When Barend Reijn’s two daughters first discovered softball, it wasn’t immediately obvious that they had found something that would become such a big part of their lives.
Like many parents, Reijn and his wife tried different activities with their girls — soccer, horseback riding, gymnastics and various camps — searching for something that clicked.
Then came softball.
“It was just something that both of them loved at first sight,” Reijn said. “Love at first bat.”
Now, the girls, ages 8 and 10 and students at San Lorenzo Valley Elementary School, are part of a sport that has become a family affair, and Reijn is helping bring a major competitive softball tournament to the San Lorenzo Valley.
The inaugural Redwood Rumble, scheduled for Oct. 9-11, will bring 18 teams in the 8U, 10U and 12U divisions to the valley for a weekend of competition. The tournament will feature 42 games played at fields at San Lorenzo Valley High School and Quail Hollow.
For Reijn, who joined the San Lorenzo Valley Girls Softball board this summer, the tournament began with a simple idea.
He had been traveling with his daughters to tournaments and hearing other teams talk about Mountain Dream, the valley’s competitive softball program.
“People know Mountain Dream from when we play at other tournaments,” Reijn said. “And all the people were talking about it.”
He began thinking that perhaps it was time to bring some of those teams to San Lorenzo Valley.
“I was like, hey, you know, it would be cool to do a tournament,” he said. “Sometimes it takes somebody to say, well, we’re not going to talk about it, we’re just going to do this,” Reijn said. “So I took that on.”
Three months later, the Redwood Rumble is about to become reality.
The tournament will include six teams in each of the three age divisions. Teams will play three pool games before moving into Sunday bracket play, with every team guaranteed at least four games. Organizing 42 games over a single weekend, Reijn admits, has been an experience.
“We decided in July that that’s something that we wanted to do,” he said. “Two, three months of preparation time is not a lot, but we said, hey, we can still do that.”
More than 60 volunteers have signed up to work approximately 260 shifts throughout the weekend, helping with field preparation, the snack shack and other jobs necessary to keep a tournament of this size moving.
“We have a lot of volunteers,” Reijn said. “Everybody in the community really wants to help and make it a great event.”
Local businesses have also stepped forward, with about 15 to 20 sponsors helping support the tournament.
For Reijn, the generosity is part of what makes the event special. “We try to make it a win-win,” he said. “For them to give them some exposure and for us to get a little bit of help with the funding.”
But the tournament is only one piece of a larger vision for San Lorenzo Valley Girls Softball. Reijn says the ultimate goal is simple: Get more girls playing.
“The objective for the San Lorenzo Valley Girls Softball is just to get as many girls playing softball as possible,” he said. “At least a similar amount as boys playing baseball, we should have girls playing softball.”
The foundation for that goal is the organization’s recreational program, which introduces girls ages 6U through 14U to the sport, regardless of experience. From there, players who want to pursue more competitive softball can try out for Mountain Dream.
Currently, the organization has one competitive team at each of the 8U, 10U and 12U levels. Reijn would like to see enough players eventually available to form two teams at each age level.
Reijn has seen firsthand what softball can do for children beyond teaching them how to hit, throw and catch.
“It does so many things,” he said. “Supporting each other, but also discipline and listening when there’s a coach and there’s certain discipline that it requires in a team. Of course, the individual matters, but also the team matters. You cannot be just selfish in that sense.”
He has watched his own daughters learn about competition, perseverance and the importance of continuing to work even when things don’t go as planned.
“Everybody’s going to have a day where things are just not going as we had hoped that they would go,” he said. “But tomorrow’s a new day, and we go again.”
His own family has learned the game from scratch. Reijn came to the United States from the Netherlands, where softball isn’t nearly as prominent, but learning alongside his daughters has made the experience even more meaningful.
He has watched them form friendships, learn to depend on teammates and become part of a community that includes players, coaches, parents and volunteers.
“I think the bonding, being part of a team, supporting each other, going to tournaments together, hanging out together, in good times, bad times,” he said. “I think it’s great.”
That sense of community is also evident in the coaches who volunteer their time. Many have played softball at a high level, including in college, and now return to the field to teach the next generation.
For Reijn, their commitment is a reminder that youth sports aren’t built only by the players.
“It’s all volunteers,” he said. “A lot of people put a tremendous amount of effort and time and their passion into doing that.”
The Redwood Rumble is Reijn’s first major project with San Lorenzo Valley Girls Softball, but he hopes it won’t be the last.
“Every kid has a dream, whatever that dream goes,” he said.
For this October weekend, those dreams will unfold against a backdrop that is uniquely San Lorenzo Valley. Instead of traveling to an urban field somewhere else, visiting teams will come here — to compete, make memories and, as Reijn puts it, “play softball amongst the redwoods.”
And perhaps some of the youngest girls watching from the sidelines will see something that makes them want to pick up a glove themselves.
That, Reijn said, is really the dream.
