A Real Success Story

Each Saturday, I play in a run that my dad manages at our local high school. He's been running this run for going on 15 years. He's always stressed about making fair teams. He'll text my brother and me for help all the time. We gladly helped because we want our runs to be fair, fun, fair, competitive, and FAIR. No one plays pickup to get blown out or to win 36-14. What's the point?

With three brains involved, we'd usually land on solid teams after several iterations, back and forth text, and an argument here and there. One day, I thought, "There has to be a better way. Surely, we're not the only crew that tries to make fair teams for a fun run." I did some research and didn't find what I was looking for. I started tinkering around on spreadsheets to create a fair team generator for my dad. What this became was Run the Run, the app that acts as an admin assistant for pickup crew organizers.

I created a very stripped down version of this for just our Saturday crew. A crew my dad knows like the back of his hand. I wanted to test it out. Could the app create fair teams where no one would notice that it wasn't my dad picking and choosing each guy?

The first Saturday was better than I could've hoped for. I'm sure this will ring true to other organizers reading this. We had 13 people post in for our 5v5 full court run. A 14th said he could maybe come, and, of course, he's one of the best players in our crew. It's not like we can just throw Chris onto any team and everything stays balanced. Whatever. That happens. Then a guy asked if he could bring a friend, to which my dad said, "sounds good". We started with 14 players, my dad ran the app, and the teams were great. We ran 5v5 with 2 subs on each squad (that's just our style). Chris showed up towards the end of the first game which was very competitive. No problem. My dad toggled him in, re-generated teams, and split the guys up. We played for almost 3 hours with 3 teams, all of which were competitive. There was one lopsided loss, but then the loser of that game went on to beat the other team the second time they played. The teams were balanced, but the first game just got away from the losing team. That happens even to NBA teams, so I just noted that down as a success through and through. I was beaming on the inside knowing the app I had worked hard on had made my dad's Saturday crew run smoothly and relieved stress off his shoulders. Unsolicited, one of our guys said, "Really good teams today." I was elated.

Fast forward to next Saturday, we ran the app a second time. This time with 16 people in and a no-show. No problem. My dad just made sure not to toggle Mr. No-show in. This time we got some raised eyebrows as a couple of the older and slower crew members were slotted on the same team. The app can't read minds and think about who I personally would want on the same team, but it DID get the balance right. Even with 3 teams where one was obviously too young and another too old, all the games remained fairly competitive. It was a good run.

We are going to keep building, keep learning, and keep making this app the best pickup admin app that ever existed.

All this to say, if you run a run, I hope you give us a try. We're out here trying to make pickup basketball awesome. We believe in good community, competitive sports, and ball is life! A quick salute to all hoopers and a special shoutout to the organizers that get to the gym early, sweep the floors, lock up after, and RUN THE RUN!

Curious how the app actually splits players up? Read how we make fair teams.

Want to hear from another crew? See the unexpected bonus one organizer found.