By: Becca Rawiszer
Many spring sports teams at Staples have been hosting and helping out at clinics with young athletes to help them improve their game. These clinics allow young players to learn from Staples athletes, a title these youth may one day have. who many of them will one day be.
The Staples varsity baseball team was required to help out at little league evaluations for players in kindergarten through seventh grade last week according to Captain Ben Casparius ’17. They helped out with drills and coached them while they tried to hit.
“Doing the clinic with the little kids was really fun and made me think back to my little league days,” Captain Michael Fanning ’17 said. “It’s crazy to see how different physically and mentally different you are from those little kids, but everybody at the clinic shared a love for the game and that’s what it’s all about.” Captain Robert Stone ’17 has similar thoughts since he used to attend these same clinics as a kid.
“It was cool to experience them from the viewpoint of a player,” Stone said.
Baseball Coach, Jack McFarland believes that the clinics are beneficial for both the older and younger players because of “team building, and it creates a kinship between the Little League and high school program,” McFarland said. They team has held Little League clinics for 10 years now and look forward to continuing in the future.
Besides the baseball team, both the girls and boys varsity lacrosse teams are planning on helping out at clinics as well. The girls’ lacrosse team hosts four clinics every year for the PAL girls. They run drills in the beginning and typically play some games towards the end of the clinic.
“We’ve been told the younger girls really look up to us so it’s fun to get to play and interact with them,” Captain Colleen Bannon ’17 said. “I think it’s beneficial because they get to learn from us and how to get better so I think it really helps them in the long run.”
One of the coaches on the boys’ lacrosse team coaches fifth graders as well, which has created a nice relationship between PAL and Staples. The players go and hangout at the PAL practices because they are right after theirs.
“It’s just nice to see how happy they are because they look up to us as role models and what they want to be,” Captain Billy Hutchinson ’17 said. Staples’ athletic relationship with PAL has only gotten stronger and it has shown to be very meaningful for both the high school students and the young athletes as well.
“There’s nothing better than seeing the smiles on the kids faces when they make an improvement,” Bannon said.