Nyack Valley Cottage Little League Community Baseball Summit 3.15

Written By: Stephanie DeSimone

Valley Cottage, NY

Last night at Nyack High School, three local Athletic leaders from little league, high school, and the college level joined together with parents in the Nyack Valley Cottage community to discuss the Nyack Valley Cottage Little League's mission through baseball of building a strong community from the ground up, to support kids through every level of play, and to grow together, play together, and stay together.

Darrel Caneiro is the President of the Nyack Valley Cottage Little League (NVCLL). Caneiro hosted the event to bring awareness to the nationwide decline in youth baseball's popularity, to discuss how it is affecting our community, and tell us what he envisions for the future.

The NVCLL coaches boys and girls from 4yrs. old up to 16yrs. old. Registration opens in the fall each year for the upcoming spring season. The NVCLL is welcoming to all children who want to play baseball in the community. They have reached out through Peach Jar in the Nyack school system, to preschools, to community centers, posted flyers around town, on social media, and put up lawn signs, but registrations remain low. A NVCLL Facebook post from February 12, 2018 read "If your child wants to play baseball, but you haven't signed up due to a financial reason, please contact us immediately. Our main desire is to get kids on the ball field. No child should miss out." They work with everyone and their main goal is clear. Everyone from the board members to the coaches are unpaid volunteers. The registration fees they charge cover uniform costs and field maintenance. They use fundraising to try to cover their other costs like umpires, insurance, tournament fees, equipment, etc but as a not-for-profit organization, donations are encouraged to cover any excess costs and the costs incurred from fee waivers the league grants to families who cannot afford to pay.

The NVCLL board has many new members this year and is putting in a lot of new initiatives. Some include their new Facebook page to better communicate with parents and for parents to communicate with the league and with each other; there will be more events; there is now personalized fan wear available at their new online store that will be sold at events and in the concession stand at Liberty Field; T-Ball will be walking in the Opening Day parade on April 14th as well as the Nyack High School Varsity Team to show their support for the NVCLL; and, baseball games are returning to Memorial Field in Nyack for the first time in years. The NVCLL board is showing a major effort to improve the league and are proving it further by holding public forums like last night.

At the Summit, Caneiro, Joe De Palma and Andrew Cirafici of Nyack High School Varsity Baseball, and Bill Sullivan of Mercy College Athletics discussed how a unified, grassroots baseball family is the key to a successful baseball program.

De Palma explained how the Nyack High School Varsity Team has been supporting the Little League by offering multiple clinics in preseason this year. Many Varsity players have come up from their system and are now giving back to the program that raised them. Caneiro states the NVCLL is going to be supporting the Nyack High School team by having Nyack High School Baseball Nights where all the NVCLL teams come out in uniform to the High School Baseball games and tournaments to cheer them on. They look up to them as role models in the community which encourages the High School players to act with great character on and off the field. The unity between the Nyack High School Baseball Team and the NVCLL is so valuable in this program. The Varsity players prepare the younger players for that next level of play and the Coaching support is amazing.

Bill Sullivan is the Associate Director of Athletics at Mercy College. He stressed the importance of encouraging children to play multiple sports and not to specialize at a young age. Parents and coaches may tell a child to choose one sport to focus on if they want to be a pro, but that is not what high schools and colleges are looking for. This topic comes up because low baseball registrations could be a result of parents and kids not signing up for baseball because they are focused solely on another sport. Coaches in reality want the well-rounded athlete who plays multiple sports. They have an advantage over the one sport athlete. They are physically and mentally trained in multiple ways. Coaches see they can develop these players even further once they get to the high school and college level because they have not peaked at any one sport yet.

Sharing this sentiment was Joe De Palma, head coach of Nyack High School Varsity Baseball as well as his assistant coach Andrew Cirafici. They agreed kids are burning out and losing interest, not just in baseball, but in all sports when kids are made to specialize. They as well as the other speakers are aware of the "travel" baseball business. Many are for-profit organizations designed to make money by keeping your child in their program year round, so that is exactly what they encourage parents to do. Our speakers address the fact that the travel players lose out on playing for fun with their friends from school which leads to "burn out". They also miss out on playing other sports in other seasons which is what high school and college coaches want in their athletes. They said kids should play many sports all season long. For some people, High School athletics is the end of their career as a player, but they can go on to many sports related careers which are just as rewarding for them if they don't lose that passion. Cirafici says he has coached youth travel teams but he tells every player "little league comes first."

De Palma and Cirafici added that no child should be specialized into a position in baseball at the Little League level. Players should be rotated regularly so they can learn every position and by the time they reach high school be able to play every position well. De Palma states "if you only know how to play 2nd base, chances are the person you are going up against at tryouts when you enter high school is going to beat you out for the position. Then what?"

Also in attendance was the Nyack High School Athletic Director, Joseph Sigilo. He thanked the speakers for arranging this forum for the community to discuss these issues and thanked the parents who attended and took part in the discussion.

There are more community events to come and the public is encouraged to attend. You can find events posted on the Nyack Valley Cottage Little League Facebook Page. https://www.facebook.com/group...

NVCLL Opening Day is April 14th. Registration is still open. Register now at NVCLL.ORG