{"id":15849,"date":"2012-01-26T17:36:07","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T01:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=15849"},"modified":"2012-01-26T17:37:18","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T01:37:18","slug":"jim-jones-to-coach-canadian-jr-men-in-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=15849","title":{"rendered":"Jim Jones to coach Canadian Jr. Men in 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
Click for original news story.<\/figcaption><\/figure>Going to bat for Canada once again<\/strong>
\nBy Bobby Roy, Leduc Roy<\/em><\/p>\n

\nFor the second straight year, Jim Jones, sport and agricultural tourism coordinator at the Leduc Recreation Centre (LRC), will try and help lead the Canadian Junior Men\u2019s National softball team.<\/p>\n

Jones was recently chosen as one of the two coaches who will help assist the Junior Men\u2019s National Softball team in their quest at the upcoming ISF Junior Men\u2019s World Championship, which will take place Nov. 1-10 in Parana, Argentina. As someone who has been involved with the sport for more than 20 years, Jones is hoping he can impart his playing and coaching knowledge onto the young players this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve played in around 12 Canadian Championships as a player, so I know what it takes to win those. That\u2019s what I can pass onto them,\u201d <\/span>commented Jones. He will join fellow assistant coach George Ryder from Port Dover, Ontario and head coach Tom Doucette from Middle Musquodoboit, N.S.<\/p>\n

Jones worked with Doucette with the national team at the last championships and knows what Doucette brings to the table as a head coach. \u201cHe\u2019s just a fantastic man. He\u2019s very solid, ground and is very much concerned with the kids on a day to day to basis. You won\u2019t find a better guy to coach the team,\u201d said Jones. This isn\u2019t Jones\u2019 first stint as an assistant coach at the national level for Softball Canada. He was an assistant with the Junior Men\u2019s National Team who won a silver medal at the 2008 ISF Junior Men\u2019s World Championships in Whitehorse, Yukon. Jones\u2019 presence in the game of softball began before he started coaching. He is a former Men\u2019s National Team player who was inducted to the Softball Canada Hall of Fame as an athlete in 2004 and helped win a gold medal at the 1983 Pan American Games with his team. He has also helped coach his two sons in the sport right from the beginning.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt three or four years old I started throwing the ball around with them and I\u2019ve been coaching ever since. I really don\u2019t think I haven\u2019t coached a year since my first boy was born 23 years ago,\u201d said Jones.<\/p>\n

Although there was a silver lining to the 2008 championships in Whitehorse, the Canadians could have easily had the gold medal to show for their efforts against the Aussies.<\/p>\n

Since this year\u2019s championships aren\u2019t on home soil, Jones isn\u2019t sure what to expect.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be a challenge, because we won\u2019t be the crowd favourite this time.\u201d Being stationed in western Canada, Jones will have the job of scouting the best of the west for this year\u2019s team, which in 2008, had a lot of western Canadian flavour. \u201cI really think it\u2019s important that, on the coaching staff like myself from western Canada, I am familiar with the western players. A lot of times the time is made up of mostly players from Ontario and that could be the case again this year since Ontario has a really strong program,\u201d explained Jones.<\/p>\n

Selections for the team will be decided later this summer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Going to bat for Canada once again By Bobby Roy, Leduc Roy For the second straight year, Jim Jones, sport and agricultural tourism coordinator at the Leduc Recreation Centre (LRC), will try and help lead the Canadian Junior Men\u2019s National softball team. Jones was recently chosen as one of the two coaches who will help […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,27],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"category-youth","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15849"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15852,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15849\/revisions\/15852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}