Community Voices
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Eastview Little League’s 2006 Opening Day (photo: San Pedro Today)

With COVID restrictions falling by the wayside and students back in school, one significant opportunity available to our youth this year will be youth sports leagues. The pandemic limited or postponed these leagues for most nonprofits the last two years. Now that the Boys & Girls Club and other youth sports sponsors are ramping up football, soccer, basketball, softball, and baseball leagues for the 2022-23 fiscal year, we need to secure volunteer coaches to ensure we have the personnel required to bring youth sports back to our community.

Growing up in San Pedro during the 1960s, the then San Pedro Boys Club was the mecca for year-round sports. Perennial championship football teams in the fall, Biddy and Golden State basketball in the winter, and Hilltop and Midtown Little League during the spring and early summer were the seasons we all lived for. And while most of us, including myself, were average or barely above-average athletes at best, we participated for the fun, competition, teamwork, and friendship that playing sports at “the Club” provided. 

Still, some were a cut above and started their pathway to professional sports at the San Pedro Boys Club. These alumni include Joey Amalfitano (Giants and Dodgers), Willie Naulls (Knicks and Celtics), Gary Maddox (Phillies), Joey Lovitto (Rangers), Bobby Gross (Trailblazers), Alan Ashby (Astros), Bob Petrich (Chargers), George Lusic (Braves), and Don Shinnick (Colts), just to name a few. But in reality, the sports leagues at the club were not meant to be incubators for future professional athletes but rather year-round opportunities to mold youth into eventual contributing adults and future leaders of our San Pedro community. That will always be the ultimate success of the then Boys Clubs’ youth sports programs.

In reality, youth sports have always been as good, mediocre, and sometimes as bad as the volunteer coaches these youth sports leagues rely on. The coach makes or breaks the sports experience for kids — not the facility or the uniforms — and a savvy coach can even overcome the sometimes overbearing parent to assure each child has a positive sports experience. We had some outstanding coaches in our days at the San Pedro Boys Club and other local sports leagues: Trani, Martinez, Esposito, Lorenzi, Padovan, Mascola, Stevens, Young, Karmelich, Gregory, Lauder, the Trainotti brothers, Brickner, Lane, Patricio, Chavez, Uruburu, and many more. They knew the sports they coached well, but more importantly, they knew how to mold young men into the future successes they would one day be. Those positive experiences inspired me to be a volunteer coach for 14 years — a fantastic learning and growth experience that was one of the best of my lifetime. I cannot thank enough men like Tommy Trani, Mike Karmelich, Bob Lorenzi, and Ray and Jimmy Patricio, who coached me as a youth and were the examples I used when I followed in their footsteps. (I also thank Chuck Trainotti for coaching with me for so many years — even after he decided not to choose me in the draft while I was a youth attending the club!)

So, we are calling all coaches! The Boys & Girls Club, Bogdanovich and Peck Park recreation centers, Eastview Little League, Bloch Field Pony, and several other San Pedro youth organizations need coaches this year. To be honest, after the worst of the pandemic, we need “molders” of young men and women much more than we need adults trying to relive their youth by focusing on winning a championship. Our community has many mentors, teachers, and caring adults. We need you to step up and give our youth positive adult leadership and the opportunity to participate in sports many of us experienced years ago. 

We can teach you the Xs and Os. You just need to bring to the field or court the time, patience, care, and strength to deal with our youth’s varied personalities and needs, especially following two years of limited engagement. Don’t let that scare you away — we were no angels when we played! I thank you in advance for stepping up — they will forever call you “Coach” and will thank you many times over in the years and decades to come. spt

photo of san pedro today author Mike Lansing

Mike Lansing

Mike Lansing is the Executive Director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Los Angeles Harbor.

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