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USA Today
12 hours ago
- Sport
- USA Today
'You're not getting scouted at 12': Youth sports tips from a LLWS hero
This is Part 1 of a three-part summer series visiting with three former major league All-Stars turned sports dads. They offer sports and life advice about how we can make our kids better players, but also how get the most out of athletic experiences with them. This week: Youth baseball with Todd Frazier, the former heart of Toms River (New Jersey) Little League who has returned home. Do you have youth sports figured out? "I think if anybody says they know what they're doing," Todd Frazier says, "they'd be lying to themselves." These words come from someone who spent 11 seasons as a standout in the major leagues, who was the MVP of the 1998 Little League World Series, who led off its final game with a home run and who recorded its last out as a pitcher. Today, he coaches his son Blake on the same field of his Jersey Shore township where he played as a kid. He broadcasts the annual championships from the one in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where his team toppled Japan. He watches fellow dads urging on their players, and he knows exactly how they feel. "I'm coaching third base, you're trying to will 'em to hit the ball," Frazier tells USA TODAY Sports. "It's the worst. Now, as a parent understanding it, your son's 0-2 count, we're in the last inning … as a parent, it's very hard to distinguish when they're struggling and when they're doing well. "But everybody's been there." How we handle that moment – and not so much the result our kids produce in it – can define our athletic experiences with them. "There's no book, so you see these parents, some of them are just out of control," says Frazier, 39. "I've learned a lot over the years. I've honed back a little bit, understanding that it's not the end of the world when your kid does strike out with the bases loaded." How do we get to that space with our minds and emotions? Frazier, now a sports dad of three – sons Blake and Grant, 6, who play baseball; and daughter Kylie, 9, a gymnast – spoke to us about gaining the intrinsic value of youth sports while still staying keyed in and competitive. We were connected through his "Squish the Bug" campaign with OFF! Mosquito and Tick Repellents. It stresses batting fundamentals and how kids can stay active and intent through organized sports. 'You're not getting scouted at 12': When you're a kid, it's the experience of sports that matters Brent Musburger is on the call. Frazier swings and launches the pitch into a sea of people beyond the left field wall in Williamsport. When Frazier grew up, there was really nothing around that resembled travel baseball. Little League was everything. Now, in some cases, one entity replaces the other. "Little League is the best, and I feel bad because a lot of kids aren't really experiencing it anymore because they're hearing it from some upper-tier people that say if you don't play travel ball, you'll never go to this college and that," he says. "And I think that's ridiculous. "You're not getting scouted at 8-, 9-, 10-, 11-,12-years old, man; (not) until you get to the big field." Everything, in a way, happens in miniature in Little League. The 12-year-old Frazier, who would grow up to be 6-3, was about 5-2. His 102-pound frame nearly floated around the bases after his leadoff home run and leaped gleefully into a dog pile after it was over. The events of our sporting lives when we are kids, though, are outsized. Sometimes, we think back to them in slow motion. When Frazier looks back, the end of his team's magical run is icing on the cake to the full portrait of moments his Little League career provided. In Williamsport alone, he became good friends with kids from Saudi Arabia and Japan. He traded team pins to other players for theirs and he rode cardboard down the hill at Howard J. Lamade Stadium. "I was telling my wife the other day, my team was the last team to play the last game in Little League Baseball," he says. "Going to Williamsport's great, but the memories I've had were not only for myself but seeing the kids – so-called not really good baseball players – do well and get like a game-winning hit, and to see the smiles on their faces and the parents how excited they are. Those are memories that are lasting. And my success came from the help of a lot of other people. So did I have the skill? Of course. But you know, you need a lot of help as you move along the way." The help starts at the grass roots, back to where Frazier has gone, where our sports journey begins. And it starts with you. A 'good' team begins and end with good parents When kids set out to play baseball, or any sport, big league dreams bounce around their heads. But as they continue onward, the sensory moments they see, feel and experience in real time move front and center. They gain confidence in small steps: recording an out by throwing the ball to the correct base; kicking it within the progression of forward motion of the game; moving naturally to the open spot on the court for an open shot. As they get a little older, we are the ones – Frazier even admits to doing it – most likely to overanalyze what's going on. "Sure, you lose the