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The VBCA believes that uniting, educating and supporting baseball coaches leads to “better coaches, better players, better people” and it is our mission to develop coaches “at all levels”. I recently had a wonderful experience with USA Baseball NTIS (National Team Identification Series) that I wanted to share. Coaching regional teams (11U,15U) as part of their Championship Cup at their beautiful complex in Cary, NC provided me an opportunity to witness very good players and coaches doing their thing in a unique setting; representing themselves and their regions while competing and being evaluated. In case you are not familiar, USA Baseball NTIS is a comprehensive player identification program offered by Team USA. The collective experience of everyone involved – players, parents and coaches – was extremely positive and a quick conversation or scroll through social media will confirm just that. Talent and character were front and center among the players and coaches. Add to that, the possibility of being selected for an additional workout and advancing to the next stage of national team qualifying made for a very exciting time.

I believe there are many players in Virginia who would qualify for this third stage of USA Baseball NTIS and get to play in front of college coaches and scouts in Cary. With some of those likely to advance to the next stage and who knows, may ultimately be provided an opportunity to represent their country on the National Team.

I hope you will take the initiative to learn more about USA Baseball and NTIS and share this opportunity with your players. Further, that if you as a coach are interested, you will reach out to USA Baseball and express that interest. I saw a tremendous amount of pride among the coaches of the various regions and this one thing I do know – that there is a wealth of coaching talent in Virginia. Jeff Schaefer is the Northeast Regional Director for USA Baseball NTIS and I have included his information below. Feel free to reach out to me as well. I hope together we can shine a little more light on this unique and wonderful opportunity right here in our backyard for players and coaches.

Tim Merry
Virginia Baseball Coaches Association
Executive Director

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