The year was 2007. I was wrapping up my second year as the Promotions Director for a local family of radio stations that included KFMU, KIDN “The Mountain,” Z-Rock, and KRMR. Up to that point, my role primarily involved handing out concert tickets at bar parties—earning me the moniker Eli “The Prize Guy.” Occasionally, we’d have something bigger to give away, which allowed us to get a bit more creative with contests like Rock, Paper, Scissors tournaments and Beer Pong matches. But the heart of our promotional efforts remained at bar parties.
As summer wound down after another season of Friday Afternoon Clubs, the station owners called a meeting to discuss ways to boost revenue before year’s end. They tasked us with creating, producing, and promoting a sponsorable community event—but left the specifics up to us. We had to come up with something, and quickly.
Almost serendipitously, I had recently been in a meeting with the City of Steamboat Parks & Rec. While we were waiting for everyone to arrive, a Parks & Rec staff member casually mentioned that the most requested sport for a new summer league was kickball. The problem was that they simply didn’t have the manpower or field space to accommodate another adult sports league. Between adult softball, soccer, flag football, and Town Challenge mountain bike racing, the City’s resources were already stretched thin.
Though a multi-week league was too much for the city to manage, the idea of a single-day event sparked something in me—especially given our directive to create a community event. But I knew this wasn’t the type of event our no-nonsense owners had in mind. Half-jokingly, I mentioned on the call that kickball had some interest and that maybe we could organize a one-day tournament. I fully expected them to brush it off and ask for other ideas. To my surprise, they thought it was a decent enough concept to ask me to put together a budget and rough plan.
That same afternoon, I sketched out a plan for an 8-team, double-elimination tournament to take place in just under two months. For the first year, as long as we held the event in mid-September, the City was willing to trade field time in exchange for a team entry. Along with seven other teams and the support of a handful of sponsors, we took over the Howelsen ballfields on a postcard-perfect fall Saturday afternoon. If I remember correctly, we didn’t hire umpires for the games, the rules were loosely based on schoolyard memories, and there was some controversy about the difference between a true double-elimination tournament and what we ultimately produced—a Winners and Consolation Bracket. Nevertheless, a great time was had by all, and the City of Steamboat Parks and Rec team became the first Kickball Klassic champions.
Buoyed by the success of that first weekend, we immediately began planning to grow the event the following year. In 2008, our goal was to have 12 teams participate in a true double-elimination tournament spanning two days. To our surprise, we quickly had 16 teams sign up, and even had to start a waitlist. The 2nd Annual Kickball Klassic proved to be even more successful than the first.
Within four years, the tournament had grown into a three-day event with 32 teams. After five more teams joined the waitlist, we simply closed it. The Kickball Klassic had outgrown its status as a Steamboat community event—competitive kickball teams from hundreds of miles away had heard of our little tournament and traveled en masse to Steamboat for a fun-filled weekend. Some teams came to play, while others came to PLAY. From the teams that arrived with jerseys rivaling those of professional sports leagues, we learned that our little city tournament wasn’t using the official adult kickball league rules, which were modeled after the World Kickball Association (yes, that’s a real thing). Words like “bouncies” and “overkicks” were part of our regular vernacular. By this point, we had paid umpires on every field and even had three hired to work the Championship Game.
Suddenly, we had an event much larger than we could have imagined. New Belgium became our premier sponsor, helping to energize both athletes and spectators on Saturday afternoon. The Fat Tire truck would roll through the Howelsen Hill parking lot, honking its horn—a signal that it was time for free beer. Players would start running, much like they did when they were kids and heard the ice cream truck approaching the fields.
What were they all playing for? The winner received a bar tab and a plastic WWE replica belt we purchased from Wal-Mart, hot-glued some baby shoes onto, and spray-painted gold. It wasn’t much, but it was everything—especially to the perennial favorites (and rivals) Team That’s What She Said and Team Shorty’s.
For many summers in a row, we’d start getting calls nearly as soon as the ski area shut down, with people asking when Kickball Klassic registration would open. By August, it had become nearly a full-time job for Lee Smith, who was hired as our Promotions Director after I was promoted to General Manager of the stations, to answer phone calls about how people could find kickball teams looking for extra players.
When I left the radio station in 2013, the event was still at its peak. However, when I returned a few years later, things had changed. That’s What She Said and Shorty’s were still the teams in the Championship Game, but they had far fewer teams to contend with.
By 2019, only 12 teams registered for the event—one never even showed up, and another could only find 8 players. Leading into the weekend, I ran into one of the former team captains for That’s What She Said and told him I was looking forward to seeing their team compete. He told me he had grown to despise the event and had purposefully volunteered for a work trip over the weekend. I was shocked. What had happened?
The core group of players and everyone involved in organizing the event had moved on to different stages of life. After 13 years, many of us had kids, more demanding jobs, and more serious responsibilities. No longer in our 20’s, or even for some, pushing well past 40, spending a weekend kicking a rubber ball with a wicked hangover was no longer a top priority. We were also no longer drawing teams from outside the Yampa Valley. Even the perennial favorites were struggling to recruit full teams, and it seemed even harder to get a younger generation of locals to spend a weekend playing a kids’ game.
After the 2019 event, we began discussing the future of the Kickball Klassic and whether it was worth continuing. In 2020, COVID-19 made the decision for us. Like all events, the kickball tournament was canceled. When it came time to plan for what we hoped would be a post-COVID 2021, our priorities and resources at the radio stations had drastically changed. Now under different ownership, the focus was on large-scale, single-day events with the potential for high ticket revenue, like the Reds, Whites, and Brews festival, or those requiring far less manpower and planning, like Job Fairs.
Now, with five years having passed since the last Kickball Klassic, a new kickball tournament is returning to Steamboat this August. I wish the organizers and players nothing but an amazing weekend—but I do believe the heyday of the Kickball Klassic will remain a part of the local legends and lore, much like the Saint Patrick’s Day Bump Off and the Independence Incidents—events that were incredible in their time but probably couldn’t be replicated in the same way today.