Coach Bryant, a true sports person

I humbly nominate Michael Bryant MD for Sports Person of the Year:

If you have money and are a generous person, it is easy to help others. Maybe they need $10 for gas or $1000 to pay off a debt. If YOU have the money, and WANT to give it to them, cool. Brownie points for the nice guy. It is harder to get others to cough up money, even for the most noble of causes. Here are two instances where Doc Bryant elevated our team and the sport of rugby making him an excellent candidate for Sports Person of the Year.

Doc is a Pediatrician at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles. Each year, CHLA asks employees or Departments to “sponsor” sick children and their families during Christmas. It is called the ELF Program. Doc masterfully organized the effort and our team graciously gave. This is not what makes him so special. Unfortunately, our sponsored child passed away shortly after Christmas. Doc challenged the team to help raise a little more money for the family. Keep in mind, we had just had Christmas for ourselves, we had just paid our dues and we were hoping to go to South Carolina in case the season went as well as we planned. Unplanned “giving” was not in the cards for many players. At practice, Doc gave us a moving speech, near teams he talked of a small child never given the chance to play rugby, never given the chance to play a sport he loved, etc. By the end of the practice, he had raised (and donated himself) enough money to pay for the funeral. Another player, directly because of Doc’s moving speech, pledged tickets and a hotel stay to Disneyland for the parents and the sibling. By doing this, he elevated not only our view of ourselves (we were not dumb rugby players any more) but elevated the sport of rugby in the eyes of this family and every person they tell. Doc even changed the name of a play so every game we would be reminded that Andrew Donis did not have the opportunity to participate in sports that we do.

The second example is equally as moving. As you know, Bunk Wurth suffered a catastrophic injury while playing rugby. I think a common reaction for athletes is to “look the other way” so his injury is not on your mind. Out of sight out of mind. Well, when we played the Bucks this year (Bunks team), Doc challenged us (as he has done each year since the injury) to give as much money as we could and he would match the donation. $2200 was given to the Bucks for Bunk after our Hard fought game. Again, not only did he elevate the sport of rugby at that moment with the team and supporters, but also every person that ever hears this story will look at rugby in a better light than they did before.

Thank you for your consideration
A Pasadena Player

Funniest emails ever!

Tim becomes exasperated at the events that lead up to getting another order that is incorrect. He emails the team…and the Owner of the company

All -

Items arrived Friday. Should be no surprise to anyone that the order was once again, wrong. Warm-ups have no player names on them. This detail was, of course, included in the order specification sent to the apparently instructionally-challenged people at Balls Out. Probably just a coincidence that the first batch of flawed warm-ups DID have the players names on them.

At any rate, we once again have received something less than what we ordered. I (for once you might say) am at a complete loss for words right now. This is as much your decision as it is mine. We could spin our wheels for another 5 months while we wait for Balls Out to send us the correct merchandise or we could just cut the cord now. I guess another option would be to get a quote for someone locally to put the names on the warm-ups and
Balls Out would pay us IN ADVANCE for this service.

You make the call. I'm finished with Regina and Balls Out - if it were just me, this business relationship would have ended the moment the first deadline was missed with no explanation. Even when they try to correct a mistake, they make a mistake to the correction, and then attempt to make us feel guilty because we demanded they correct the mistake. If all of the employees of Balls Out are like Regina, then they are completely without an ounce of logic, intelligence, or common-sense. Any further dealings with them will likely be more of the same.

Tim

Tim emails the owner, Regina. At the time, she was also the green party candidate for the school board in Mo-Tard Egypt.

Regina -

I want you to fully comprehend the impression you and your entire organization has left with the members of the Pasadena Rugby Football Club. Your complete inability to even partially salvage what has become the epitome of transactions gone badly has resulted in the eternal association of your name and Balls Out with the worst possible outcome of any event. You and BO will now be punch lines or one-liners, such as "I'd rather do business with Regina than have a root canal" or "I'd rather have bamboo shoots shoved under my fingernails than try to have a coherent conversation with Regina" or "A bad day of ditch-digging is better than a good-day of dealing with Regina." You, and you alone, have left an indelible mark on the psyche of each one of us because we are utterly dumfounded, bewildered, and, befuddled at your ABSOLUTE DEARTH of logic and reason. You've single-handedly reinforced the stereotype of a rugby player not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, and you've gone to new lows and set a new standard for the apparent lack of common-sense possessed by a rugger.

If you are sensing some impolite feelings or are surprised at the comment below from my colleague, I can only recommend that you seek some professional guidance because I have been expressing these sentiments to you for months and yet you are oblivious to the dissatisfaction experienced by your customer, the Pasadena RFC.

Do us all a favor: send the check. End the suffering.

Regina’s response…

Tim,

Tim, the word polite has a specific meaning. I have always responded politely. Our company has stood behind its product and paid lots of money on your team's behalf.

The email following this with "F**K HER that is bull." is an example of impoliteness. As I stated, I thought the letter and refund were tied together. You told me to forget the letter, without any advice on what to add or change. I am not aware of anything wrong in the letter.

Will be back in touch by tomorrow.

