Chris Dameron

I'm a high school coach who spent most of his time in the youth baseball sessions during #ABCA2025. Why? Systemic changes to our baseball ecosystem need to happen. Here are some takeaways from ABCA and this year. 1. Parents are the customers. We need to spend more time educating parents. Yes, a December tournament is fun, but is it good for your player? 2. I had a coach question why my team only plays around 50 games and not 90 games. In a 90-game schedule for 12-year-olds, what precautions do you have in place to ensure young arms are not fatigued? Yep, none. Also, where is the practice time during the season to allow players to continue to develop? Games are just tests in the end. I'm a former teacher, and I never just gave my kids tests and expected them to succeed. 3. Monitor catch play. Encourage kids to be athletes and explore. Being an athletic thrower will solve 90% of your issues. 4. Multi-sport athletes are good to have. Yes, I delay the start of my season because I want to make sure they are ready after their winter sport, and I'm more than okay with that happening. Plus, they don't have to roll into a long baseball season after playing a long winter season. Kids need time to reset and be given time to learn before games. Lessons before a test! 5. I've been passionate about baseball, which has rubbed off on my kid. I regret not creating passions outside of baseball. I encourage my kid to play other sports, and it’s tough to think he only wants to play baseball at a young age. Whatever his choice is, I need to be okay with it and support him. We just need to play more pickup basketball and football games at home. Doing something else is such a great reset. We can improve the youth game! It can and will happen. There are enough of us to steer this ship in the right direction. As a HS coach I need to be vested in what goes on in youth baseball. Those young kids will be ones I hopefully get to coach when they are in HS.