Adam Prudhomme
Beaver Staff
Napanee Express coach Scott Thompson is taking his pitching expertise to the provincial level, as he was named the Ontario Amateur Softball Ontario’s CANPitch Master this weekend.
Armed with over 25 years combined of playing and coaching experience with Softball Napanee, Thompson brings with him a wealth of knowledge to the role. Along with competing in a national championship in his playing days, last summer he coached the U14 Napanee Express boys to a national silver medal.
“As a CANPitch Master I’ll be watching and mentoring a lot of the RPIs, which are the Regional Pitching Instructors,” said Thompson. “I’ll be leading clinics as well as bringing in any new and improved curriculum.”
He was selected from a long list of candidates from across the province.
“In Ontario there’s a lot of great pitching coaches,” said Thompson. “There’s a lot of high quality coaches and likely a lot of people looking to put in for the master pitcher. I was pretty excited when it came around and excited to get going on it.”
Thompson will also have some say in selecting both Team Ontario’s team for the Canada Games as well as Canada’s national team. He recently worked with Team Canada coaches Jeff Ellsworth and Mark Quinn and is looking forward to learning from more of the country’s top coaches.
“It’s great to learn from them and be around them, everyone has a different way of doing things,” said Thompson. “It’s great to pick everyone’s brain and get a little bit from everybody.”
Despite his new responsibilities, he will still coach his son’s Under-12 Express team this summer, as well as continuing his role as Queen’s University’s women’s softball pitching coach. He hopes to take what he learns from his new role and apply it to his hometown Express.
“We’re extremely lucky in our town to have the coaches that we have,” added Thompson. “We have an outstanding coaching base here. I’m learning a lot from the coaches here but to be able to learn from Canadian and provincial coaches just adds to that.”
Despite the chilly weather outside, Thompson says he’ll soon be starting up indoor training with his Express team as they prepare for the upcoming season and he will also be leading pitching clinics for a variety of ages and skill levels in Kingston towards the end of March.