by Victor R. Martinez
HORIZON — Analisa Landeros can see herself playing high school softball one day.
It’s something the 10-year-old fourth-grader from W.D. Surratt Elemenetary School in Clint would not have considered a few months ago.
“It’s fun being here with my teammates,” she said on a hot and dusty Saturday morning at Horizon Middle School. “We practice twice a week and play on Saturdays, so it’s a lot of work. I like playing against other schools, but sometimes I get nervous. I played soccer when I was in kinder but I like softball a lot more. This is a lot more fun.”
Landeros is part of BASE Play, a free after-school program offered by the El Paso Border Youth Athletic Association for elementary school children in the Clint Independent School District.
The baseball and softball leagues also will be offered in the summer, starting June 28.
“We have been out in the communities of Clint, Montana Vista and Horizon for four seasons,” said Kristi Borden, director of development for the youth association. “We’re starting our third year in the fall. We do two seasons each academic year, a fall and a spring, so we’re on the field with the kids 24 weeks in a scholastic year.”
Fourth- and fifth-grade students from Montana Vista, W.D. Surratt and Carroll T. Welch play in the league, with games rotating each week from Horizon Middle, East Montana Middle and Clint Junior High.
The goal by fall is to expand to four Clint school district schools – East Montana Middle, Clint Junior High, Horizon Middle and Ricardo Estrada Middle – which will put the league at seven schools with more than 300 players.
“It’s really fun for them,” said Letty Martinez, the area coordinator of the league. “A lot of them are distressed in academics, so being out there at practice brings up their grades and self-esteem. We check their grades … and we see a lot of improvement throughout the season.”
The players practice twice a week and have game on Saturdays.
“They look forward to going to practice,” Martinez said. “We do homework checks daily, so they get their homework done so they can go out there and practice.”
The league, with the school district’s permission, checks the students grades every three weeks, and if they are failing classes, they are put on a homework watch list, meaning no completed homework, no practice.
If the student has failing grades over consecutive grade collection periods, the league and the student advocate work with them at school to understand the problem, then steer them toward a solution.
Josh Sublasky, a 2015 graduate from Horizon High School, coaches the fourth-grade team at Montana Vista, where his mother is a teacher.
“After I talked to Kristi about the program, I told her I was up for the job, and that’s how I got these wonderful group of kids,” he said. “They’re just so awesome, I love them. They’re like my little brothers.”
Sublasky, who played first base, middle infielder and pitcher at Horizon, said he had to start from the ground up.
“When we first got them, they didn’t know how to throw a ball or anything, so we had to teach them a lot,” he said. “We knew it was going to be a project, but we decided we would make this group of kids into a good baseball team, and that’s what we did.”
He said it has been amazing watching his players improve with every practice.
“I am so proud of them,” he said. “I get to see these kids every day in practice, getting better and better. Every time, we show them the correct form and the correct way of doing things. These kids are developing skills that are going to help them become something special later in life and achieve great things.”
Connie Loya, the principal at Carroll T. Welch, said the children at her school look forward to playing.
“We started two years ago with the fourth grade and they did really well. Then, the following year, we added the fifth grade,” she said. “We keep getting more and more students interested in the program. It’s helping our students academically, so we keep them in the classroom doing really well so they can continue playing on the field.”
Loya said the league has great community impact.
“It actually has brought parents in, ensuring that the students participate in outside school activities,” she said. “The kids find a purpose and parents are supportive in that manner, and it allows parents to come together as well to work together as a community.”
The idea of the league started several years ago when Mary Sernas, a fourth-grade teacher at W.D. Surratt, was worried about her students who were coming in from Juárez or the colonias.
“She approached Dr. Dwayne Aboud, our board president, and we found a grant opportunity for the program. But, we did not get the grant,” Borden said. “We ended up with $10,000 in seed money from a private donor out of California, and we approached the Clint district, and we did our pilot program in the fall of 2014.”
Sernas was killed in November 2014.
“We lost her, but that galvanized us around the program,” Borden said. “We were determined to do something in her memory that would be befitting of her concern for the kids. It started from a really true place.”
The league is funded through several sources, locally and nationally.
Juan and Erika Garcia have two daughters in the program, Jasmine, 12, and Miranda, 11, both students at W.D. Surratt.
“They really like coming out here,” Erika said. “I’ve noticed since they’ve been playing softball, they’ve actually been doing better in the classroom. It’s helped them big time academically and that’s very important to me. This gives them that little push, so this is the best program they could have.”
Mom said softball also has been a welcomed distraction.
“I’ve been fighting breast cancer, so this has helped them deal with that a little,” she said. “Having practice twice a week and games every Saturday has been a good distraction for them, so they don’t stress about it.”
Jasmine, who plays second base, shortstop and pitcher has never played sports before.
“It’s awesome being out here,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if we win or lose, we’re going to have fun. It’s all about the game.”
Victor R. Martinez may be reached at 546-6128; vmartinez@elpasotimes.com; @vrmart on Twitter.
Read the full article at: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/life/2016/06/15/base-play-offers-fun-education-el-paso-county/85266208/
