JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville youth sports program will add softball this year and continue efforts to remove cost barriers that keep many children from playing organized baseball and softball.
Lashun Highsmith, the founder of Diamond in the Rough, talked about the new softball program and why it was needed.
“Yes. We have seen the need for softball in our community,” Highsmith said. “A lot of our girls don’t get a chance to play until they get to middle school. Maybe they start out and play a tee ball. But, you know, once they hit ten and they love ten, ten years old, they fall in love and they maybe revisit the sport again in middle school. So we want to give the girls a chance now in our community, to play the game of softball at an early age.”
Coach Tercel McKinzie of the Henry Brown Athletic Association said he focuses on fundamentals to keep players engaged across multiple sports.
“In the beginning, just making sure that I start with fundamentals in each sport, teaching it the proper way and for a lot of them, like, I’m dealing with a demographic or a low income,” McKinzie said. “So a lot of the kids that I deal with, they don’t have fathers, so for them, I am their father. So for most of them, they’ll do exactly what I ask them to do. So it’s not one of those things that they’ll question.”
Affordability, Highsmith said, is one of the biggest obstacles for families.
“Yeah. Cost is the biggest thing that have priced a lot of our kids out of the game. So what we have been doing with Stolen Base Kings and over at Henry Brown Association, we made it affordable for parents to be able to bring the kids out and play football and baseball at the same time, others venture out into basketball too, but a lot of times football and basketball, basketball have been so dominant in our community,” Highsmith said.
He pointed to rising fees for youth baseball and the program’s approach to keep the sport accessible.
“And with the prices of baseball really so high now, you know, it’s some teams are charging $150 and $200-250 a month to play. And our kids can’t afford that, along with the training and everything. So I say we incorporate fundamentals in our regular practices and a lot of, well, we take time and we give special training to individual kids as well,” Highsmith said.
The clinic will be on Jan. 17 at 10 a.m. at Nip Sams Park 6602 Richardson Road. Lunch and gloves will be provided for free.