Rec Sports
Hustling, teamwork and making the people around you better
At various youth baseball and softball complexes nationwide, there are signs directed at spectators and parents urging them to manage their expectations — and emotions — during the games. After all, these are kids, not professional players, and the overall goal is to have fun.
Kids’ sports are exciting, sometimes exasperating, and, of course, winning is more fun than losing. Sometimes, the heat of competition leads to confrontation and bad behavior.
“As an organization we believe very strongly in creating a welcome and safe environment for everybody that participates in our programs,” said Chris Adams, president of the Evanston Baseball & Softball Association (EBSA). “In travel baseball and travel softball things can get heated. You get into tournaments. You really want to do well and play well. Our travel teams are in a league, and of course you want to win your League championship. You want to beat your archrivals.”
The 2025 EBSA travel program has 30 baseball and softball teams in total, with 230 kids participating. To keep things amicable, Adams cites the “24-hour rule,” a stipulation in a required parent/guardian agreement part of the EBSA registration process.
“If you have a gripe, you have to wait a day or two so you can have a chance to cool down, and you can have a civil and productive conversation,” Adams said of fans who take issue with calls or plays. “No interfering with what’s going on in the dugout. No trying to coach your kid from the stands. Basically, respect the organization, respect the setup.”
Mitigating interference by spectators not only takes pressure off the young coaches and umpires, but it also fosters a safer, more civil environment for the players, Adams said.
ETHS alumni coaches
An ace in the hole for EBSA’s travel program is that most of the young adult coaches are former Evanston Township High School players, who come from a top-quality program that emphasizes professionalism, respect and a deep understanding of the game.
Joe Knudsen manages the EBSA summer travel program and is an assistant varsity baseball coach at ETHS.
“I’ve been blessed, because so many of our high schoolers want to come back [and coach] and that’s pretty special,” Knudsen said. “I grew up in Niles, and they don’t have that. Also, coming from ETHS, where the baseball program does really well both academically and behaviorally, it’s ingrained in these kids. So, from a young age, they understand it’s about hustling and teamwork and making the people around you better.”
Adams emphasized that the synergy between EBSA’s travel and house league helps drive the quality of the programs across the board. All travel players are required to play in the house leagues, which compete in the spring and fall.
“Our travel players are ambassadors, and we need them playing house because they set the example,” Adams explained. “It demonstrates to the non-travel kids that this is how you can play if you practice. This helps inspire kids to want to participate at a higher level.”
The experience the travel coaches have as young players, starting as early as 5 years old, also helps instill in them an ability to manage excitable young players and the overall level of intensity down to a productive level, Adams added.
Inevitably, there will be conflicts and, sometimes, bad behavior by opponent spectators or even coaches. When that happens, Adams said, the travel coaches are trained to go directly to the umpires to resolve any controversy.
Parent coaches
As for the house league, most of the coaches are Evanston parents. Some have kids on the teams, and many are former players themselves, Adams explained. To coach in the house league, parents have to participate in workshops led by an outside organization about focusing on positivity, communication and team-building skills.
Finally, Adams said, having coaches, be they parents or college students, who truly understand the game is a huge benefit for EBSA players.
“You can frequently look at batters on deck or the batter at the plate and see how he’s swinging and predict where he or she’s going to go with the ball,” he said. “So, you’re positioning your defense to be in the right spot. That’s just such an advantage when you have savvy coaches who can see the whole game as it’s going on and see what’s about to happen next.”
But even more importantly, Adams said, is to have coaches who know how to manage a game, who know how to think strategically and share their thoughts with the kids so that they’re learning more than just how to catch the ball and make a good throw.
“The players are learning how to look at situations and how can they exploit what the defense is doing, or how can they exploit what the offense is trying to do to our advantage,” he said. “That’s a huge part of being competitive and knowing all aspects of the game.”