Sept. 29, 2008
UCF Baseball in the Community Photo Gallery
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFAthletics.com) - Several Orlando little league organizations received some very special visitors during the month of September. Members of the UCF baseball team volunteered their time to travel to three different recreational facilities and held instructional clinics for members of the College Park, Lake Mary and Azalea Park little league groups.
"A big part of when I took this job at UCF was to embrace the Orlando community and youth-league baseball," said first-year head coach Terry Rooney. "One of the initiatives that we put forth as a coaching staff was to put our players out into the public. We wanted to expose our team to what is going on in the area.
"The past three weekends, our players have gone into the Orlando community and provided free little clinics that generated a lot of excitement with youths in this area. The responses from the little league organizations was amazing. And our guys wanted to volunteer their time on Saturdays and I'm very happy with the turnout. Aaron Smith did a great job organizing these efforts."
With so many Knights donating their time each Saturday, sessions were able to be broken down into stations ranging from pitching fundamentals, outfield drills and even some double-play work at times.
Along with teaching the basics of the game, the Knights were available for Q&As, autograph signings and group pictures.
As the Black and Gold visits with Orlando youngsters this fall, little league teams are always invited to the UCF campus in the spring. Special group discounts on tickets are available throughout the regular season, while organizations can also check out UCF's Field of Dreams, where ballplayers are able to run onto the field during the announcement of the Knights' starting lineup. Along with featured time on the field, kids can take home a piece of autographed memorabilia from members of the UCF program. More details on these events and ticket prices will be announced later this fall.
UCF is slated to open the 2009 season Feb. 20 against Virginia Commonwealth at Jay Bergman Field. The entire schedule also will be released at a later date.
For the latest news on the Knights, log on to www.UCFAthletics.com - the official site for UCF varsity sports. The site, which also contains ticket and Golden Knights Club donor information, is also the home of UCF's new online apparel store. Also visit www.UCFPhotos.com, the exclusive fan source for UCF action sports pictures.