Greetings Winter Leaguers!

One quick note before I get to thanking everyone for a great year:
The people of the Polo Club, who have been so very kind and gracious
by allowing us to play at their facility this year and outright saving
our season, run charity events at their club and need volunteers for
one of their events on May 7th. We’d appreciate anyone who can help
out to contact Dena Miller and let her know you could help out on one
or more of their shifts listed below. Dena’s contact information is:
dena@henrysmiller.com

Sat. May 7th
9 – 12 Setup shift one
12 – 3 Setup shift two
3 – 6 Event activities
6 – 9 Event activities and clean up
8 – 10 Clean up and tear down

Now that the sun has set on another season I’d like to take a moment
to acknowledge everyone who has helped make this another great, fun
season of Dallas Winter League.

Congratulations go out to Sommer and Zac’s team on their perfect
season in rec and, of course, to DD and Casey on yet another
championship. Way to go guys!

First and foremost, I’d like to thank each and every one of you
players for sticking with us through the delay and field issues at the
start of the season. It would have been very easy for you to fold up
shop, but you stuck with us and on behalf of myself, JJ, Michael,
Jason, Tom, the DUA, and everyone else involved, thank you. This
league doesn’t work without people to play it and you guys proved that
no matter where we played, a field doesn’t make our league, it’s the
great people that you get to see every weekend out there playing that
make Dallas Winter League as special as it is!

This being my first year formally helping out with organizing DWL,
I’ll admit that I was completely lost at times, and there were more
than a handful of people that stepped up to help me that need to be
thanked. There’s Vivian who, despite having to sit this season out as
she welcomed a beautiful baby boy into the world, was the first to
step up and volunteer to organize the schedule for the recreational
division, thanks Viv!. Big thanks to Gina who stepped up and did
absolutely everything she could to make the competitive schedule work
despite all the tournaments and other scheduling conflicts. Thank you
Casey for hounding the masses to get enough competitive captains,
running the draft, and gathering scores for your division! Believe me
when I say that those were not things I was prepared to do.

Huge ups to Jason, Tom, and Gaddy, without who the draft wouldn’t have
been possible! Thanks go out to D.A., Chris Trimble, and Commander for
all their help carting shirts ands discs to and fro, making Costco
runs, and helping appease the masses way out west as we figured out
where we were playing, making sure that we retained all the Fort Worth
area players possible. Thanks guys!

Thanks to everyone that helped out with food this year, whether it was
your team’s week or not! Can’t forget about John Stewart, who’s always
huge in us getting fields to play on, it was great seeing you back out
on the field where you belong man! Thanks to Kirk for handling
sponsors and getting packets together for the start of the year.

Thanks also need to go out to our sponsors, Specific Media, Shoebacca,
Advocare, Sea Blue Travel, Raymond Turco & Associates, The Idle Rich
Pub, Subaru, Genghis Grill, and especially Hard Eight BBQ who kept our
bellies full of delicious food multiple times this weekend. Please
make sure to go out and support those who support our league!

Huge thanks to everyone that was always out there early to help out
whenever we asked it of them all the way from registration to
re-lining the fields, Bill, Melissa, Busty, Turkey, Traci, Stevesy,
Def Jeff, and anyone else I may have missed.

Thanks to Big Jim for putting on another fantastic party and putting
us up for the draft. Thanks to Glenn for not only rocking some short,
short jorts, but also always stepping up and helping with anything
necessary, especially party related.

Gotta thank Brigette for bearing with me while I dealt with anything
WL related starting back in November. I’m sure there were times when I
wasn’t the most pleasant person to be around so for that, and for
bearing through early mornings to line fields, hold captains meetings
and so forth, thank you. I love you Brigette!

Of course Dallas Winter League doesn’t happen this without the help of
Michael Frederick always ready to lend a hand, knowing the ins and
outs of what needs to happen as well as anyone out there. And huge
thanks to Higgy for finding Prestonwood and getting us in touch with
them in the first place.

Finally, no list would be complete without thanking THE ONE, THE ONLY:
JJ JORDAN! There’s no way I can thank JJ enough. If people tell me
that what I did for the league this year was a thankless job, I tell
them they need to reconsider their meaning of thankless job. JJ works
quietly behind the scenes acting as the ninja guardian angel of DWL
and deserves more praise than I have adjectives’ worth.

Anyone and everyone else that I may have missed, THANK YOU! I can’t
say it enough.

Believe me when I say that we’re going to do everything we can to
continue to better the league, and your thoughts are always welcome in
the process. Feel free to keep e-mailing dwl1011@gmail.com with your
ideas.

Remember that the best way to assure positive change as you see it in
the league is to step up and volunteer. This league only happens
through the efforts of all the people listed above and I’d love to be
writing an e-mail twice as long next year!

Until next winter,
Alex Lepe