Sports Editor

It seems a little early in the year for it, but Troy Parks and Recreation Department Youth Sports Director Vaughn Daniels and his staff are busy preparing for the upcoming summer baseball and softball season.

But right now Daniels is just trying to round up some volunteer coaches.

The TPRD is now accepting applications for coaching positions on either a youth baseball or softball squad. Age groups will range from five to 18 year’s old for both boys and girls.

Youth baseball and softball registration starts on Jan. 28 and will run until Feb. 8, 2002.

"We’re in the process of accepting applications right now, but we’d like anyone that wants to coach to come in and sign up at their earliest convenience," said Daniels. "We’d like to go ahead and get our coaches set so that we can send them to various coaching clinics we’re having."

As far as filling the coaching vacancies go, Daniels said it’s sometimes difficult to find coaches for softball and for the younger baseball leagues, such as the Capp and Farm leagues.

"But we have had people express interest in coaching for those leagues, so we don’t think we’ll have any problems there," he said.

Daniels said he also anticipates that Troy will receive the right to host two sub-district tournaments following the regular season.

Daniels said the TPRD is also actively seeking sponsors for both the baseball and softball teams this summer.

"For $100 a business or person can sponsor one of our baseball or softball teams," he said.

But this year, the Parks and Rec department is offering something different when it comes to sponsors.

"We now have a deal where a sponsor can pay $300 and have their names on either a baseball or softball team, plus a soccer team in the fall and a basketball team in the winter," he said.

In other news, the youth basketball season got underway on Jan. 12 and Daniels said crowd support has been at an all-time high.

"The last two days we’ve had has been great," he said. "And we’ve had great basketball. With the crowds, we’ve had standing room only in some cases."

The TPRD youth basketball league is composed of eight squads; four girls teams and four boys teams.

"We tried to arrange the schedule where it wouldn’t conflict with the other high school games going on around the county," said Daniels.