February 2014: The new year has started in a spectacular fashion in regard to the Uganda Baseball and Softball program. Our usual annual January coaches clinic took place from Feb. 4 thru Feb 17. While our original goal was to have no more than 60 attendees, we were inundated with over 80 requests to attend. We managed to cut it down to about 65, and eventually wound up with about 70 attendees. This was more than we wanted, but we handled it and it was one of our best programs. As usual, we started each day with class room instruction at 9AM, followed by on field instruction from 10 to noon, or a little later. After lunch is was a boys Little League game from 2PM to 4PM for the first week which was replaced by a 13 year old game on the full size field during the second week. From 4 to 4:30 was an evaluation of our players, coaches and umpires during the game and how to fix the problems. From 4:30 to 5:45 two games were played each day using tennis balls between the four teams in which everyone had been drafted at our very first meeting by one of the four training coaches. At 7PM, after dinner, the World Series games between St Louis and Texas were shown. For training coaches and excitement, this has to be one of the best training sets of DVDs for baseball coaching in existence. Everything that could happen did happen in this series between great plays, bad errors and good and bad umpire calls. This set of DVDs had the commercials eliminated, which made the games shorter by a significant amount. On the last Friday morning, the clinic was topped off by our championship game between the winner of the first weeks games against the winner of the second weeks games. All these games during both weeks were very competitive, and since we used tennis balls, no gloves were needed and lack of catching skills did not result in injuries, and it forced everyone to learn how to catch properly using two hands. We had about 15 women coaches and about 55 men coaches trained in coaching the game, learning how to really play the game and in how to umpire the game. On the last day of our clinic, equipment was given out to the programs in attendance based upon the requests they submitted on the day before. A total of 25 programs asked for and were given equipment. They consisted of existing programs in places like Gulu, Lira, Soroti, Lugazi, Luweero and Kyambogo, to total new programs where we gave out just 20 tennis balls and some bats to prove they had the teams to form a league and were actually playing games like we played at the complex, before we would give baseball or softballs, gloves and other equipment. In all, we distributed 200 gloves, 237 baseballs, 187 softballs, 101 bats, 90 helmets, 10 batting tees, 480 tennis balls and 27 sets of catchers gear. Most of this equipment came last year and this year in two shipments from Pitch in For Baseball. On the evening of January 20, Ms. Wendy Lewis, Senior VP of Major League Baseball came to visit Uganda for several days, returning to New York on the evening of January 24. On January 22, a meeting was held with the Uganda Sports Commissioner and his assistant for about 90 minutes. That meeting was followed with a meeting with the Uganda Foreign Minister, Mr. Okello Oryum and the Director of the Ministry of Justice, Mr. Chris Gashirabacie. Minister Oryum had formally been the Minister of Sports when we had formally met him several year ago, and the current Commissioner of Sports worked under him. Our mission was to get the Commissioner of Sports to get the parliament program of secondary sport schools, which had passed two years ago, funded and operating at several secondary schools, as promised about one year ago. We will equip them with baseball and softball equipment provided the teachers could be trained to be coaches and a national championship tournament could be held each year for the players in S1 and S2, then next year add tournaments for S3 and S4 players, and eventually for S5 and S6 players. The idea is to have at least 4 teams play at least one game per week every week school is in session at every secondary school playing baseball, of which we would start with at least 5 or 6. The new teacher/coaches will be trained at the complex during the next school break which will take place in early May and the secondary schools will begin actually games at the start of the May semester. Two schools are already equipped as of this January. We were assured that this will now happen and the Foreign Minister will assist in obtaining the funding for the Sports Commissioner. On the following morning, the Sports Commissioner and his assistant visited the complex. it was a while since they last came and they were very much impressed by what they saw. They also had lunch with the secondary school students attending the AVRS school at the complex. They know we will be building basketball courts and volley ball courts and wanted to know if they could possibly use the complex to host soccer, basketball and other National Secondary School programs at the complex since this is one of the few places in Uganda that can house and feed the competing teams. We indicated that we would have no problem assisting in these programs. The following day, prior to the Friday evening departure of the MLB VP, we journeyed to see Lugazi and the director of the sugar company that is sponsoring the Lugazi Little League. They have built an excellent Little League field, batting cages and multiple pitching mounds. The director was very happy to see us and indicated he will next build a full size field for the boys as they turn 13 and above. He was also interested in the schools secondary sport program and besides the government school operating a baseball program at the Lugazi government secondary school, the sugar company may also operate one at its company secondary school. Cancer center: We met with the Uganda Cancer people at the complex early in January. We also had obtained an estimate to pave the dirt road from the main road to the complex. If done by the people rebuilding the main road currently near the complex, the 3 kilometers could be finished for under $300,000, provided it is done while the equipment is near by, or before October 2014. We are now working on this as we believe that we may also have the clinic built, assuming funding comes before August 1, by January 2015. Timing is now everything. We need the new instrument no longer consider experimental within the next month or so which will enable us to obtain the funding needed to get the building built and the road paved.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 07:10:11 +0000
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