game or you're eliminated, there's a lot of raw emotion," Patrick Wilson told USA TODAY Sports in March. Wilson is Little League International's president and chief executive officer and a longtime member of the operations ranks of the organization. "But shortly thereafter, they're being 12-year-olds again. They're stealing peoples' hats, trading pins … they move on very quickly. Now the adults, the coaches and their parents, they hold onto it a little longer." Frazier and his old Little League teammates had a different vibe around them, even by the time they reached Williamsport. He felt zero pressure. "None whatsoever," he says. "And I give the credit to the coaches and the parents as well. I think that's another thing in youth sports: If you have really good parents, you're gonna have a pretty good team, whether you win or lose, because you have no complaints. They're not worried about where their kid's hitting. And they're focused on how the coach is coaching and how the kid is getting better each day. And I think that was the big thing for us." Ex-teammate Tom Gannon, who would go on to become a police officer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told in 2018 that Toms River "had no intentions of getting that far. But we had great coaching, we meshed well as a team, and we gained more confidence as each round went on." First and foremost, they were allowed to be kids. Think of those first road trips your child takes with a team. There are always a few parents who are sticklers about keeping the players away from pools and amusement parks that might tire them out or otherwise distract them from the "reason" they are on the trip. But as I wrote to a reader in 2023, these are also moments that can make the event whole for young players, offering them not only memories but release from the moments you want them to be at their best on the field. "Of course you want to win," Frazier says. "That's just the nature of the beast. But are they getting better? Are they having fun? Are they putting their best foot forward? "It comes with time, and I've learned a lot over the years." 'DON'T BE A HELICOPTER PARENT': A golf giant's advice to help make youth sports more fun 'Sometimes you reach the stars and you hit the moon': Don't be afraid to set grand goals The idea behind Frazier's new campaign is to make a hitting drill more enjoyable and relatable to kids. As you swing, he teaches, turn your back foot as if you're "squishing a bug," which pops your hips through the zone to help with leverage and power. Frazier shot a commercial with Blake at Toms River's Little League complex, where his son is playing 11-year-old All-Stars this summer. Next year, Frazier will coach Blake in Little League as his son looks for his own dream shot at Williamsport. "It's a big leap and bound," Frazier says. "I'm sure he's going to put his best foot forward. But yes, it's a goal and I think young kids nowadays need goals, and I think they need to understand: Set your goals high. You want to bat .500 and you bat .400, that's pretty darn good. So sometimes you reach for the stars and you hit the moon a little bit. That's still pretty good feat." He says, though, he's never really thought about sports goals he has for his kids. His sons and daughter are the ones developing those. "I would love for them all to play professional sports. I think that's the end goal," he says. "But knowing how hard it is, I tell my kids all the time: bring energy, emotion, enthusiasm, to anything you do, and you can't go wrong. Practice the right way. Just be you, but at the same time focus. And I think at this age, if you're focused and under control and not taking any pitches off, you're gonna to have fun and you're gonna to enjoy the moment." Frazier coaches Blake in travel baseball when he's not playing Little League. I have seen them at tournaments in our region. My son approached Frazier and told me how personable and conversant he was with kids on other teams. It's a approach Frazier has used to improve his coaching. COACH STEVE: Parenting tip from sons of former major leaguers 'Expect failure': It's an opportunity for your kid to grow We're back in that situation many sports parents dread: Our son or daughter is up with the bases loaded. When it happens, Frazier now sits back and observes. Whatever happens, it's a launching point for teaching. "Come here," Frazier might say to Blake or one of his other players. "I want to know what you learned from this experience and how we could have made it better, or how you could have done better." He feels having pragmatic and good-natured style is more productive than saying, "What are you doing? Why didn't you swing at this pitch?" We want our kids to initiate solutions, but to learn to cope with situations where they don't succeed. Let them fall and pick themselves up, leaning on you only if they need it. "Expect your kid to fail," Frazier says. "And I think that's hard for them to understand, because in the world we live in, it's the now, now, now … why isn't he doing it now? Why is he doing this? It's not their swing, it's not their hands are dropping, it's not they took their head off the ball. That's just the nature of baseball, and it's gonna happen over and over. And you just got to understand, 'OK, I can live with it, but hopefully he's getting better next time.'" Next week: Chasing success through a high school and college baseball experience Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons' baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here. Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@
