After a Little League season, an all-star team is selected, leaving some players with nowhere to play. In 2011, after the Gibbsboro-Voorhees Athletic Association Youth Baseball all-star team was selected, one coach decided to make a team for those kids who were left off the team.
“I got a call from one of the players asking me to coach a team for the summer,” Ray Williams said. “I just couldn’t say no to that.”
While the team had found its coach, there still weren’t enough kids to field a team. There were only eight kids at the time, which left Williams in a tough spot.
“The kids were so excited to have a team, but we still had to find a few players before we could even start playing,” he said. “Luckily, we were able to find a few extra kids and then we started playing.”
The team got off to a less-than impressive start and according, to Williams, looked a lot like the “Bad News Bears.”
“We were getting beat by like 20 runs a game,” Williams said. “But, through all of it, the kids never lost any of their enthusiasm, and that’s all I cared about. They kept plugging along and we made it through the first year.”
Williams wasn’t sure the team would last after the first season, though.
“I knew the kids were able to stay positive for the whole first year, but I didn’t know if they would want to continue on after that,” he said. “But, they did want to keep playing, and, to my surprise, they wanted to play even more games the next year.”
The second season saw a little improvement. But it was the third season, playing in a U-11 fall ball league, when Williams began seeing the potential of the team.
“We started playing a lot better during that fall,” he said. “The kids were having fun, and by the time tournaments began in the summer of 2013, we were actually looking pretty good.”
With the team beginning to play well, Williams decided to enter them in a Cooperstown tournament this year, where they would have the chance to play against some of the best teams in the country.
“Cooperstown is the equivalent of the ‘Field of Dreams,” Williams said. “That’s where you go to really compete and be a part of something. The kids were the perfect age at 12 years old to play there, and it was just an incredible experience.”
In the tournament, the team finished in 14th place, and was the highest-ranking team from New Jersey. And while they may not have won the championship, Williams says it was the culmination of a magnificent run with the team.
“I call this team the ‘boys of summer,” he said. “The kids have been really great, and to look at where we started and what we accomplished this year is just amazing. I’m very proud of every single one of these kids. That was probably the end of the team. All the kids are getting older, and I think we’ve had a wonderful run. It’s just been a lot of fun coaching these kids.”