Thanks,
Regina

Tim once sent 55 emails to a man who didn’t send the correct couch to him. He enjoys this… in a bizarre way. His response to her…response.

Regina -

Please do not begin to lecture me on politeness and business etiquette. The manner in which you run your business is completely devoid of any professionalism and courtesy. You have not the first idea of what it means to provide your customers with even a minimum level of acceptable customer service. Your letter, laden with omissions and misrepresentations is further evidence of this fact. I no longer have the patience nor the intestinal fortitude to work with you when you seem so blissfully and blatantly ignorant of the reality of the situation. The content of that letter did not even slightly resemble the truth, and based on past experience, I do not expect that any manner of language or medium of communication will allow me to get through to you. You are a black hole of logic and reality and I no longer wish to expend any further time or energy in dealing with you. Just send the check and the Pasadena RFC will go away, never to be heard from again.

Tim

Our Own Mike Aston who sells sports memorabilia (http://www.hofgroup.com) responds. BTW, if you neede a cool gift for a friend who like sport stuff, email Mike.

Hello Regina,

This is Mike, treasurer of Pasadena RFC and 2nd longest active member to this team.

I have sent you both polite and non-polite messages about this situation. I also mentioned before we ordered these kits to beware, because I was not happy with service we had when we ordered our championship t-shirts. After that incident I personally decided I would not do business with your company ever again. Since I was not the one organizing this purchase I said fine. Since this whole fiasco has started I have heard complaints from other teams with your company.

Here were the items I received from your company:
2 T-shirts, which fit pretty good.
2 Pair of rugby shorts that were so tight, I can't even wear them.
Socks were OK
Mouth Piece was ok
Bottoms, fit me like they were Large, not XXL
Top fit me like they were Small not a XXL. The sleeves just went to the forearm. Let alone the printing falling off.

Based on your sizing chart I marked the appropriate sizes.

Tim's definition for customer service is accurate. I have been running my business for almost 11 years and I have return customers because of my service. If I treated my customers they way you treat yours, I would have been out of business years ago. If you want to see great customer service, purchase something from Front Row
Outfitters. They know what customer service is.

Basically it is your business and you can run it any way you like. I guarantee you one thing, Pasadena RFC will never purchase another thing from you as long as I am around if anybody asks me my opinion of your company I will tell them.

I do not think Tim is asking too much by you sending $255.00, which would cover the refund for the names that are not on the warm-ups and the reimbursement of shipping and you will be done with us, no more emails. You quoted Tim and charged $210.00 for the names, just because you only paid $105.00 does not mean that are should only give us $105.00 refund.

If this email makes you believe in any way that I am satisfied, you are completely wrong.

Very unsatisfied and angry customer,

Mike Aston

I had a telephone conversation with this “person” and she was pretty belligerent. She claimed, “there is no way the team was upset and that this was all Tim’s fault.” Since I was unable to explain how the team felt, I asked the team to respond to her… Too bad I can’t find those emails!!!

Team,

As you may or may not have noticed... we have had a long a difficult time obtaining our kits from Balls Out. I spent nearly 40 minutes on the phone with the proprietor of Balls Out Rugby yesterday in an attempt to convey to her how the team felt. Her main concern was in trying to obtain the "level of frustration" the team has regarding this order. I believe Tim has made his feelings crystal clear. I too have tried to express where I believe the team "is" in regard to our level of frustration. However, I am still not sure Regina understands how we, as a team, feel.

In fact, during our conversation, Regina indicated that,
1. Tim is feeding the fire and most people would not be feeling this way if he were not adding fuel to the fire
2. Tim has not spent an overly excessive amount of time dealing with this transaction and should not feel otherwise.
3. Tim has an over exaggerated sense of what good customer services is and is making this mole hill into a mountain.
4. Tim's feelings are not an overall representation of how the team feels.

So, I am asking each of you to convey your own personnel level of frustration to Regina and BO! Please do so honestly, but with appropriate language. Your response can be brief or lengthy. Whatever level of participation you choose. However, at this point, silence is being understood by Regina as approval by the masses.

Please be honest. If you feel this transaction has been up to standard and not a big deal, let everyone know.

Thanking you all in advance

Her last response before sending a refund...

Aaron and rest of Pasadena,

The purpose of my calls to members of the board was to interact with out a filter. It was not to read the next day a misrepresentation of my words to be emailed out to others (or to have emails I sent to individuals sent out to the team- none of it is incriminating, but the whole way of doing things is rude, I feel).

Your email below highlights what has been the problem here all along. You have not communicated my feelings or statements with your synopsis.

At this point, when my requests for honesty and politeness have failed I will stop taking my time and energy into trying to come to an understanding. So I will not be calling any more board members- that seems more than futile.

You and your teammates have made it clear that an understanding will not be had.

I will have Sharon cut the check for the names to be put on (let's be honest about the severity of the situation here). The cost to us is $5. So it will be for $105. To write it for more than it costs to get them fixed would be a silly move at this point- you guys have been clear in your vitriol against our company.

I do wish you luck in your rugby and in other matters. And I do wish this could have turned out differently.

This is all I will be reading for angry Pasadena emails for a while...


Sincerely,

Regina