School of Baseball partnership between Prairie Rose School Division and Medicine Hat Mavericks announced

Morrison had a 12-season career in professional baseball in the minor league systems of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays.

He also represented Canada in baseball internationally before retiring in 2006.

“We’ve run some after school programming in that younger age group for 10-plus years,” Morrison said.

“I’ve recognized the importance of getting a ball and a bat and a glove in a kids hands as soon as you can because it is a motor dependant skill.”

“So when Prairie Rose approached me a couple years ago it was quite exciting.”

Darren MacMillan is the program development coordinator with Prairie Rose.

He said that the program will also offer nutrition, sports psychology, leadership, and multi-sport mental health aspects.

“This Mavericks School of Baseball is going to be very similar to what we did with our high performance hockey,” MacMillan said.

“That’s the South Alberta Hockey Academy that’s been through our schools. We’ll build it just like we did that.”

MacMillan added that they will be focused on developing the kids baseball skills and are not focused on creating a team out of this program at this point.

The school division already does have an existing academy high school baseball team two hours north on the number 41 highway in Oyen.

The Badlands Baseball Academy Badgers is run by former Mavericks player Nolan Rattai, who is originally from Medicine Hat.

Morrison said that Mavericks coach Chad Martin and staff member Austin Ell will be assisting him with the program.

Both have played US college baseball. Martin is well known in the Medicine Hat baseball circles having served as a high school coach at Eagle Butte High School and Crescent Heights High School for 25 years.

Martin has been a coach with the Mavericks since 2009 and currently teaches at Senator Gershaw School in Bow Island.

The school of baseball gets underway Jan. 31 during the school divisions second semester.

“We’ll start ramping up the baseball skills, athletics and multi-sport,” Morrison said.

“There is a fall component that on the baseball skill side of it, we have great weather in September and October.”

“It will wind down, get into more multi-sport throughout the winter.”

Morrison adds that with the programming running through the start of the Mavericks season, there might be some opportunity for their players to help coach.

He hopes to get the students to Athletic Park as much as possible to utilize their great baseball facilities when it warms up.

The program will be available to students in Irvine School, Schuler School and in Bow Island at Senator Gershaw School.

An information night will be held at the Prairie Rose Public School Division office at 6 p.m. on Jan. 16 with all interested families welcome to attend.

by Jesse Gill

School of Baseball partnership between Prairie Rose School Division and Medicine Hat Mavericks announced

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