Toadvine Blog

Over the past few months, we have been able to attend some awesome events in the area! If you are a school or school vendor in the Kentucky-Ohio-Tennessee tri-state area, you need to check out these associations and plan to attend their events in 2016!

Tennessee School Board Annual Convention

The Tennessee School Boards Association was created with the goal of assisting Tennessee school boards in effectively governing school districts.

On their website, they have a detailed list of the ways that they plan to realize this goal in 2016. Some of those ways include seeking 100% membership of all school boards in Tennessee, providing professional development opportunities for all employees, providing each school board member a TSBA calendar of activities and events, reviewing and revising roles and responsibilities for TSBA staff to meet the changing needs of school boards and maintaining e-mail addresses of all board members and superintendents.

Their convention is one of the largest education meetings in Tennessee where public school advocates and board members come together from across the nation to showcase successful student achievement programs and discuss new trends and innovations in education.

There's no doubt that you will benefit from being a part of this organization. If you are ever in need of something for your school, TSBA is able to connect you with the right professionals to handle your concern.

At Toadvine Enterprises, we are happy to provide all of the sports facility needs to Tennessee schools! Please contact us if you have any questions about athletic equipment, seating or scoreboards! Someone from our staff with respond to you within 24 hours!

Ohio School Board Trade Show

Every year Toadvine attends the Ohio School Board Trade Show to network with people and discuss new ways of how we can better serve the school children in our area.

We met some awesome people this year, learned some really cool new industry trends and gave away a free cooler!

The Ohio School Board Trade Show is one of the biggest--if not THE biggest--school trade shows in the U.S. If you are a school or vendor in the area, or even on this side of the country, you should definitely consider attending this event next year!

They are all about coming up with practical solutions to help school district teams improve student learning and achievement. The event aims to bring excellence to the education experience as a whole, including sports, arts and health. 

It is also a great opportunity to network with people in your industry! We met some awesome architects this year who we hope to partner with to do business in the future.

As we said before, please don't hesitate to reach out to us if your school needs a new stadium. Contact us here! And we hope to see you at these events next year!

Click to edit your new post...

In a recent Business First article, Tom Jurich, the director and president of athletics for the University of Louisville, talks about the importance of having state of the art facilities in order to recruit the best athletes to your school.

A couple of weeks ago he announced his plan to expand the Cardinal stadium by 10,000 seats. The new design will mimic NFL stadiums, namely the Seattle Seahawks' CenturyLink Field and the Dallas Cowboys' AT&T Stadium. Locker rooms, training rooms and meeting rooms will be revamped as well in this $55 million renovation.

A member of the University of Louisville Board of Trustees, Jonathan Blue, expressed his support for the project by saying, "Today, sports is an arms race, especially in recruiting, and we must have top-notch facilities in order to bring top-notch athletes to this university."

Jurich is also thinking about the fans. He is putting together a committee to find out what fans are wanting to see in the new stadium, and a new team entrance is being built so that fans can cheer on their team as they emerge from the locker room at the start of the game and at halftime.

Whether you are the athletic director for a small high school or president of athletics for a D1 university, your players depend on you to keep their stadiums and equipment in optimum shape. It truly does affect performance and team morale. Similarly, the fans are affected by the way you maintain the equipment, seating areas, scoreboards, etc.

At Toadvine, we provide the best of the best in athletic equipment and would love to help you step up and prepare your stadium for the team you represent. Contact us here and receive a 24 hour guaranteed response or visit our website to check out some work we have done.

Toadvine Enterprises and Vine & Branch introduce a maintenance and safety inspection program for all of our customers' indoor and outdoor seating and equipment. Installing bleacher or stadium seating is only the start of upgrading your field, court, or venue. It provides a facelift for your space as well as an upgrade in safety.

We take pride in designing functional, safe, and aesthetically pleasing seating, but maintaining those high standards is a big piece to the puzzle. Bleachers should be maintained annually to ensure they remain safe for the wear and tear of large crowds. Often, bleacher maintenance goes overlooked and can cause serious accidents that your school or venue could be held responsible for.

Annual bleacher maintenance is essential and annual inspections are often required by most insurance companies to maintain the standards required for the policy and code. We are fully staffed and can arrange bleacher maintenance at your earliest convenience.

When we think of Little Leauge, often we think of kids picking dandelions in the outfield, running to third base from home, or just an overall endearing lack of understanding for the game. Little League is cute, not competitive... at least the way we remember it. But nowadays, Little League is the real deal, and with the Little League World Series just around the corner, we wanted to take a minute and talk about how the program has evolved over the years.

The game has become increasingly more competitive. Even as early as 6 years old, kids start to take the All-American sport seriously. We're now seeing harder throws, consistent batting, and an overall exciting game to watch (especially for parents!). Don't get us wrong, there are still kids who like to twirl in the outfield and play in the dirt, but when All-Star time rolls around and tournaments begin, it's all business.

Team sports are known to encourage healthy social and problem-solving capabilities at an early age. The advantage of Little League encouraging kids to be so passionate about the game, is that they work hard to play. There is winning and losing, and although loss can be difficult for kids, it teaches good sportsmanship. Teams still line up after every game to greet one another with a "good game," and you can see kids bonding with each other and developing comradery.

We know that team sports can be expensive for parents, but there are tricks to save money on the rising costs and ways to get your kid involved. Right now, the games are leading up to the National and International Little League World Series, and the teams have their chance to show off all the hard work they have put in this year. If you are thinking about signing your kid up for Little League, go to Littleleague.org for more information.

A while back, Toadvine had the pleasure of contributing seating to UofL's Baseball field, the Jim Patterson Stadium. Last week, those seats were filled by 6,010 fans cheering on the Cards in their determining game for the Super Regionals. While the Cards fell to Cal State Fullerton for a loss, they put up a good fight including a home run by Will Smith that tied the game in the fourth inning. The game went into 11 innings and ended with controversy and emotion. The Cards lost 4-3. The controversy arose when a tough call was made in the last inning. The call took over four brutal minutes to dispute and was a game changer for the Cards. The team fell short of their dreams and their goals last week, and it was heartbreaking to watch after such a strong season. 

Still, no matter the outcome, the Cards are determined to come back next year. If they keep playing the way they did last week, Super Regionals 2016 is definitely an attainable goal!

Josh Rogers with the SNAG!!! #RoadToOmaha #SCTop10 pic.twitter.com/QaQ7vPVtYx

— NCAA Baseball (@NCAACWS) June 9, 2015