New York Post
2 days ago
- Sport
- New York Post
Yankees flameout Clint Frazier decries ‘too many rocket scientists' running franchise
The Yankees' math never really added up for Clint Frazier. Frazier, who famously couldn't stick with the big league club after years as a top prospect, seemingly has lingering beef with the franchise and its analytically driven focus. 'I do feel like they hired a few too many rocket scientists to try to like make the lineup,' Frazier said on 'Foul Territory' on Thursday, 'instead of just like letting a former player or a guy that has more experience write the lineup.' Advertisement Foul Territory/ YouTube. He recalled to fellow ex-Yankee and podcast host Erik Kratz being told by one analyst that there is no such thing as 'players getting hot.' 'I could 55-for-55, and they would be like, 'he's not hot, he's going to cool down.' They believed you were what you were,' he said. 'And in my mind, I was like, that's not using your eyes… you gotta run with that sometimes.' Advertisement Frazier was a polarizing presence for the Yankees upon his arrival as a 21-year-old prospect from Cleveland in 2016 as part of the Andrew Miller trade — in part due to his flowing red locks. The Yankees relaxed their hair policy this season, giving Frazier one more qualm with his former franchise. Clint Frazier as a Yankee. Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post Advertisement 'I was just highly offended man,' he said. 'I felt like I was one of the guys there trying to push the envelope. That felt personal.' Frazier never realized his potential over parts of five MLB seasons with the Bombers, struggling with multiple concussions and getting released in 2021 and bouncing from the Cubs to the Rangers to the White Sox, seeing his last MLB action in 2023. Advertisement Once the No. 53 prospect in top 100, Frazier's MLB days ended with a .235 batting average, 29 home runs and 101 RBIs over parts of 7 MLB seasons. Frazier officially retired last season after a run with the Charleston Dirty Birds in the Atlantic League.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Soap Lake Class of 2025 faced trials, came out stronger
Jun. 12—SOAP LAKE — The Soap Lake Class of 2025 has not had an easy time getting where it is, said principal William Britt. "This journey, your journey, has been one to remember, from the late nights spent on homework to the anxiety of exams to moments when everything felt overwhelming," Britt said. "You have made it all with grit, humor and heart. Statistically, many of you weren't expected to be here, and yet here you are walking proudly, head held high, chest out, proving to the world that I am someone. I am great. I will not be another statistic." The 27 seniors who graduated May 31 persevered through the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, Britt said, as well as facing personal challenges and setbacks. But the students who struggle become creative thinkers and world-changers, he said. "I can say that with conviction because I lived it," Britt said. "I know what it's like to hustle to meet ends meet ... I know what it's like to run out of food stamps and to rely on a friend's home for a warm meal, a clean shower and a pillow to sleep at night. We moved often when rent became too high, which meant starting over at new schools over and over again. When I look at you, I just don't see students. I see myself." Of the students in the class of 2025, seven had gone their entire school career through Soap Lake schools, said school counselor Jeremiah Baergen, and several were multi-generational Eagles whose parents and grandparents had also graduated from Soap Lake. One of those was ASB President Addison Frazier. Frazier read some dreams her classmates had written about in the fifth grade: dreams of becoming a dancer or a professional athlete or a zookeeper. Those dreams may not have stayed the same, Frazier said, but other dreams are out there for the taking. "Life isn't something that happens to us," Frazier said. "It's something we build every day with our choices, energy and passion. Remember to take it all in, whether it's joining on your friend group, helping someone in need, or chasing a dream or simply laughing a little louder. As soon as we step into this new start in life, don't wait for the perfect moment to jump in. This is it right now; this is our perfect moment." Valedictorian Sophia Opalko was not a lifelong Soap Lake student, having moved to town seven years ago, she said. "This diploma is not just paper," she said. "It is proof you're capable, you're worthy and you're just getting started. Be proud of what you've accomplished, and even more proud of what you'll become. This is not the end. This is just the beginning of your story." "The average life expectancy is about 75 years," Britt said. "You spent 18 years of those growing up with us today, going out there and meeting your mark ... Congratulations, Class of 2025. You've got this."
