Jay Cole and 11 of his Tyson Foods co-workers, better known on the softball field as the Obion County Hitmen, loaded into two vans and traveled to Springdale earlier this month.
Cole, a production supervisor at the company's poultry complex in Union City, Tenn., said the seven-hour trip to play in Tyson's softball tournament has become an annual tradition. The team holds fundraisers, practice sessions and participates in a local softball league to prepare for the opportunity to go toe-to-toe with fellow Tyson employees.
"It takes a lot to get geared up to come here, but it's a blast," Cole said a few minutes before his team's opening game Aug. 15. "You get your team pulled together and try to win some games."
The Hitmen were one of 51 teams, all comprised of Tyson workers, to play in a tournament that has been held annually since 1982. The 33rd version of what the U.S. Specialty Sports Association rates as the largest corporate softball tournament in the country occupied three softball complexes in Northwest Arkansas and consisted of Tyson employees from seven states.
Winners in the men's and women's divisions walked away with trophies and a year of bragging rights within the nation's largest meat processor, but Tyson Foods Chief Executive Officer Donnie Smith believes the softball weekend means more than that to participants. He said the tournament is a valuable team-building event that attracts Tyson employees from different backgrounds and areas of the company for a large "family reunion."
"So many people get in their mind that it's all the folks at the corporate center. That's Tyson," Smith said. "No, no, no. Tyson is 115,000 people that get up every morning in small-town America and come to work and make great food. They make a difference.
"So one of the great things this does is it pulls us all together and reminds us we're all one big family. It reminds us it takes all of us to get the job done every week."
There's no need to remind the tournament's organizing committee about the size of the Tyson family. Organizing the company function every year makes that clear.
Brian McCullar, a customer development manager in retail sales at Tyson, leads the organizing committee. He said work on the tournament typically begins in January. About 15 volunteers begin spreading the word and locating teams, putting together the tournament brackets, reserving softball fields and lining up umpires for the games.
The tournament is open to any Tyson employee, and identifications are checked to ensure that there are no ringers on rosters. The company estimated about 850 employees played this year. Teams must pay their own way. Many hold fundraisers to cover travel costs.
"Every year it's big," McCullar said. "I've been doing this for 13 years, and the number of teams that play ebbs and flows, but it's always 50-plus, it seems like."
Many of the teams in the tournament are from the corporate office, representing sections of the company, such as accounting and transportation. But teams from Tyson plants in Arkansas cities like Berryville, Waldron and Pine Bluff also compete. In addition to the Hitmen, teams from Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, Kansas and Virginia traveled to Arkansas to play in this year's tournament.
It leads to a variety of creative team names like the Case Ready Carnivores, Beefeaters, Texas Storm, Breasts and Thighs, Pine Bluff Ballers, Pollo Locos, Fowl Balls and Scared Hitless. The performance on the field is just as impressive. Employees -- many former high school and college athletes -- hit home runs over the center-field wall, make diving catches in the outfield and turn in double plays throughout the double-elimination tournament.
Paul Kirchner, an attorney in Tyson's legal department and captain of the Beefeaters, said before his team's opening game that the field was loaded with employees determined to win. But Kirchner added that the competitiveness is matched by sportsmanship -- win or lose.
"You see the pride in their plant location and their community," Kirchner said. "They're representing their community. You see their pride, and you see their passion and then, when the game is over, everybody shakes hands and you go back to work being on the same team."
The tournament is about team-building, said Chuck Hyde, chief executive officer of Soderquist Leadership in Siloam Springs. He said companies are always searching for ways to engage employees beyond the workplace.
Hyde, whose company offers leadership and team-building programs for corporate and nonprofit clients, believes there are other benefits, as well. He said Tyson's softball tournament is another indication that the company understands the importance of developing its culture at all levels, making a strong statement that it values competition and wants to build relationships.
"This is an example where they're able to bridge work and play," Hyde said in an email. "What these kind of events do is get people out of their normal workday roles. Titles and departmental functions are dropped, and people are seen as people."
Cole experienced that firsthand when he noticed Smith approaching him during the tournament a few years ago. The CEO of the company -- who is a Tennessee native and University of Tennessee graduate -- noticed Cole was wearing a Tennessee hat, and the two struck up a conversation.
Kirchner, who has played in the tournament the past 12 years, said the weekend has become a way to learn more about co-workers across different levels of the company.
"I get to meet some people I don't normally work with," Kirchner said. "How they compete out here is how they compete in the business. I think there's a correlation between the two. When you see it out here, I think it brings people together a little bit more as one company."
Otmar E. Varela, an associate professor of management at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said events like Tyson's softball tournament could cause conflict if there is animosity among groups or segments of the company. But, he said, there are typically more benefits than not to such events, including having a positive impact on employees' commitment to the company.
"You want them to identify with a company or a unit," Varela said. "If they see themselves belonging or fitting, that sensation is going to create commitment and loyalty. That loyalty is going to trigger a significant number of behaviors that you don't expect from employees."
Tyson added a new wrinkle the night before its 33rd tournament. The committee organized an exhibition game between the Wounded Warriors Amputee Softball Team and a group of Tyson All-Stars.
McCullar said it took more than a year to put the game together because the Wounded Warriors, a group of military veterans that travels around the country playing in softball tournaments, is in high demand.
About 1,000 were on hand to see Loren McDaniel, the reigning Miss Arkansas, sing the national anthem. Patience Beard, an Arkansas cheerleader whose left leg was amputated when she was an infant, was the Wounded Warriors honorary bat girl. She also threw out the first pitch to Smith.
Smith, who has been a company employee since 1980 and its CEO since 2009, said a few minutes later that he couldn't remember any specifics from his first Tyson softball tournament. But, he said, the tournament has been a big deal for as long as he can remember and is an important part of the company's identity.
"We have a great culture," Smith said. "And that's what it takes to keep being successful year after year is when everybody knows they're valuable. On a softball field, you're going to have vice presidents and folks that work on the line and their managers all on the same team. And when you get on that team, you've all got the same jersey on, and you're all doing the same thing together.
"That doesn't happen at a lot of places."
SundayMonday Business on 08/23/2015