The largest season-opening tournament is upon us. Arizona State’s Kajikawa Classic opens with Stanford and University of Texas El Paso on Thursday, Feb. 9 at 2:15p.m.
The tournament’s namesake, Bill Kajikawa, was a baseball, football and basketball coach as ASU from 1937-1978. The Kajikawa family became involved with softball in 1998, when he was invited to throw out the first pitch. His wife died five months later and for the following 11 years, Kajikawa attended almost every practice, home game and traveled with the team for NCAA tournaments.
Kajikawa passed away in 2010 and the tournament is a tribute to him.
“The planning starts incredible early,” said Director of Operations Jenna Makis, “We are actually already booked out for the 2018 tournament. Around November, we send out communication to all the teams that we have contact information for and ask if they are interested in the tournament.”
As of this year, the tournament doesn’t have a cap for the number of teams that could participate but this year there is one. Next year, the cap will be set at 24. That is just to make it easier for the staff to manage the tournament.
“The summer is when the official planning of the tournament starts as far as making schedules, sending out contracts, sending out entry fee invoices, collecting visiting team information,” said Makis. “It becomes a year-round project because as it get closer and closer we break it down to the logistical planning.”
The tournament is an open invitation. ASU has a database with all the contact information for every Division I university. Teams are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. The earlier the team turns their money in, the better.
Teams have the option to play either five or six games in their entry fee price.
“The biggest consideration is to keep people from playing other teams in their conference,” said Makis. “The Pac-12 doesn’t have this rule but other have this rule as far as the number of teams they can play from certain ranking denominations. We do our best accommodate the teams on Sunday who have to travel.”
This year, there will be 51 games played by 20 teams on five separate fields. ASU works in collaboration with the city of Tempe to staff the tournament to manage the massive numbers.
“There are a lot of people involved and Kayla Shirey (Event Coordinator at ASU) and Bill Kennedy (Associate AD) are the two other big people involved,” said Makis. “Bill is over at TSC, Kayla is with me at Farrington. Our athletic trainer is in charge of all the visiting trainers; our SID is in charge of the visiting SID’s. Ticketing, marketing, it’s group effort and it’s a big deal around here so we take anyone who is willing to help.”
Single-day passes for adults are available for $12. Children under the age of 18 and seniors can purchase day passes for $10. ASU faculty, staff and military will also receive a two-dollar discount. Weekend passes cost $42. For students who purchase an athletic pass, the tournament is free.
