Madison College baseball coach Mike Davenport has been asked to serve as an assistant coach for the NJCAA Baseball All-Star Team when it competes in the Netherlands this summer.
Coach Davenport received a call from the head of the ABCA for Junior College Coaches asking him to take on the coaching role.
“I did hesitate on the opportunity. I had other family obligations, like my kids. I actually asked if I could do it the next time it came up,” Davenport said.
The problem was that the last time the NJCAA was given this opportunity was in 2010. This ultimately led to Coach Davenport saying yes.
He will work alongside head coach Marty Smith of the College of Central Florida, as well as Rob Valli of RCSJ Gloucester.
Prior to this opportunity, Davenport had no connection to either coach.
The only concern he seemed to have was, “I don’t know if they are pitching coaches, hitting coaches or what they specialize in.” He continued with, “but it doesn’t matter, we have all done it long enough that we will be able to work together to coach for a week.”
The games will start July 12 and go through July 19, but the trip will be much more than just the games.
The coaching trio are already working on putting a team together. The players are recommended from Junior College coaches from across the states. There have been about 150 recommendations sent in as of now.
“There will be 24 players in the end,” says Davenport.
The selection process takes a lot more than many might think.
“They should be one of the best players in their region,” but this should be expected as they are being recommended by their coach, he said.
“Our biggest challenge is selecting people that their coaches will allow to go. Or if they are really good players and are potential drafts, then we would have to worry about agents being involved,” Davenport said.
“This trip would be in the middle of some of these guy’s summer seasons as well, so coaches may deny them from playing.”
Luckily for these three coaches, not a lot more needs to be done on their end before their college team season starts. The busy work will begin when practice starts in Charlotte a week before departure.
“I’ll get there on July 4 but won’t be coming home until July 24. The first couple days are practice in Charlotte, and then we spend a couple days afterwards talking with USA Baseball about how everything went, the cleanup basically,” he said.
“Because the time period we are given there will not be much coaching time, there will be no coaching them on the swings of anything like that, it will just be managing them,” Davenport said.
The players selected will be far enough in their career where they will need little coaching. They know how to play their sport, now they just have to do it.
This will be Coach Davenport’s first international trip. Will he be able to enjoy the Netherlands at all during his trip?
“We may get a day or two of downtime, but us coaches are responsible for the players first,” Davenport said.
Davenport is very excited for this opportunity, but admits that he will be able to enjoy it more once he is done with this spring season.
“The NCAA normally takes this event, and I am not sure why they are not doing it this year, but there will be good teams coming from the junior division.”
Davenport explained how this is huge for the Junior College division and they will be able to make a great team to represent the USA.