Baseball Camps successful

Our second annual Winter baseball camps were held on December 27th and 28th.  After a somewhat disappointing turnout last year (we just made the clinics available to high school players), we decided to hold sessions for students of all ages.  

Our first clinic on Wednesday, was for the beginning players grades K-4.  I absolutely love being around kids of this age, they have so much energy...but also they have so much to learn.  For whatever reason, they seem to pick up on things so quickly...as long as you can explain it to them in the right way.  The turnout for this age group was much higher than expected.  As of December 15th, we had heard back from only six kids, but after a flury of sign-ups we had 26 players that were ready to get going.  Balls were flying all over the place! 

We then followed up with a 5th-8th grade camp on Wednesday afternoon.  We shuffled 34 players around the Lamberti Rec. Center.  There are some kids in this group that are going to be tremendous players.  Sometimes I wish I could coach an all-star group during the summers, because this is the age group that needs to play games, and they need to begin learning more of the intricacies of the game of baseball.  It will be exciting to watch their development over the years to come.

Our high school pitching camp included 24 pitchers.  We introduced our velocity training program to them, and showed them appropriate mechanical drills, along with how to field and improve their pick-offs.  We concluded by evaluating some video and speaking about the mental part of pitching.  I thought it went very smoothly, Coach Steve Sonka did an outstanding job of putting together this camp.  Coach Sonka has so much passion for the game, and I am very lucky to have him on our staff.

The final camp, the offensive/defensive camp basically reached the maximum number that we can service for a camp.  56 high schoolers worked on their main defensive position, throwing mechanics, and were put through 8 offensive stations.  Each student was presented with a short evaluation of their skills.  After evaluating 56 hitters, I think what separates the very good player from the average one, is how well they use their lower half.  There were quite a few guys that were not getting full weight transfer during and after their swings.  The best way to overcome this is to simply watch major league games, and watch their hitters legs.  Improving the lower half will help with balance, power, and consistency. 

In all, we had over 120 baseball players attend our camps.  I take pride in making sure that these camps are well received.  I don't want anyone going home without feeling that their time and money were well spent.  Some places hold camps for the simple reason to make money.  I am more interested in making better players, and I hope that these players get just a little bit better over the next year. 

Our next camps will take place in the summer, for K-8 players.  We will be moving all around NW Iowa, last year we held camps in LeMars, Spencer, and Storm Lake.  I hope we can get into a few more communities that do not have organized camps.  I would appreciate any feedback (good or bad) from those that attended any of our camps.  Thank you