New Madison Parks Director Hopes to Improve Little League Participation
May 16, 2023
The Madison Parks and Recreation Department offers a variety of opportunities for the community to create a positive environment for all. The Parks Department has provided a little league for baseball and softball teams for several years. Due to low enrollment numbers, the board recently canceled the major and minor softball and baseball leagues.
Director of Parks and Recreation Scott Klein stated, “The numbers of registration have been low so the city actually extended the deadline for signing up until April 14. The Parks board met on Good Friday, April 7, and after evaluating the registration numbers decided to cancel Major and Minor League Baseball and Major and Minor League Softball. Softball only had a total of nine people register for both leagues combined.”
As the registration for baseball and softball extended to a later date, there were ideas and hopes of having more people sign up for the leagues. As the information about the cancelation was released, many community members decided to register their children elsewhere. For the people who had signed up for the leagues, the department has reached out and discussed refunds with online and cash payments.
The department will still hold its annual T-ball league with 86 children signed up. Plans are being set for the future years as more community events will be held.
“I have only been here three weeks, so I can’t respond to what happened this year, but we are hiring an Athletic Program Manager whose job is to make sure we are promoting existing programs, creating new programs, and ensuring that all leagues run smoothly. I will be involved myself in ensuring we have strong oversight and doing everything we can to create a fantastic experience next year,” said Klein.
It was recently announced on Facebook that the Parks Department would hold a mid-summer baseball and softball league for parents interested in registering their children before the school year starts. The summer season will be shorter than the spring, depending on the number of registrations. The season will begin on June 12 and will continue until July 28.
As time goes by, the department will be sending out new information on a variety of programs that will be available such as swim lessons, water aerobics, fall volleyball, summer cheerleading camp, football, fall soccer, and more.
“We hope to have a large turnout sign up so we can have some dynamic leagues. We are especially interested in getting more girls to sign up for softball and expanding that program,” stated Klein.
Signups for Madison, Indiana programs can be found at https://madisonin.recdesk.com or click the link here.
Marcia Lair • May 16, 2023 at 7:39 pm
This is all dandy, but whose fault is it participation is so low? I’d say it was the current sports director. Let’s not forget the mayor. He knew this event was coming. There was no word whatsoever put out as to where and when to sign up. People were asking. People were told that there was nowhere to sign up. So if you lost all your kids to Trimble County and to Hanover you can blame nobody but yourselves. They quick to take our kids in that wanted to play little league and t-ball. Next year when you don’t have a little league and they’ve all decided to go somewhere else you can blame nobody but the two named above.