An Open Letter from Harry Hosey & Mary Ann Parks


To: Coaches, Players, Fans and softball Directors/Officials              10/24/2007

Harry and I have terminated our association with the AFA Softball group.  We attended the National meeting in September, which was held in Las Vegas.  It became obvious at that time that the directors from California intended to move Nationals to the west coast.  We were instructed to send the Chamber of Commerce from San Diego the dates are locations from 10U, 12U, & 16U “A” 2003 forward.  They were going to do a study on holding the nationals there in the future.  The 16U “A” was originally scheduled during the April 2007 meeting in Tulsa to be held in California.  It was changed at the Las Vegas meeting.  One of the main reasons that we went with AFA nice years ago was that we were promised that the Nationals would be held in the middle of the country.  This was a big determining factor for our change to AFA because we felt that it would better serve our teams as far as travel expenses and opportunities.

In 2006 all the regions were sent a licensing agreement assigned with designated monies be sent to the National Office for sales of anything with the AFA logo from hats, shirts to tournament programs.  This would have affected each and everyone one of us, as prices would have had to be raised to make up for the difference.  All regions refused to sign it.

In October, we received another demand for additional monies.  We were told that every facility that holds an AFA qualifier for us must have a $1,000,000.00 liability policy with AFA as the beneficiary.  That is not cost efficient and unacceptable.  We had 14 days to sign the agreement or be replaced.  Needless to say, it was not signed by any of the Regional Directors.

In this day and time, things have continued to rise in cost.  Softball has become increasingly expensive to participate in.  We have tried to keep costs down and yet retain enough funds to continue our operations and pay expenses.  The new guidelines set by the AFA Executive Directors would have made essentially that we pass the costs on to the teams.

So, the Regional Directors from Regions 5, 6, 8, and 9 and the Sector Director from Region 2 have agreed to join together with another national Organization NAFA.  By joining forces and with their help and connections outside our regions we will establish a more viable Fastpitch Organization for our youth.  NAFA was established in 1993 and has several areas of fastpitch not limited to the girls.  The new websites are in the development stage at this time and should be up and running sometime next week.  Please visit the website at www.playnafa.com to find out more.  We will be Region 6 and our website will be www.nafaoklahoma.com

We will begin scheduling our tournaments next week we invite you to check the website for updates.

We wish AFA all the best for the future it just seems that they were no longer, what we needed or what we needed and thus we were no longer what they needed.  We hope you will join us in this new venture.

If you have any questions and would like more information, please feel free to contact Harry or myself.

Harry Hosey       HarryHosey@aol.com       918-485-9172
Mary Ann Parks       Mapwag4@aol.com       918-485-5902