Sunrise – As event organizers, we can’t control the weather… Although if we could control the weather, we would’ve had it EXACTLY how it turned out to be for Saturday… Cloudy with a chance of perfection (and competition)!
7:00am – The board of directors arrive… Coaches and teams started rolling in shortly after… We saw teams networking with each other, discussing strategies, and sharing tips & tricks… That’s the battle spirit (before the real battle begins ????).
8:45am – The road starts here with Obstacle Course and everyone hears instructions for the mystery event… Did the clues help? ???? Three teams “rolled” through the course like an exercise ball… Reynolds & Reynolds Army army-crawled to 1st place with an incredible performance of 2:05.65. Reynolds & Reynolds Gold took silver (2nd place) with 2:12.97, while Eastway came in 3rd at 2:18.56. Fun fact: Four teams were within one second of each other, all came in at 2:42:xx. Every milli-second counts! ????
9:45am – Wanna guess who won Wind Sprint Relay without looking at the results? Hint: Their name has “speed” in it! ???? Looking at you Speedway! You couldn’t really see them running, you just saw a cloud of dust. They took 1st place with an astonishing 52.23 (average of 13 seconds per runner per 100 yards). Reynolds & Reynolds Army took 2nd with 53.33 seconds while Eastway came in 3rd at 54.87. What’s nuts – teams that came in 4th, 5th and 6th were within 0.22 seconds of Eastway… How crazy is that?!!
10:45am – Punt, Pass & Place Kick “kicks off”. Once again, teams were able to use a “mulligan” with a $10 donation to Special Olympics. “No, sir, you can’t buy or use 12 mulligans, they are one per team”. Yes, this conversation actually happened. ???? One team literally went above and beyond, with every punt pass and place kick. This team was the only team with a total distance of over 600 feet, at 624 feet, average of 104 feet per person per punt/pass/kick. Wanna guess who? They have the word “Ball” right there in their name. ???? In 1st place, Ball Aerospace!!! Then, American Cutting Edge took 2nd place with a total distance of 599 feet (come on guys, couldn’t someone get one extra foot? ???? J/K – solid performance!), while Oerlikon came in 3rd place with 541 feet.
12:00pm – CEO Water Balloon Toss. Hopefully some of you got to laugh at your bosses while they got splashed. Although please note you are NOT allowed to take water balloons into the office on Monday and throw them at your boss (if you do, please send us a YouTube link ????). Fun event but crazy result this year, three teams tied for first place! Congrats to Aerotek, CareSource – Vitality and Mont Co Job & Family Services on their 10 points. Everyone else who participated got 5 points.
12:30pm – Soccer Dribble also “kicks off”. Aren’t we supposed to wait 30 minutes after eating lunch before playing soccer? Or is that only for swimming? Well, this team must have carb-loaded well, because they rocked it (and rolled it ????)! Once again, they have the word “ball” in their name, and now we all know why ????… Ball Aerospace smoked it in 1st place at 2:18.25. Cargill took 2nd place with 2:38.18. Speedy Speedway finished one second behind Cargill, at 2:39.75. Although these teams had an amazing display of skills, lots of cheering from these teams and others was directed towards the Special Olympics team, who also had a great display of skills. We appreciate all of you cheering for our Special Olympics friends!
1:15pm – All good things must come to an end… So we end an amazing day and incredible display of performance, skill and fun with our last event, Sack Race. Hopping up and down (with the occasional dive and roll at the finish), the following three teams hopped like the Energizer bunny! Reynolds Army came in 1st place with 48.68 seconds, Ball Aerospace took 2nd with 51.39, while Taylor Communications was only 0.08 seconds behind, in 3rd at 51.47. Way to leap into victory, guys and girls! And same here, the Special Olympics team had an excellent sack race with lots of cheering from nearly every team.
2:00pm – Events end and rain starts! ???? So how cool was it that it rained between the field day events and the after party, but not during either one? Maybe we do control the weather ????… Have an event coming up? I’ll get you good weather for a $20 donation to Special Olympics! ????
Alright, the moment you’ve all been waiting for… Overall results!!! In case you missed the party, or won the booze barrel and forget the results we announced, let’s go over them more one time…
Starting with our top story, Reynolds & Reynolds Army claims the title of 2019 grand champion with 1127 total team points. Congratulations guys! #reyreylife ????
In Division I – Reynolds & Reynolds Navy came in 1st place with 956 points. Speedway , participating in their first ever Battle, came in 2nd with 919 points and LexisNexis in 3rd with 873 points.
In Division II – Ball Aerospace won 1st place with exactly 1000 points on the dot (I would watch out for this team next year). Cargill came in 2nd with 850 points, while Coldwell Banker took 3rd with 737.
In Division III – WilmerHale was in the lead all week, but Eastway had an amazing field day and came back to win division 3 by 17 points with 914 points. Vivial – Prime came in 2nd place with 776 points, while Oerlikon took 3rd with 709 points.
Here we go, Division IV – the division that’s always the closest. ???? American Cutting Edge came in 1st place with 856 points, CAVU had 775 points, claiming 2nd place. And wait for it, Ellipse & Aerotek tied for 3rd place, but both only one tiny point behind CAVU with 774 points. BANANAS!!!
Category winners: Reynolds & Reynolds Gold claimed the winner title for Computer Companies with 924 points. Synchrony came in 1st among Financial Institutions at 821 points. Mont Co Job & Family Services won the Government category with 702 points. Premier Health Team 1 came in 1st in Healthcare with 918 points. In Manufacturing/Retail, Taylor Communications claimed the title with 950 points. Finally, WilmerHale became the winner of the Professional Services category with 897 points!
Whether it’s to keep the title they won, or get their revenge and reclaim a title they had, we know many teams are counting days until the 2020 Battle of the Businesses. As the board of directors, we are just as excited as you are, and love seeing the healthy competition between our Dayton area businesses. As you all know, there’s more to Battle of the Businesses than the competition piece. While every team demonstrated great spirit during Battle week, three companies went above and beyond, taking the Spirit Award in 2019. They are Kettering Police Department, Oerlikon and Synchrony. Technically, it was a tie between Kettering Police and Kettering Fire… But the police dept gives out speeding tickets and the fire dept does not ????.
We love supporting the Special Olympics, along with all of you. This year, we announced at the after-party, that we raised over $70,200 for the Special Olympics of Greater Dayton (then the dancing started and everything became a blur ????). With all of your fundraisers, contribution and support, we hope to raise even more next year. If you helped raise $1 for the Special Olympics this year, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. A special thank you to those companies that reached their division goal: Aerotek, American Cutting Edge, Cargill, CAVU, Ellipse, LexisNexis, Mont Co Jobs & Family, Oerlikon, Reynolds & Reynolds, Southpaw, Synchrony, Taylor Communications and Verso. We hope to see this list grow in 2020!
Alright, time to rest, catch up on one week’s worth of sleep, think of fundraising ideas, and practice for next year. Only 355 days till the 2020 Battle of the Businesses, but who’s counting, right? ????
