ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
After playing baseball at Seward County Community College and with the Liberal Bee Jays, Kelby Tomlinson became an All Big 12 selection at shortstop at Texas Tech, and all of this came prior to him being picked in the 12th round of the 2011 Major League Baseball draft by the San Francisco Giants.
Tomlinson played professionally for 10 years, including four seasons in the major leagues, and this summer, he will bring that experience back to Liberal to help local baseball players elevate their game to the next level.
This summer, Tomlinson is hosting a College Prep Summer Baseball Program at Liberal’s National Beef Family Park for junior high and high school baseball players aspiring to play at the next level.
“It’s a five-week program that will go three days a week on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays,” he said. “We’ll go from mornings into the afternoon. It’ll be a mix of private lessons, group instruction and games.”
Tomlinson said he had noticed a trend of many local players having to travel to urban areas such as Wichita, Oklahoma City and Amarillo, Texas, to participating in premium summer programs to ready for college baseball, and that is when he came up with the idea for a local program.
“Those are kids who are not playing on the Rattlers teams who could be playing on the Rattlers teams, so I think offering something like this that can equal what they get in the cities, if not be better will help keep some of the talent in our area, which will save the parents a lot of time, a lot of money and help develop the baseball in this region,” he said.
Tomlinson and other coaches will run the program, which is scheduled for two sessions, one running from May 20 through June 19 and the other running July 8 through Aug. 7. He said his experience playing professionally and coaching locally with the Bee Jays has allowed him to be around college players and coaches, giving him insight to pass down to local youth.
“The other coach who’s going to be helping me played college baseball for four years and has coached at that level for some years as well,” he said.
Tomlinson said he has taken his knowledge from playing on the diamond to design and develop a program to prepare young players to know what to expect at the collegiate level.
“The goal is to have them ahead of the other people who are showing up who have been trained and know what to expect,” he said.
Each session, though, is limited to 15 players. The deadline to sign up for the May and June session is April 29, and the deadline to sign up for the July and August session is June 17. Tomlinson said numbers were kept low to allow coaches to invest time in each player individually and allow for maximum development.
“It’s enough time to have the games, but not so much you can’t develop and get the individual time,” he said. “That seemed to be the best number.”
Because each player’s schedule varies, Tomlinson said so too will the times for each day of the program.
“There’ll be some days they’ll have the private lessons,” he said. “Part of it will be individual one on one hitting lessons with one of the coaches, and there will be a group session where there’ll be about half the kids we’ll go through and break down specific things – plays, arm strength. That will be a smaller group. There’ll be the games. Each day, there will be a game, and each day, there will be one group session, but each player’s will vary. As far as the full day, we’ll go from 9 until about 3:30, but players will be spread out to where not everybody will be there that whole time.”
Tomlinson said the program also readies players for the mental aspects of the game, including learning how to handle failure, how to develop work ethic, develop and grow skills into whatever particular field they might want to do outside of baseball.
“Most, if not all, of these kids will eventually get occupations outside baseball – to learn what it means to get better, develop and to grow your skills and character skills, being a good teammate, being a good person, encouraging the other people around you,” he said. “Those types of things will be developed as well.”
Tomlinson said he is excited to see what happens with the first edition of the College Prep Summer Baseball Program.
“Anytime you start something from scratch, you never know how it’s going to turn out, how it’s going to be received, but I’m looking forward to seeing this,” he said. “I’m excited to pass down the knowledge I’ve been able to gain from the last 15 years playing and coaching and getting to pass that on to the younger generation and giving them a leg up on the people they might be competing against and playing with. I’m looking forward to that a lot.”
Tomlinson said he spent about a year developing, building and planning out the program.
“It’s been a lot of hours and a lot of thought and a lot of time to figure out what we be the best for these kids. I think to back to when I was a player,” he said. “What do I wish I would’ve known or would’ve been able to have as an opportunity that wasn’t available? Or look at as my son’s getting older and growing up, what would be the best for him? I took those three approaches and put together this program. I’m excited to see how it turns out.”
To register or for more information, visit the Facebook page KT37 Baseball.
“They can search that on Facebook,” Tomlinson said. “There should be a link to sign up through that, or they can text or call me at 620-263-2737. They can reach out to that for the form to fill out.”
