Kentland Community Supporter: Kentland Baseball Association

Jack Fellmy: The Kentland Baseball Association is made up of five board members: Jack and Emily Fellmy, Trent and Jill Cahill, and Patrick Williams. We all work together to get youth involved in baseball and softball. Our leagues include T-ball, minor’s league, 10 and under, 12 and under, and 14 and under.

All of us coach and manage the concession stand, and Trent, Patrick and I work on the fields. We also have to make sure that we have all the equipment that is needed. Emily and Jill take care of administrative tasks like managing money, registration, and purchasing food for the concession stand. We always have a good turnout of kids every year, and the goal is to keep improving in the years to come.

Our team took over the Kentland Baseball Association in 2019. We had our kids involved in the sport, and we really wanted to try and make the organization a little better.

Emily Fellmy: Opening Day is a huge event that we start preparing for in February. It starts with collecting registrations, scheduling, and finding volunteers. It takes a lot of people with all hands on deck.

Jill Cahill: We couldn’t do any of this without the support of our local business sponsors. We feature our sponsors on banners that are displayed around the three fields and also on team jerseys.

Jack Fellmy: The five of us are the main volunteers, and we also have a few others that regularly help out.

Jill Cahill: With all five of our board members coaching this year, we rely a lot on the volunteers that we have to run the concession stands during games that we can’t be here for.

Jack Fellmy: When we were kids, I think summer sports started to dwindle away, so we want to do our part to keep kids in the community involved. When they’re on the ball fields, we know they’re safe. We hope that their passion might grow, and some of them might coach or run their own organization someday. I also really love coaching, and it’s great to see the players improve.

Emily Fellmy: It’s an amazing feeling when you coach kids who have never played before– you’ll teach them the smallest thing and it clicks all of a sudden. It might be something I worked on with them weeks ago, and they come back to practice or a game and they’re still doing it. And when they’re out and you see them on the field, they just light up from being out there. Those are some of my favorite coaching moments.