By Kim Hilsenbeck
While trying to manage 72 campers, which can be akin to herding cats, Daniel Fernandez and his coaching staff at the Texas State University summer baseball camp program had it down to a science.
This is Fernandez’s first year running the camp, but he was heavily involved with it for the past several years.
“Interacting with the little kids is fun,” he said. “Sometimes they make you pull your hair out, but it’s worth it at the end of the day. They have fun and they listen to you.”
What is his goal for the baseball camps?
“To make them as big as possible,” Fernandez said. “I think there are a lot of kids in the area who don’t get to do this. Baseball camp keeps them active, it gets them out in the sun rather than playing video games.”
Each morning for four days, the campers gathered on the university’s baseball field to receive instruction from the coaching staff, which included current and former Bobcat baseball players.
We found several boys from the Manchaca Optimist Youth Sports Complex (MOYSC) attending camp, most from Buda, Manchaca, Kyle and south Austin. Other camp attendees included boys from Wimberley, Dripping Springs and San Marcos.
Mike Silva, assistant baseball coach, said the goal of the camp is to have the kids enjoy baseball, get some instruction and fall in love with the game like he did.
Silva, who played for independent baseball leagues in Florida and Indiana, is in his third year of coaching at Texas State. Though able to spend some time at the camps, which run for several weeks, he was also out of town quite bit throughout June.
“This is a huge recruiting time for assistant coaches,” he said. “We go to select tournaments in Texas and throughout the country.”
He and other coaches are scouting for future Bobcats and deciding whether to offer players scholarships.
Following some warm-up drills at 9 a.m., the group of mostly boys, ages six to ten, split into groups for hitting and catching.
The campers waited their turn in line to run the drills barked out by the coaches.
