{"id":3020,"date":"2009-01-14T19:55:38","date_gmt":"2009-01-15T02:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=3020"},"modified":"2009-01-14T23:48:36","modified_gmt":"2009-01-15T06:48:36","slug":"neilsen-gives-pitch-on-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=3020","title":{"rendered":"Neilsen gives pitch on game"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Tasmania Examiner – Launceston, Tasmania, Australia
\n<\/strong><\/a>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\nNeilsen gives pitch on game<\/strong>
\nBY PHIL EDWARDS<\/em><\/p>\n

NSW and Australian softball head coach John Neilsen has about 20 years’ experience as a player and coach of softball.
\nThe 49-year-old from Kurrajong near Sydney, has coached the defending national under-16 boys’ champions NSW since 2001 and has been Australian under-19 national head coach since 2005.<\/p>\n

“I got into coaching because someone had to coach my daughter’s side and I just continued on with it,” Neilsen said.<\/p>\n

He was Australian assistant coach when the team won the world championships in 2005 and then took the men’s under-19 team to another world championship title as head coach in Canada last June, when Australia beat Canada 2-1 in the final.”<\/p>\n

He said softball was basically a non- professional and self-funded sport which could prove expensive for parents.<\/p>\n

“If any kids make a state squad over a four-year period or a national team you could be looking at about $25,000 so it keeps parents broke,” he said.<\/p>\n

Neilsen said that while the profile of the sport was not high Australian softball teams were among the best in the world.<\/p>\n

“Our women won a bronze at the Olympic, our under-19 girls won a world championship bronze as did our men’s team and we won a gold in the under-19 men’s,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said there was not a lot of rivalry between softball and baseball but a lot of baseballers played softball because it was a faster game.<\/p>\n

“We have a smaller diamond and plenty of action but a lot of baseballers can’t handle the speed of pitching from a closer distance,” he said.<\/p>\n

Pitchers at the under-16 boys’ national championships reached speeds of around 110kmh over about a 15m distance.<\/p>\n

That speed increased to 125kmh for the under-19 age group.<\/p>\n

“If you have a good pitcher generally it will keep you in the game,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Editor’s note: John Neilsen was the head coach for the Gold Medal winning<\/strong><\/a>Australian team<\/a> this past summer, at the ISF Jr. World Championships at Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Tasmania Examiner – Launceston, Tasmania, Australia Neilsen gives pitch on game BY PHIL EDWARDS NSW and Australian softball head coach John Neilsen has about 20 years’ experience as a player and coach of softball. The 49-year-old from Kurrajong near Sydney, has coached the defending national under-16 boys’ champions NSW since 2001 and has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,17,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3020"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}