State of the Social Sports
Hello Everyone,
I want to start by saying THANK YOU for being a part of S3 Boston. I appreciate every single person who helped keep S3 alive over the last year. Whether it was through joining and playing in a league, submitting a donation to help cover our expenses, attending a happy hour – virtual or in person, hosting a trivia night, attending a trivia night, commenting on a post in S3 Alumni, and reaching out to me to let me know you miss the league. I can’t express how grateful I am for the S3 community and how often I STILL hear that people met their best friend, friend group or significant other in the league.
This email is a long time coming. I wanted to send it at the beginning of the Spring when our Indoor Volleyball season got cancelled for the 2nd time due to an issue with the space. Finding and booking space during the colder months of the pandemic was almost impossible as many facilities prioritized youth groups (as they should) or groups with larger wallets than S3. The truth is, as much as we wanted to guarantee these spaces we’d definitely have enough people to play, we didn’t know that to be true. Everyone had (and has) a different version of what feels safe during this time, and that is something I always wanted to respect, so keeping the refund policy flexible was a priority. That said, we didn’t have the money to cover the rental cost if we didn’t play – putting us in a tough spot. We also owed from rentals of leagues that never started in 2020, where I spent most of March and April trying to get literally anything going for S3 (remember when we thought the pandemic would last 2 weeks?) that the idea of running the full race to not cross the finish line was tough.
While I know S3 was not alone in this struggle, it was very tough personally to have the league closed for 6 months. I started working on S3 in 2012. I had the idea to do Singles Softball around June, worked to figure out logistics through November, submitted permits and received only one – for Teddy Ebersol – the following February, and then spent every waking moment outside of my full-time job working to get the first S3 league going in the summer of 2013. S3 was my baby before I had a baby. And now I wasn’t sure this baby would actually be able to reopen or if we would be one of the many businesses to close as a result of the pandemic.
Behind the scenes this winter, I was calling gyms and schools all over MA, speaking with the Parks Department and rules and regulations, trying to put together trivia nights, anxiously awaiting Spring permits, and talking to the bar contacts weelky to keep our relationship going.
But the hard truth was: many of our favorite go-to bars closed (we miss you Millers), many schools were/are not reopening rentals to outside groups for a while, people were/are zoomed out, and I don’t know about you, but the moment things did actually reopen in May, I felt like everything that was “on hold” for a year suddenly was not in a moment, and it was a mad rush to get things moving.
That, paired with my own personal struggles that were highlighted by the pandemic and way too much time with myself (l refer to it as a quarantine life crisis) caused an overwhelming feeling of “this is like-starting from scratch – 9 years later.”
As the summer comes to an end, I am reflecting on what I could have personally done better with the Spring and Summer leagues. I noticed a lot of kinks and areas of growth that I want to change in the coming months to continue to grow S3. I fell off of posting in S3 Alumni, I forgot some of my own best practices from years past, some emails were sent later than they should have been, and I due to personal issues, was not able to be present at a lot of the games.
I want that to end today. I always prided myself on the personal connection made between myself and league members – that there IS actually a human who they can ask a question to! I realize now, some of you haven’t even met me, and that is not a principle that S3 is founded on.
I created S3 Boston because I met my ex-boyfriend + a series of amazing friends in a social sports league in NY. As the story goes, he moved to Boston for work, I followed, we broke up after the first season of Softball and worked together to run leagues for the remainder of the year. It was a “I love you but I can’t be with you” breakup so when we parted ways, I kept the league.
S3 Boston changed my life. I, too, met some of my best friends in the league. It is my goal to bring back the personal aspects of the league that made the league thrive in years past.
That said, I wanted to give you a heads up on the current state of the leagues:
WHERE WE PLAY:
Many people have asked me “are we going to be able to go back to BU?!” The answer is – not yet 🙁 They are using their downstairs gym space for COVID testing and vaccinations causing all of their club sports to use the upstairs 4 court gym. As soon as we can go back, we will. We were told it would likely be in January 2021 but with the Delta variant it is hard to say.
In the meantime, we will be moving our indoor leagues back to Cambridge Community Center.
We are still searching out venues to use in the colder months. If you know of a venue or have a suggestion, please let us know by filling out this form!
S3 RUNNING:
We would like to bring back the S3 Running group! If you are interested in being the host, please email me and let me know what day + meetup spot you’d like to use.
TRIVIA:
Trivia is simply…not my strength. If you are interested in hosting a virtual trivia night and can be the ‘host’ please let me know. I would love to help get everything set up to offer this to everyone.
HAPPY HOURS:
We will be keeping in-person Happy Hours running for as long as we can. The next one will take place at Banners in September!
EMAILS:
I used to respond to emails the second they hit my phone. The pandemic showed me that habit is a bit unhealthy. Please allow a response time of 3 days for me to get back to you if it isn’t urgent.
I just hired an assistant, Bre’Onna, who will be helping me with some organizational things behind the scenes to make the league better than ever. She needs a few weeks before she can start answering emails – but that’ll come soon.
HIRING!
We are hiring umpires and league coordinators for the Fall season and to continue on through next year.
Volleyball League Coordinator
Softball and Kickball Umpires
EVENTS!
Scared Stiff will be posted by the end of the week! Naughty or Nice is in the works. An S3 is Back Party is coming your way, too!
SURVEYS:
A few weeks ago we sent out an open ended survey for Kickball and got some great feedback. We are offering the same for our other leagues.
Kickball
Softball
Volleyball
S3 SUBS:
With the 100 weddings this summer and rescheduled travel plans, I noticed it was harder to get subs. I created this Sub group that you can join and invite friends to. I’ve always shared it with our larger network so if there’s someone who can’t commit to a league but wants to play, they can join it too! Join here!
SINGLES SPORTS RETURNS!
And the most exciting announcement, we are excited to bring back Singles Softball! For those who don’t know, S3 started as a Singles League with Singles Softball. That season produced 4 marriages and numerous babies! We were Singles Social Sports for a few years until we grew out of it – we had far too many requests to go social, so we did. We always intended on bringing back the Singles Leagues and now that the apps suck (don’t @ me) we are back!
Thank you for reading up until now. All that said, I wrote this email on Friday and mid-way I got a text saying the mask mandate was reinstated. I am not sure what that means about the upcoming events (bar crawls and parties) and once I do, I will communicate that to you in the Alumni Facebook Page.
We don’t know where things will go, but we will keep going.
Thank you for reading my long S3 manifesto that I’ve replayed in my head 100 times. I have said this 1 million times in a million different ways. The best part of S3 is you. It’s the fact that you come out each week, ready to play, ready to meet new people, and ready to cheers after a win or lose. S3 is here because you’re here. THANK YOU for being a part of the league.
If you have any questions, you can reach out to me at jess@s3boston.com.
Jessica Knight
Founder and League Coordinator
S3 Boston Simply Social Sports
(617) 701-6243
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