The Origin of Calgary Elite Baseball Academy

For a long time, I believed that becoming a coach meant giving up my identity as a player. That misconception held me back from pursuing coaching full-time much earlier in life. Looking back, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Coaching full-time has not only made me a better player, but it has also deepened my passion for baseball.

After playing a season with a team in Seattle, I moved to Calgary and began helping a private U18 team with their winter training. In 2017, a friend invited me to assist with coaching a U13 team. Partway through the season I was given the opportunity to take over as head coach. Despite the team’s struggles that year, I discovered the joy of working with young athletes—and I was hooked.

In 2018, I joined an organization known at the time as the Jr. Dinos, where I served as the head coach of their U18 AAA “Yellow” team for two seasons. By 2020, I found myself gravitating more toward off-season development and transitioned into the role of Strength & Conditioning Director for the entire program. I had come to appreciate how essential strength training is—not only for performance enhancement but also for injury prevention and skill development.

Then came March 2020. As we all know, COVID-19 disrupted nearly every aspect of life, and baseball programs were no exception. Associations, teams, and academies had to adapt quickly. Fortunately, by the time the first lockdown was implemented and large gatherings were restricted, I had already begun privately instructing a wide range of players across various age groups and teams throughout the city.

Calgary Elite Baseball Training

During Covid-19, I formed Calgary Elite Baseball Training. It was an opportunity for me to privately work with athletes within the restrictions of the Covid-19 lockdowns. I was very grateful to have been able to help so many athletes over the next couple of years and form so many strong relationships with them and their families.

Calgary Elite Baseball Academy

The goal eventually became to find a way to help more athletes and to create more positive change within the Calgary baseball and fastpitch community. Calgary Elite Baseball Training needed to become an academy. Despite some setbacks Calgary Elite Baseball Academy pushes forward with the same simple objective. To help elevate the caliber of baseball and fastpitch across the city and to help as many athletes as possible to discover their potential and help them achieve their goals.

Wake up with PASSION, Train with PURPOSE, Play with PRIDE

Our motto represents the core of our beliefs, ideals, and goals. It reflects how a player should think, act, and carry themselves both on and off the field. I’ve always placed great importance on the way athletes represent themselves, a value I first learned while attending the University of Jamestown. Coach Hager strongly believed that, even off the field, we wore the school’s colors on our backs—and that our actions were a direct reflection of our team and our university. To this day, whenever I speak with him, he reminds me to carry myself with class and to always uphold the integrity of being a Jimmie.