- November 5, 2024
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With the hope of uniting the baseball community in Flagler County and helping aspiring baseball players prepare to play college or professional baseball, Flagler Palm Coast baseball coach Jordan Butler has started Flagler Baseball Academy.
The academy held a free youth clinic earlier this week, on FPC’s baseball field. There, several youth players were taught basic fundamentals of the game from Butler and his coaching staff, which featured his high school players.
“I think there is a lot of good baseball in this community, and I don’t think it’s being cultivated,” Butler said as he kicked a piece of grass near the home dugout of FPC’s field. “I think this area can be a real hot bed for baseball.”
The clinic taught a group of kids the basics: hitting, bunting, baserunning and fielding drills.
Butler hopes this is the start of something big, something that can make baseball in Flagler County competitive throughout Florida.
There’s Flagler PAL baseball, Palm Coast Little League, and several players who leave the county to play travel ball in Jacksonville and Orlando. Butler said he wants to keep the local talent playing together.
“It just feels like all the different kids in the area are getting split and pulled into different directions,” he said. “My goal is to try and pull everybody back in. It’s taking time. I want to start little, but I want to build something (big).”
The next step for the academy is to form teams. Because the teams will compete in showcase tournaments over the summer, Butler said it won’t conflict with Little League and PAL. Instead, he’ll go to weekend tournaments and give players — from both Flagler Palm Coast and Matanzas (or other schools if they want to travel to Flagler to play ball) — the opportunity to be seen by college and professional scouts.
“If you put a little water on it, it’ll grow,” Butler said. “It’s going to get bigger; I just have to be patient.”
Butler said he’s hoping to form a U14 team to go to a tournament in July. He said he has been in talks with Matanzas baseball coach Rob Roe to work out the details.
“There is a lot of good baseball in this area and a lot of good high school baseball players in this area, and, unfortunately, they get split between FPC and Matanzas,” Butler said. “My goal it put some of those kids together.”
For more information, search "Flagler Baseball Academy" on Facebook.
