Organizing a month-long amateur baseball tournament that features 16 fields, two spring training facilities, 256 teams, 672 games, and over 4,000 high school baseball players is a daunting task, one that not many can easily accomplish.

But Ann Claire Roberson, Jeff Feltman, and their staff seem to manage just fine.

The National Team Championships in Arizona serves as one of USA Baseball’s primary identification events for its national teams. Located in Peoria and Surprise, Arizona, USA Baseball’s staff toils year-round to pull off the four-week, four-age group tournament over 2 thousand miles away from their home base in Cary, North Carolina.

Roberson, Director of Baseball Operations and Feltman, Coordinator of Baseball Operations, are the masterminds behind the undertaking. Captaining the operations side of the tournament, they work the whole year to guarantee the best event possible come June and July in Arizona.

Crafting schedules, booking sites, and inviting teams are all vital jobs for Roberson and Feltman. However, their most critical function is making sure their over-70-person staff has what it needs to succeed.

“What we do is we just make sure everyone has what they need to be successful,” Feltman said. “So it's constantly sending updated rosters, constantly checking schedules, making sure everyone's good, and just treating everyone right. I think there's so many different pieces that fall into it, but it’s just getting the right people in place to make it a successful tournament.”

That staff includes an array of local, Arizona-based hourly workers, a team of interns, and multiple full-time USA Baseball employees across several departments. From accounting to creative teams and everything in between, assembling the right staff is the most important task for Roberson and Feltman when putting on a successful tournament.

While she says she could run the event in her sleep, Roberson said it would all be impossible without them.

“It’s not just putting a 64-team tournament together,” Roberson said. “A lot goes into it. We have so many staff that help us run this event. With the end goal being to go win gold for our national teams, it all starts here. So picking the right staff, making sure everyone's on the same page, figuring out what those teams need to be [doing] in this event and kind of going from there. So yeah, everybody plays a big part of it.”

Similarly, that staff wouldn’t be able to function without Roberson and Feltman’s leadership. Taylor Clayton, Coordinator of Athlete Safety, heads up her division’s efforts for the month-long endeavor in Arizona and emphasizes the importance of their work.

“I don't think we'd be as successful as we are without Ann Claire and Jeff running the operations over here,” Clayton said. “They’ve really created a united front, and we take it seriously here, and it's shown throughout — from check in day all the way up through the gold medal game.”

However, their work doesn’t just start in Arizona — Roberson and Feltman start planning for their next tournament as soon as the last one ends. August features meetings about what went well and what can be improved, November involves confirming facilities and opening registration, while teams are invited and interns are hired by springtime.

Meetings with departments throughout the year ensure everyone stays updated on plans and forms a cohesive and well-functioning team by the time everyone boards their flight to Phoenix.

“It's just trying to stay organized and constantly having meetings about the summer,” Feltman said. “We’re talking to our media team, our athlete safety team, our player development team and all that, just making sure everyone's on the same page and making sure everyone's getting what they need to get done so the whole tournament can come together.”

Once the team touches down in the desert it’s all hands on deck. With less than a week until tournament time, members assist with whatever function necessary to get everything in place by first pitch. It’s a process that makes teamwork essential to the success of the event.

“We couldn't do it without the rest of our staff,” Clayton said. “That includes media, creative, social, player development, it's an all group effort, and we all jump in and help do whatever — I know Ann Claire and Jeff help me with athlete safety stuff. I try to help them with operations whenever I can. So it's very much a family. It's very much we are out here to pull off the greatest event that we can, and we couldn't do it without them.”

Once rosters are finalized, tents are raised, coolers are filled, and lunch orders are set, it’s time to start. And once teams take their dugouts for the first time, it all comes down to what the tournament is all about: playing baseball.

“At the end of the day, it's baseball,” Feltman said. “We can do all this on the back end, but at the end of the day it’s just a game that we're playing. And that's what keeps me calm throughout the whole process, just knowing that as soon as that first pitch is thrown, that the hard part of our job is over.”

Once the tourney starts, the bonds between staff members become even stronger. By the end of four weeks and four age groups of elite baseball, the staff feels like a family more than ever before.

“From our task force to our scorekeepers to everybody in between, we all work together,” Roberson said. “So it becomes this one big family out here because we're out here for a month, and that makes it more special that way.”

Once the final out is thrown and the last gold medal is donned, there’s only one feeling for everyone on staff — relief.

It’s her fourth summer running the tournament, so Roberson knows her event will end in success. However, that feeling of sweet relief by the end of it hasn’t changed since her first year.

“It's just a huge relief, because I know the event is going to be successful just because of all the people that help run it and all the talent that we're going to see,” Roberson said.

For many on staff, the end of the tourney, and eventual breakdown of supplies, closing of facilities, and boarding of planes sets in a sense of pride and accomplishment, but also a bittersweet feeling.

“For me, it's very bittersweet,” Clayton said. “That’s four different age groups that we just saw with people achieving their dreams, some of them are getting really incredible phone calls from staff members and then I just spent four weeks with interns that I have been talking to since January, and now I’m going home, and I'm like, ‘I'm sad to leave you guys, I'm rooting for you forever.’ But it's an incredible feeling, it’s a sense of accomplishment to pull off Champs Arizona.”

It’s the culmination of months of intense planning, the payoff for meetings that ran too long, and the end of their way-too-many early mornings.

Soon after, Roberson and Feltman will do it all over again, and be boarding a flight back to Phoenix in no time. But until then, they’ll keep working tirelessly to make Champs Arizona the best event it can possibly be, and for the sweet relief that comes after.