In speaking with many of you, a few common questions surface. I’ll respond to these questions here so everyone has the same information:
Q: Will the two 9u teams and 7u teams compete in the same divisions within their age group?
A: No. During the spring / summer seasons, the OCAC is able to accommodate different divisions for our teams so they don’t play each other.
Q: How will you decide which players are on which 9u teams?
A: This will be a collaborative effort with the Assistant Coaches as well as the Parents. Most of our 9u boys already know each other as they’ve either played on the same team or practiced together last year. It’s important to provide the boys the appropriate competitive experience so as to give them the time they need to develop as players and people. I’m confident we can divide the teams to ensure the boys are afforded the best opportunity to enjoy their baseball experience.
Q: Does this mean you will have a competitive team and recreational team?
A: As many of you have likely heard me say in the past, I’m not a fan of categorizing teams as competitive or recreational. All of our teams compete hard and on any given day anything can happen with 9 year old boys.
That being said, having had the opportunity to be around many of the boys for several seasons now and getting to know them better, we naturally have some boys who enjoy taking their baseball more seriously than others. For some it’s a more of a social experience and chance to play on a team….and that’s perfectly alright. And for others, it’s clear they spend time away from practices and games working on mastering the skills and fundamentals to play better baseball. We’ll factor all of this into our decisions on how to separate the teams to make sure we deliver each player the best baseball experience possible.
Q: Do you anticipate the boys playing in tournaments in 2015?
A: Yes. At the end of the day, its going to come down to the players and parents interest in participating in a few more tournaments in 2015. I’ve identified two tournaments in the Spring / Summer I think the boys would enjoy along with one tournament in the Fall I think fits well with our schedule.
Q: Will we wear the same uniforms we used in 2014?
A: We will be wearing the same uniforms.
Q: Can we order Fan Gear?
A: Yes, I’m going to be loading new gear options on our Bombers Gear website very soon. I’m meeting with our Vendor on Monday to finalize the fan related items, but needless to say you can expect a much smoother process for purchasing and receiving fan gear in 2015.
Q: How will we pay for the upcoming season?
A: Each of us will register with the OCAC and select Ashby 9u, Ashby 7u or Ashby 5/6u. You will pay the OCAC for the league fees.
The other costs we have include:
- The Batting Cage (Winter Warm Up)
- Practices at Westhoff Park during the season ($10 / hour)
- Tournaments (Range from $225 to $300 per tourney)
- Team Equipment (Ball Buckets, Team Gear Bag, Catcher’s Equipment, etc.)
I’m happy to discuss hosting a fundraiser to help offset our program costs. I’m not a fan of small fundraisers, but would rather apply time and effort into hosting a bigger event that generates enough money to cover our annual costs. I have a lot of experience with fundraising events / golf tournaments and just need to gauge our groups interest in how we want to approach offsetting baseball related costs.
In lieu of fundraising the group may elect to just split the cost among the participating families. Clearly our costs vary depending on the # of tournaments we play in, but for our 9u teams we’re looking at roughly $125 to $150 per player, on top of the OCAC league registration fees to cover our practice, tournament and program equipment costs. Costs will be less for the 7u and 5/6u teams as they will have less tournament related costs.
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