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
‘Unthinkable': The attack on Mother Emanuel left behind hurt, anger
Mother Emanuel had faced peril before. In the summer of 1822, just a few years after it was formed, one of its founders was suspected of leading a rebellion of enslaved people; he was one of 35 people killed. The church was burned in a fire and later rebuilt, then an earthquake damaged the church in 1886. It was 129 years before trouble struck again. '[In] 1963, I was 12 years old when they were doing the marches downtown on King Street to desegregate the lunch counters,' said Herb Frazier, a historian and Charleston journalist who grew up in the city. He remembers much of his life revolving around Mother Emanuel. 'I know that there were people families all through the city of Charleston who would walk from the north end of the city, and my cousins would come from the west side of the city, and we would all come and see each other on Sundays at Mother Emanuel,' Frazier said. For him, like so many people in Charleston, the church and family are intertwined and inseparable. 'You know, when I walk into church, I immediately my mind and my heart is flooded with the thoughts and the memories. My grandmother, yes, who sang on the choir there, and my father,' Frazier said. Mother Emanuel hosts Bible study for anyone with an open heart and the time to explore scripture. It was the same on June 17, 2015, and Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor was ready to go. 'She did come home before she went to church, and she asked us if we wanted to go with her to Bible study. I personally said no, because it was already late, my sister decided she wanted to go hang out with friends, and then my youngest sister had basketball,' said Kaylin Doctor-Stancil, Rev. DePayne's daughter. Plenty of others went to the Bible study, all for the purpose of worship. One gunman went, too, because he knew Charleston 'at one time had the highest ratio of Blacks to whites in the country.' 'Mother Emanuel was not a randomly selected church. It's amazing when you think about it, because, because the details show you how calculating the murderer who came here was. I mean, he originated from the area of the Midlands, and came down here, probably on Highway 26 which means that he passed many other Black churches along the way. It meant also that he passed HBCUs, Historically Black Colleges and Universities; South Carolina State, Claflin Allen in Columbia, Benedict in Columbia. And so he was bent and determined on coming to Mother Emanuel, and he also had a sense of how important that church and that congregation was for this community and for African Americans in the country,' said Dr. Bernard Powers, a historian in Charleston. No one at the church that night could have known that he had written a manifesto referencing Nazis and talking about hsi hate for Black people and other races. So the ten members at the Bible study welcomed him in, and when they formed a prayer circle, he pulled his gun and opened fire. 'One of my daughters called me and said, 'Daddy, there's been a shooting at your church,' Frazier said. 'I'm thinking this must have been a shooting maybe outside the church. I didn't have a sense that this was a shooting in the church. The unthinkable; I mean, why would anybody be shooting in a church of all places, you know?' Frazier said. 'Watching the news, breaking news, shooting at Emmanuel AME Church, and I called Cynthia, because Cynthia was my touch point to all things Charleston, and obviously she didn't pick up the phone, and that's okay. She's trying to, you know, figure out what's going on herself. And about 45 minutes went past, the news story got worse and worse on all channels,' said Charlotte city councilmember Malcolm Graham. Graham's sister, Cynthia Hurd, was one of the people in attendance that night. 'He said there's so much confusion happening in Charleston, but he was able to find out that from those who survived the shooting, they had identified Cynthia as being at the bible study at the church at the time of the shooting, and then from that moment on, you just got this gut feeling that she was involved in the most awful way and that she was at the church. Sometime later, I got a call that night from the coroner's office in Charleston asking me to describe Cynthia,' Graham said. 'We kind of already knew deep down that something tragic had happened,' Doctor-Stancil said. Cynthia and DePayne were killed that night, in a place that felt like a second home to them. Doctor-Stancil would have been there, but she and her sisters decided not to go to church that night. She was 16 at the time. 'How do you look back on that moment, deciding not to go?' Ken Lemon asked her. 'It hurts. It hurts a lot, sorry. It hurts a lot, because I know specifically for me, I didn't want to go because I was angry. I was angry that you decided to go get your certificate over and taking me to go get my license. You know, being a teenage girl, not realizing other things are important at the time. And I look back on it, because I'm just like, dang, I was, I was mad at my mom for wanting to do something that she'd already planned to accomplish, and I ended up losing her that night. And it was the moment that I could have had with her, and maybe that wouldn't have happened if I went and I something that I constantly ask myself and tell myself. And it's like, well, you didn't know that was going to happen, so you can't hold yourself accountable for it. But it does hurt. It does hurt because I wonder if that would have changed the course of events, if we all had went with her. I wonder if that had changed anything. But at the same time, it's also like, if we did go, will we still be here,' Doctor-Stancil said. 'How did you feel in that moment? Understanding the purpose wasn't a misunderstanding,' Lemon asked Graham. 'I was angry, I was done in the forgiving mood,' Graham said. As Graham prepared to leave Charlotte headed to Charleston, we learned that the gunman was headed toward Charlotte. (VIDEO: Supreme Court rejects appeal from Dylann Roof, who killed 9 at Charleston church)
