter Fast Pitch Softball Tournament.
It isn't just the softball, of course, as much as he loves it. A big factor for him is that this tournament is a huge fundraiser for Southern Illinois Special Olympics, for which he has been volunteering for a long time.
Another big plus is how his hometown, Du Quoin, has embraced this tournament.
"The whole city of Du Quoin supports us," he said recently, basking in the glow of a 10th successful tournament held Jan. 17-19.
"Our key volunteers are all from Du Quoin," Asbury said, talking about himself and co-organizer Jacob Emery. "The mayor and his wife took tickets at the front gate this weekend. General Cable, Coca-Cola, the local sororities, 50 kids from the high school ... they were all here."
The tournament buys the trophies but all the umpires volunteer half their games. Asbury and Emery pay their setup and teardown workers, unless they flat out refuse to take the money.
The tournament, one of five that Asbury and Emery run at the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds, is hosted by Special Olympics Illinois (Region K) and Indoor Softball Inc. Each team of girls adopts a local Special Olympian and makes them part of the team for the duration of the tournament - wearing the team T-shirts, helping the coaches, and cheering their teammates on.
The field of 12u, 14u and 16u teams is capped at 28, although goodness knows a lot more want to play.
"I had to beg and plead to get 20 teams at the first tournament," Asbury recalls. "All of them were pretty local in the beginning.
"The whole town lit up and supported me on it," he said. "The second year we had 100 teams wanting to get in."
Now, he says, he hears from close to 400 teams from all over the Midwest who would like to play. That's a lot of disappointed teams.
The teams all play a fee, and a small entry fee is collected from spectators at the gate. Altogether, he said, the tournaments have raised more than $500,000 in 10 years and after expenses, all the money raised goes to help the roughly 1,600 Special Olympic athletes competing in southern Illinois.
His daughter, Brenna, has been one of them. His youngest child, born with Down syndrome, Brenna had the good fortune of growing up in Du Quoin, her father says, where she was loved and supported her whole childhood. Now, as a young adult she is with the Five Star Industries program and learning basic life skills to help her be moderately independent.
He and Emery initiated an all-girls Special Olympics softball team that plays games around the Midwest.
What Asbury wants is for ordinary Americans to see Special Olympics athletes as ordinary Americans, too.
"We want America to see these kids," Asbury says. "These kids are talented but nobody gives them a chance. They don't think they are any different from anybody else ... why should we?"