Managers, it has been my great pleasure representing you on the FHC Board of Directors for the past 10 years.  Wow, did that go fast.  Some 10 years ago, I was asked to take over the Area 2 Director's position, and was re-elected the next year.  In the fall of 2015, I was elected as Chairman, and have served in that capacity for the past 8 years.  FHC Senior Softball has grown to be the largest Senior Softball League in the country, and I am proud to have been a Player, a Manager, a Sponsor, and of course a Board Member. In those 26 years, I have made so many great friends in all of those areas, but also the umpires, of course.  Without them, we could not be where we are today.  Not only do we have the greatest Players in the country, we also have the best trained and best tournament umpires anywhere.

It has been my honor to work closely with each and every Board Member that has graced our league with their hard work and expertise.  I call on all of you to continue to support our Board of Directors in every way that you can.  You Managers have voted in some great people who are independent thinkers, and try to do what is best always for FHC.  Some of you believe that the Chairman makes all of the decisions for FHC.  That is totally incorrect.  99% of all decisions are made by the 9 other Board Members.  In my 8 years as Chairman, I only voted once.  The Chairman only votes if there is a tie, and that only happened one time during my time. 

I do need to address the election that was held last month.  On Saturday before the election was to begin, a former FHC member wrote a scathing and erroneous message on 'social media' that I was a thief, never cared about FHC, was only about myself, and would get rid of anyone that disagreed with me.  He said I was stealing some $10,000-12,000 each tournament.  I sincerely feel sorry for this person.  I am a Christian man, would not do such a thing anyway, and I think that those of you that know me feel the same way.  But, it is obvious that some people did believe this nonsense, and it was obvious with the vote.  I will explain with these numbers how impossible it would be:

In a 60 Team Tournament

• 60 Teams x $300 entry fee = $18,000
• Umpires - 120 games x $77 per game = $9,240
• Awards - approximately $2,000
• Balls - $1,800
• Hotel fees for Staff and Umpires - $2,400
• Director Fees - $1,500
• Travel - $800

The total for one tournament (60 Teams) is approximately $17,000+.

If you question my numbers please contact the FHC Treasurer.

If you voted against me because you felt we needed a change then that is your Manager's right.  If you were swayed by the lies I am so sorry I did not do enough to deserve your trust.

During my time as the Area 2 Director, we brought about the fantastic change to pitching safety by initiating the 'pitching screen.'  We starting using the pitching screen in our Wednesday night Gold League in Venice about 9 years ago, and it immediately became popular.  I was the Director at the Lehigh Complex and we had a pitcher go down with a blow to the head. Thank God we had a EMT in the stands, and they took over until the ambulance got there.  We had a Board Meeting a couple of weeks later, and a Commissioner and I demanded that we go to the Screens as an experiment and we have never looked back.

As Chairman we have improved the Screen Rules through the years.

We have initiated the "safety slide rule" and rarely have any contact injuries.

We have initiated several baseball mechanic techniques with our umpire training which allows better coverage in fly ball/line drive hits.

We have cleaned up the bad language in the last several years which has brought back the ladies and kids and grandkids to our parks.

We have online voting which brings about more opportunities to participate in FHC.

I personally, with the help of my wife Sherry, have helped Managers and Players to be able to play in a given tournament as late as a Friday before every single tournament throughout the years I was Chairman.

We started the Banquet style FHC Hall of Fame 7 years ago and it has become the highlight of the year for FHC Softball.

Again, I sincerely hope you will help and support our FHC Board of Directors going forward.  They are great leaders that donate their time to a great organization.

We still have our Hall of Fame Induction and both State Tournaments in December, so there is still much to do.

I will leave you with this:  My wife and I are both retired educators, as many of you know.  Most all of the people in our vocation had a favorite theme or statement.  I want to share hers because we can all relate. At the bottom of her letter page was "The only thing that is constant, is change."

God bless you all, 

Coach Mike Knowles
FHC Chairman