National Grassroots Coach of the Year - Chris James

Chris has been an instructor at the Baseball Academy for the past few years and has helped at all levels during the Fall Instructional Season.  He has also been on the trip to Florida with the High School group the past 2 years. 

Excerpt from Baseball Alberta News Release (November 5, 2012)

Chris has been involved with SGMBA for a number of years. Even though he has coached at the rep level, some his biggest contributions have been made at the grassroots level. Chris brings something to the teams that is hard to describe. When he first started coaching rookie he was one of the only coaches to offer practices twice a week and to have most of his team come out to them. Lots of the other teams were not able to get kids/parents to come out more than the regular scheduled game nights but Chris brought something that made the kids want to be there and want to play baseball. By the end of the season the team was practicing or playing five days a week. Quite an accomplishment since a lot of parents do not normally want the extra commitment in the summer.

Basically, Chris will do whatever he can to improve enrollment and get more kids playing baseball in the area. He will volunteer his time to runs coaching clinics to educate coaches so more players get better coaching as well as run player camps to help the kids directly. He is an asset to our baseball association as well as our community as a whole.