There are two pieces of advice my mother gave me as younger person. The first was, nothing good happens after midnight. The second was, alcohol (+much more) hinders your ability to make good decisions.
And while both those maxims are true, they aren’t always true.
Take for example, oh I don’t know, Beehive Sports. An idea that struck two friends enjoying a Pabst Blue Ribbon induced buzz in post midnight porch twilight.
We stumbled into it: “Sean is a dick.” Went head over heels with: “Yeah, and I bet we could run a kickball league better than Sean!” And within minutes, yard-saled into a trancendant realization: “Are we starting a kickball league?” The sequence was not unlike the “did we just become best friends?” line in Step Brothers.
Skip ahead to the 11th episode of our Netflix special and I think we’ve made good on the exceptionally weird promise to run a kickball league better than Sean (a man I’ve never met btw).
That’s one version of the Beehive “story.” Another version can be told with plain jane statistics.
73,890 games
43,774 players
$38,450 donated
6,298 teams
274 leagues
31 marriages
17 babies
14 sports
11 years
1 worldwide pandemic
Oh, and roughly 11,000 shots Jimmy has bought people at the bar.
Another version outlines the ways we’ve tried to improve Beehive over the last year. The tale of where we’ve focused our most precious asset — time. In that version, I’d tell you we threw a bitchin’ 10 year anniversary party.
And that we started a super fun winter darts league (a million thanks to Danielle for leading season 1 — always a bit of a throw-shit-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks exercise).
We created a secondary t-shirt to celebrate the living breathing human embodiment of Beehive — James “Jimmy” Accettura. Go ahead and try to find a friendlier guy, you can’t. Jim’s belief that he’s never made a bad call in the last 10 years is only surpassed by his belief that everyone is just a hello away from being his best friend. We’ve made a great team because as introverted as I am, Jimmy is 10x the extrovert. At this point, it’s fitting to say Jimmy’s reputation precedes him in the absolute best way possible.
This Spring, we created a philanthropy board that meets quarterly to spur good-doing inside and outside our community. In its first few months, the board has hosted a trash pick up on the Ensign Peak Trail, used our league nights to help special needs dogs be adopted, developed a thank you program for players who given above and beyond to our seasonal league charity sponsor and helped find new sponsors to give us more resources to do more good. If you see Jessi Campbell, Ashlei Fraser, Abby Cahill, Melissa Hunsaker, Amy Kernan or Turner Bitton, shake their hands and thank them. They are wonderful people.
We’ve also started a Beehive Ambassador program to ̶p̶r̶o̶m̶o̶t̶e̶ ̶s̶a̶f̶e̶ ̶s̶e̶x̶ err, shower Beehive players with serendipitous goodies. Like, Beehive condoms, but also like stickers, temporary tattoos, dog bandanas, kazoos and other fun things. More importantly, Koto, Emily, Melissa, Sydney, Mitch, Michael, Elise, Sara and Thomas are welcoming new players to Utah/Beehive and helping grease the wheels for our increasingly speedy yet loveably rickety wagon train. I’m grateful for the example of friendliness they set out on the fields.
That version may be flashy but it’s entirely incomplete. A better version and my favorite version of the story is about the people of Beehive. They always have been and always will be its beating heart — literally and figuratively.
Allow me to illuminate the last year with a few of the people that have made it shine most brightly.
When it comes to people, things begin and end with the tireless efforts of one Lindsey Enright. Lindsey is the Commissioner of a league that has more players than the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB…combined…times two. Our proverbial Queen Bee, I’ve come to realize that Lindsey is more reliable that Greenwich Standard Time. From our medical kits to our referees to our fields to our shirts, the leagues are better organized than ever before. That is a testament to the passion with which Lindsey approaches her duties every single day. I’m grateful to have had her leadership for the past year and hopefully many more to come.
Behind Lindsey stand two more strong women. Kate and Kali. Kate continues to tell a beautiful story about the kind of people that play Beehive Sports (see here, here or here) while Kali has recently joined the team to assist Lindsey manage all that goes into hosting more than 170 games each week.
Against the beautiful backdrop that is the Wasatch Range, we have more high quality humans leading our leagues than ever before. For example: I’d give Bentley a key to my house if he wanted one, Julian’s smile can light an entire softball field, Madison is friendlier than Mr. Rogers, Damon was the Bee on your t-shirt in a former life, Heather is the sweetest variety of social butterfly, Tyler is more capable than a Swiss Army knife, Travis has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve met in a long time, Cam is a more reliable teammate than anyone on the Jazz, Rory has more passion for Beehive than I do, Alex is as fierce as she is friendly and AC inspires everyone he’s around to be their best self…just to name a few. I’m proud of what they are helping us accomplish and even more proud to call them all my friends. They wouldn’t be able to lead if not for the mighty example the footsteps of Josh, Dylon, Dave, Aaron, Godwin, Jared, Allen, Hailey and of course, the one they call, Jimbo continue to leave.
One more shoutout and a challenge for the next 12 months and I’ll wrap this up for another 365 days.
Huge tip of the cap to those who have Beehive friendships and keep seeking more. The people who refuse to call one clique/team home. They join free agent teams and extend their hands to introduce themselves as often as possible. They understand that friendship isn’t a zero sum game. They are people whose lives have been changed by a Beehive friendship and they know the greatest contribution they can make next season is to do the same for someone else.
Along those lines, don’t get comfy! Change teams, play with someone new. Or play with the usual team and go sub for a new team. Or just walk around and hand out jello shots to meet new people. It’s easy, if you decide it is. Challenge: make just 5 new friends in the next 5 months. If everyone in Beehive took this took this to heart, we’d have created more than 20,000 new friendships by November 1st. That’s the kind of positive wave that can prevent the badness in NY and TX we’ve seen recently and truly change the course of history.
Beehive Sports is the best idea I’ve ever had. I don’t stay up past midnight or drink anymore because I’m confident I’ll never have a better one.
I’m proud to help all the people mentioned above lead our little corner of Salt Lake. To make it just a bit friendlier and more fun every day. Add up 11 years of days and I’m proud of the change we’ve made to the culture of this city.
I can’t wait to see what another year of more fun and more friendly days reveals as possible.
p.s. We are definitely bring Beehive Prom back this winter :)