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
KY could lose thousands of solar, battery jobs if GOP in Congress ends tax credits
A technician services photovoltaic cells. (Photo By Getty Images) A solar industry group is warning that Kentucky stands to lose out on thousands of jobs in manufacturing solar energy components and batteries if clean energy tax credits are cut short under a mega-bill moving through Congress. An analysis published in late May by the nationwide Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) says Republican-led efforts to curtail or sunset tax credits would cost more than 300,000 jobs across the country and sacrifice hundreds of billions of dollars of investment through the end of the decade. Some of the credits are technology neutral but benefit solar and battery manufacturing industries. Republicans in Congress axed the 'green new scam,' but it's a red state boon The U.S. House has approved the spending and tax bill, dubbed the 'big, beautiful bill' by President Donald Trump. It is now under consideration by the U.S. Senate. Republicans are using a process called reconciliation to move the bill with a simple majority of votes in the Senate, rather than the three-fifths majority usually required in the upper chamber. That means the package could become law without any Democrats' votes. The bill as it came out of the House would accelerate the phase down of tax credits benefiting clean energy production, low-emission hydrogen fuel production, components for renewable energy, carbon capture technologies and the purchase of electric vehicles. These tax credits were created under the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 and championed by the former Biden administration. A States Newsroom analysis found the tax credits primarily benefitRepublican-controlled states. In Kentucky, where solar and battery manufacturing industries are growing though at a slower pace than in other states, the Solar Energy Industries Association estimates about 3,300 existing and potential jobs could be lost. Brenden Frazier, a board member for the advocacy organization Kentucky Solar Energy Society, said the sunsetting of tax credits could hamper the residential solar industry in the state. He said recent 'Solarize' campaigns, in which cities encourage residents to adopt solar energy in their homes and businesses, show the incentives are having a 'big impact' in terms of growing the industry in Kentucky. He said he worries about sustaining the business without the incentives. Frazier serves as the director of product and technology for the Puerto Rico-based solar panel manufacturer SOLX. Frazier said the loss of tax credits would set back solar and battery manufacturing as Kentucky, like much of the rest of the country, faces growing energy demands from prospective data centers coming onto the electricity grid. While the amount of electricity generated through solar energy in Kentucky is miniscule, the state has seen an influx of solar developers interested in setting up utility-scale solar installations. A Canadian company also announced last year it was investing over $700 million in a Shelby County manufacturing plant to build utility-scale battery storage systems. Republicans supportive of ending the tax credits have argued they are too expensive and that incentives give renewable energy an unfair advantage over fossil fuel production. Republican Kentucky U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in May said the reconciliation legislation would end spending on 'Green New Deal-style waste' and 'reverse the most reckless parts of the engorged climate spending in the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.' Matt Partymiller, the president of the Kentucky Solar Energy Industries Association, told the Lantern the accelerated phase down of the tax credits is a 'real threat to manufacturing jobs' and to the United States' ability to compete with China on solar energy. 'We just started onshoring U.S, manufacturing of solar in earnest in the past couple of years,' Partymiller said. 'A lot of these incentives are really tied to that, and if they go away, I think this whole manufacturing industry that was just created largely stops with it.' Solar panel manufacturers across the country have significantly ramped up production in recent years to meet a boom in utility-scale solar energy development, producing enough solar panels to generate nearly 52 gigawatts of electricity. China has historically controlled much of the world's solar panel production as the country has subsidized production. The U.S. Senate will likely change the version of the reconciliation bill that passed the U.S. House in May. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
