Baseball Tomorrow Academy in conjunction with the United States Embassy has began a 4day youth baseball camp in Abuja in an effort to catch them young.
The four day program which ends on Saturday, 14th September will see 60 participants learn the techniques of the game from a retired United States baseball player,Jeremy Guthrie.
The initiative was made possible by the US State Department for Sports Diplomacy, who brought Guthrie to Nigeria to teach young stars that already have interest in the Sport. Speaking with voice of Nigeria at the baseball ground of the package B of the National Stadium, Guthrie who has played for fifteen years with teams such as the Cleave Land Indians, Baltimore Oils, Washington Nationals, said he was pleasantly surprised to discover that baseball is being played in football crazy Nigeria.
“Baseball is a very challenging sport and has a lot of failures, it is very countering but keeps you focus, teaches you many life lessons and you have to keep practicing to become good at it by playing both defence and offense. It is a great sport that has a lot of rules for those who don’t know the rules and once learnt you begin to enjoy it” said Guthrie.
Information Officer at the US Embassy, Abuja, Russell Brooks said the initiative came as a result of the interest and enthusiasm that the embassy has noticed from the youths in Nigeria and the Baseball
Tomorrow Academy in particular which is working hard to promote the sports in the country and spread it throughout Nigeria.
“It is important for us to try to help the players and the academy in any way that we can, we believe if they continue working hard they will have a great future in the game of baseball. We are here with Jeremy to provide instruction. The kids here will learn that baseball takes commitment, patience, team work, determination, and respect for leadership, these are some of the values that are also important for them in life” said Brooks.
The founder of Baseball Tomorrow Academy, Peter Monike John said the academy started since 2013 and the US Embassy took notice and came on board to support and partner with the academy for the benefit of these sport in Nigeria, and bringing in Jeremy who is a professional will go a long in helping the kids become professionals.
“The kids were drawn from different states in Nigeria including Kaduna, Nassarawa, Umuahia, Abuja, Akwa Ibom, and Kogi States. I am interested in the kids learning from a professional who has played the sports for about thirty years and that is Jeremy. We have done a lot of clinics in the past in some states where we handed baseball kits to some of the schools, we have also done some coaching clinics, and resently, we are proposing to hold a peace tournament in some schools ( private and public) in the North Central parts of the country” said the he founder of Baseball Tomorrow Academy, Peter Monike John.
The four day clinic continues in Abuja and would last up tills aturday, October 14th.
