ROCKINGHAM - Much of what Anthony Hailey does through his All S.T.A.R. Academy after-school program is work with area students is help them become more successful in the classroom.
But Saturday was all play, as Hailey hosted the All S.T.A.R. Academy Baseball Training Camp for the second consecutive summer at Rockingham Middle School’s baseball facility. There were 27 total campers in attendance, ages six to 14, and Hailey saw it as a success.
“I think we had a good turn out, and a good mixture of boys and girls,” Hailey, a social worker at Community Home Care & Hospice, said. “I’m glad they came out to learn new (baseball) techniques.”
Hailey graduated from Richmond Senior High School in 2005, and was a pitcher during his senior year before heading off the play college ball at Rockingham Community College in Wentworth, N.C. After transferring to Elizabeth City State University to finish his undergraduate studies and continue playing baseball, he returned to Richmond County and started the All S.T.A.R. Academy just last year. And since then, he’s seen both the after-school program and the baseball camp flourish.
Battling the heat, this year’s campers participated in the four-hour event and worked on a variety of baseball fundamentals. With stations set up all over the infield and outfield, complete with cones, campers rotated every 10 minutes and worked on speed and agility drills, throwing and catching drills, footwork drills, and closed out the day by working on hitting and baserunning drills.
Helping Hailey were a handful of volunteers, including his dad, Anthony Hailey, Sr., his fiance, Tankyieka Gale, as well as his brothers, Josh and Jonathan Hailey. He also had some help from volunteers Willie Baldwin (Hamlet Parks and Rec), CJ Lyons, as well as former teammate Drew Gregory.
“The kids worked on a bunch of different drills,” Hailey explained. “One of them was what we call the ‘Ozzie drill,’ where the kids start out on their knees and learn how to field the ball out in front, including glove-side and back hand. Then they stand up and do it again.
“They did another drills with cones that helped them get their momentum going toward the ball,” he continued. “It’s also important for them to make good throws to first base, so they did some drills with that. With the outfield drills, it’s important that they learned to make their first step go back, and just worked on getting behind the ball and catching it up high.”
Tucker Freeman, 12, works on fielding ground balls during Saturday’s camp
While he moved from station to station to help facilitate the camp, Hailey wasn’t afraid to jump in when need to help with instruction. One station that he spent a lot of time on was working with glove-side catches and turns with outfielders, which allows players to make more time-efficient plays in the field.
The after-school program, which meets on Mondays during the school year from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., incorporates on-the-field activities for the last half hour each week. Hailey noted that “six or seven” of the campers at Saturday’s event were regulars at the All S.T.A.R. Academy, explaining it’s good to see the word getting out and the program growing.
The S.T.A.R. in the program’s name stands for “sportsmanship,” “training,” “academics” and “respect.”
“This camp gives everyone the opportunity to learn stuff (about baseball) and have fun at the same time,” Tucker Freeman, 12, a rising seventh grader at Hamlet Middle School, said. “Sometimes when people are learning, they don’t have fun -- but this is pretty fun out here.
“It’s a mix of learning a lot of new things,” he added. “I’ve done (agility) ladders, ground balls and short hops. Coach Hailey is pretty cool and he can teach us a lot of new things.”
“I most definitely had a lot of fun,” Allen Taylor, 11, a rising sixth grader at HMS, echoed. “All the people are nice and there’s a lot of things to do. Like Tucker said, it gives everyone an opportunity to get better at baseball. Coach Anthony is super nice and will help you out with anything you need. I really liked the (agility) ladders because we got to run around and work on baseball skills.”
Hailey added that the program is always looking to expand its attendance and participation, and said that it’s open to anyone wanting to participate. Students between the ages of first and eighth grade are welcome.
“I just wanted to thank my volunteers, I couldn’t do this camp without them,” Hailey concluded. “They helped it go really smooth this year.”
Hailey also wanted to thank of all this year’s sponsors, which were: Rockingham Middle School, Bobby’s Furniture, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Family Video, Fit Period, Freedom Fitness, Gamma Upsilon Sigma, Gingerbread Daycare, Grants Express, Haltiwanger, IGA, Kidz Konstruction Daycare, Pizza Inn, Shirt Action, Sport Cycles, Standridge Auction, Terra’s Boutique, TRG Sign Company and Whitley Construction.
For future baseball camps, Hailey is hoping to expand his knowledge and program to the Richmond County middle schools, which will allow rising and current players to become more acclimated with their coaches and the fundamentals of the sport of baseball.
