OTTAWA – Baseball Canada would like to announce that the Weyburn Minor Baseball Association has become the seventh local association to become RBI Approved since Baseball Canada introduced the RBI Program in 2008. Weyburn also becomes the fourth association in Saskatchewan to meet the criteria.
WMBA Secretary Shaun Fraser sees the RBI Approved seal as a chance to improve his association’s standing within the community.
“All over Canada, baseball tends to take a back seat to hockey. We hope that this can lead us to be better organized and show that we offer quality baseball programs,” says Fraser.
Fraser adds that in Weyburn, the quality of coaching has been the area that has shown the most improvement and believes that, along with programs such as Rally Cap, more quality coaching will help retain kids to play baseball passed the grass roots levels and onto the high performance levels.
“We have this attitude that ‘we’ll just show up, throw the ball around and I know enough and it should be enough.’ We’ve had issues with commitment from coaches and we’ve been working hard to change those attitudes.”
Fraser adds: “We’ve been encouraging our coaches to register with the NCCP and tell them that it’s not only to their benefit but it’s especially to the kids benefit to have knowledgeable coaches.”
For 2010, RBI accreditations are awarded to local baseball associations that comply with the minimum operating standards in these four areas:
An Association can become a Baseball Canada RBI Approved Association in 2010 by meeting these following criteria:
In order to become a RBI Approved association for 2010, simply send an email to rbi@baseball.ca addressing all the criteria mentioned above. Baseball Canada will contact you to approve your Association or to ask additional questions.
