Sign-ups open for LaFayette Parks and Recreation baseball, softball
BY KADIE TAYLOR
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
LAFAYETTE — LaFayette Parks and Recreation now has early-bird registration open for spring baseball and softball, ending on Dec. 31. The early-bird registration fee is $60, and regular registration is $75 — regular registration ends on Jan. 31. Upon registering $40 is due, and the remaining fee must be paid by Jan. 31.
“A lot of our kids actually trended toward going to Valley to play, and I think Roanoke as well — so we're trying to bring those kids and families back to our program so we can actually grow our own program inside of LaFayette,” said LaFayette Diamond Youth Baseball Coordinator Jamarcus Walton. “This is the first year where we're actually trying to incorporate the softball aspect into our program as well… We're looking for volunteer coaches to coach any level, and we're also looking for players to fill out all those rosters — hopefully, this year, we can have more than one team in each age group.”
Walton said there are many ways the community can get involved in helping the LaFayette Parks and Rec baseball and softball programs grow and serve local children, including sponsoring an athlete, a business sponsorships and donating funds for new bats.
“Currently, we're in need of sponsorships, because I was just informed at the district meeting that we have to change over to USA bats — so that's gonna be a big difference this year for the entire Diamond Youth Program in the state of Alabama,” Walton said. “So we're going to definitely need some sponsorships in order to help the city purchase [those] — that's for the entire 6U up to the 12U level as well. So hopefully we can get all that done. I have a lot of faith in this program, it's grown tremendously since we first brought it back.”
With a desire to provide a space for activity, Walton said he hopes access to youth sports will support community growth and provide a space for children to have fun.
“I feel like youth sports are the one thing that drives the community,” he said. “And as you can see, without youth sports, your community sort of dwindles away. You have different families leaving the area, transition to other places that have these programs in place — but if we can bring all these extracurricular activities to our own city — I feel like that help us retain, of course, our citizens, but also help us grow and expand. LaFayette lately has been trending down the population, but we're trying to bring the youth sports in order to bring those families back to our communities, so we actually drive success.”
Walton said for young children, co-ed T-ball is offered for ages three and four, and for ages five and six they can enjoy modified coach pitch style. Baseball and softball teams are offered for ages seven and eight which will have coach pitch double, and nine and 10 which will start kid pitch, as well as kid pitch for ages 11 and 12. The age cut off to participate is on May 1, as long as children do not turn 13 they can still play in the 12U age group.
“At the end of the day, everything revolves around the kids,” he said. “Youth sports, it's all about the kids. So we're trying to find ways to get more revenue and money [in the program] to do more for the kids, so we can have different cookouts and stuff like that for the kids as well. [We want] to give them something different to do [other] than just staying at home and going to school every day.”
For more information, visit Parks & Recreation of LaFayette on Facebook.
