From the President...
Welcome to the Burlington Edison Little League. I would like to take this time to make you aware of some exciting changes we are making to how we operate in an attempt to get more kids to participate in, and more importantly enjoy, little league baseball. You may or may not be aware but over the last seven or eight years Little League baseball participation has seen a rapid decline not just here in Burlington but on a national scale. Oddly enough, of all the reasons for the decline, the economy is the least cited. In addition to the kids having so many more options for spring sports, many kids have opted out of sports altogether and lastly it is not always convenient for the parents. Here in the Northwest we have a unique deterrent in an our typical cold wet spring weather.
In building our numbers we have to serve two major mindsets in our baseball families. The first are those families looking for a recreational outlet for their sons and daughters to learn this game and enjoy it for life. The second are those families looking for a more competitive environment for their sons and daughters to excel and use the sport as a springboard for higher education or higher level sports participation. We have determined that this will be the focus of our game plan for the 2015 season: finding the balance to accommodate both these family demographics.
In years past Burlington Edison Little League was structured as follows for team makeup:
8 year olds and below, which are the TBall and Rookie Coach Pitch players, were assigned to teams by schools they attended and or parent carpool/friend requests. As the kids moved up to the minor and major leagues, 9-12, they were put into a try out and draft system. The goal here was to divide the talent as evenly as possible throughout the divisions.
While the upside was honorable, this system had a number of negatives. Primary and most obvious is putting a 9 year old child in the position to have to field grounders and pop flys batted to him/her with sometimes hundreds of onlookers. When we step back and think about it, that is quite a lot we are asking of these kids. These kids are scored by the coaches and then drafted to teams that may or may not include any of their friends and/or classmates.
In addition to the added stress put on the players with the tryout, an added inconvenience is put on the parents as they have no say in who their kid's coach is and may have to drive across town to practices as coaches tend to practice at locations convenient to them. Take a family with multiple kids and this inconvenience is multiplied exponentially.
What we are going to do, beginning this year, is assign all players in Burlington Edison Little League, from T ball to Major baseball and softball, based on the schools they go to and honoring carpool/friend request when possible. This of course will allow kids to play with their classmates and friends hopefully attracting more registrations and help the parents get their kids to and from practice as, hopefully, practice will be at a more convenient location.
To address the needs of both the recreational and competitive ball players we will be offering the following: we would like to have all Burlington ball players to participate in Little League games on those division game nights, then allow those seeking more competitive baseball to try out for our weekend tournament teams to travel and play more games. The benefits here are immense for everybody. We as a community keep all of our players playing with Burlington teams, those more developed players get games during the week. Good players develop good players, by this I mean by having good players on your little league team some of the lesser developed players are more able to emulate someone their age who is successful and may themselves gain more skills and confidence. Everybody gets better and has more fun and stays playing baseball for life.
Moritz W. Hamidou (Ritz)
President, Burlington Edison Little League
Spring 2015
In building our numbers we have to serve two major mindsets in our baseball families. The first are those families looking for a recreational outlet for their sons and daughters to learn this game and enjoy it for life. The second are those families looking for a more competitive environment for their sons and daughters to excel and use the sport as a springboard for higher education or higher level sports participation. We have determined that this will be the focus of our game plan for the 2015 season: finding the balance to accommodate both these family demographics.
In years past Burlington Edison Little League was structured as follows for team makeup:
8 year olds and below, which are the TBall and Rookie Coach Pitch players, were assigned to teams by schools they attended and or parent carpool/friend requests. As the kids moved up to the minor and major leagues, 9-12, they were put into a try out and draft system. The goal here was to divide the talent as evenly as possible throughout the divisions.
While the upside was honorable, this system had a number of negatives. Primary and most obvious is putting a 9 year old child in the position to have to field grounders and pop flys batted to him/her with sometimes hundreds of onlookers. When we step back and think about it, that is quite a lot we are asking of these kids. These kids are scored by the coaches and then drafted to teams that may or may not include any of their friends and/or classmates.
In addition to the added stress put on the players with the tryout, an added inconvenience is put on the parents as they have no say in who their kid's coach is and may have to drive across town to practices as coaches tend to practice at locations convenient to them. Take a family with multiple kids and this inconvenience is multiplied exponentially.
What we are going to do, beginning this year, is assign all players in Burlington Edison Little League, from T ball to Major baseball and softball, based on the schools they go to and honoring carpool/friend request when possible. This of course will allow kids to play with their classmates and friends hopefully attracting more registrations and help the parents get their kids to and from practice as, hopefully, practice will be at a more convenient location.
To address the needs of both the recreational and competitive ball players we will be offering the following: we would like to have all Burlington ball players to participate in Little League games on those division game nights, then allow those seeking more competitive baseball to try out for our weekend tournament teams to travel and play more games. The benefits here are immense for everybody. We as a community keep all of our players playing with Burlington teams, those more developed players get games during the week. Good players develop good players, by this I mean by having good players on your little league team some of the lesser developed players are more able to emulate someone their age who is successful and may themselves gain more skills and confidence. Everybody gets better and has more fun and stays playing baseball for life.
Moritz W. Hamidou (Ritz)
President, Burlington Edison Little League
Spring 2015