Ladies (and I’m not just being metaphorical), you need to pay attention:

• What: The 10th (ish), semi-annual, Bracket of Death

• When: Sunday, October 13th 8:30am until… [late, if you keep winning]

• Where: Plaza Tennis Center

• Why: We’re raising money for charity. (And no, Charity, I’m not falling for that trick a third time!) We’ll donate all proceeds & donations to the Plaza Tennis Center/KC United Tennis for the purpose of helping some KC youth get a tennis lesson. Or two. Or ten. Or whatever. The point is that we’re raising money to give back to the game that we love, and “pay it forward”, so to speak.

• Entry fees: $37. Includes a T-shirt that has been proven to increase your serve speed by 15-20mph, and reduce your unforced errors by 23%. Note: Entry fees do NOT include any pain-relief medication, bandages, ice-packs, stitches, or other medical bills that may arise as a result of playing in the BOD. This, as history has shown us, is not just idle speculation.

If you’re already down with the BOD, and you know you want to play, and you’re neither scared nor intimidated at the prospect of possibly injury and certain suffering, click here to register. (If you don’t have a Tencap profile, you’ll need to create one first)

If you have no idea what the BOD is, keep reading:

The short answer is, the BOD (tournament) is an entire tennis tournament compressed into one day, and is the largest "endurance tennis" tournament in Kansas City. Endurance tennis means the more you win, the more you play. The more you play, the more tired you become. The more tired you become, the harder it is to win.

The BOD exists because tennis is awesome. And because tennis is awesome, more tennis is even more awesome. And if you carry this train of thought through to its logical extreme, you will arrive at the rationale of the BOD: It’s all the tennis you can stand in one day, if you can remain standing. We play in the BOD because winning the BOD - which is extremely unlikely - is the tennis equivalent of hiking to base camp of Everest while carrying an unsympathetic Sherpa on your back. Because if you win the BOD - which again, you almost certainly won’t - but if you were able to somehow win, you’d have the bragging rights of knowing that you belong to a very small group of men who have attained the highest level of tennis excellence available to amateurs and mere mortals.

This brings us to a significant turning point in the BOD. Historically, only the manliest of men have played in the BOD. Men so manly - and dangerous (and handsome) - that years from now they’ll carve statues in our honor. However, as glorious as these halcyon days of unisex tennis bliss have been, it’s time for the BOD to change; and so it is with great pleasure and trepidation that I hereby formally announce that this time, for the first time in the history of the BOD, we are inviting our fairer, Y-chromosome-deficient, counterparts to join us in battle; this time, we’re inviting the ladies to join us.

Note: I’ve been advised by the BOD’s legal counsel and PR team that we (us manly, dangerous, and handsome men) strongly resist the urge to refer to the ladies as the “Broads of Death”, no matter how tempting and/or appropriate it may be.

Format for the October,13, 2013 BOD

32 men (NTRP 3.0 - 4.0) will be semi-randomly paired with 32 women (NTRP 3.0 - 4.5), in what will surely be the most epic BOD to date. For those of you without a calculator handy, that's almost 64 players. And consider this: The PTC has 14 courts. We’ll need 16 to get us through the 1st round. It’s going to be a big deal.

Semi-random pairing works like this: A group of the highest rated men (NTRP 4.0) will be paired with a group of the lowest rated women (NTRP 3.0 or 3.5). Conversely, the lowest rated men (NTRP 3.0 or 3.5) will be paired with the highest rated women (NTRP 4.0 or 4.5) The middle-ranked players (typically the 3.5 players) will be randomly paired with each other. All of which is to say, you don’t get to choose your partner.

Perks

First, and possibly best, T-shirts are included. The logo looks pretty awesome. (see attached) Also, I’m working on getting some raffle items (I know Tencap is going to donate *some* stuff), but if any of you have connections such that we’d be able to raffle off tennis bags, racquets, lessons, etc. this would be the perfect, tennis-related-charity-event to do that for.

And we’re going to need 64 cans of tennis balls. If anybody knows how to hook us up, that’ll just be more $$$ that goes to the charitable bottom line.

Food & Drink

Joe Dingler (manager of Fred P. Ott’s, copied) has worked with us before to create a culinary masterpiece which, if memory serves me correctly, is referred to as the “Burger of Death?” Or maybe it was the “Brät of Death?” Whatever it was, it was good. (Head's up, Joe. Sunday, October 13th should be pretty busy!)

Also, last but certainly not least, I filled out a donation request from Boulevard, so there’s a possibility that we’ll have some free beer to drink? A much stronger possibility if any of you are friends with Sarah Carlew, their Community Relations Manager?

Contact:

Facebook / Twitter / Email (bracketofdeath@gmail.com)

Once again, to register for the Fall 2013 Bracket of Death, click here.