Oak Mountain adapts to weather to hold successful baseball camp
Published 6:09 pm Friday, May 30, 2025
Oak Mountain hosted its annual baseball camp as the Eagles overcame the elements to teach the next generation and even learn a few things from the campers in the process. (Reporter Photos/Andrew Simonson)
By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor
NORTH SHELBY – Not even two days of thunderstorms could stop the Oak Mountain Baseball Camp from rolling on with a week of fun for about 80 kids from May 27-29 at Oak Mountain High School.
“The campers were great,” Oak Mountain varsity baseball coach Derek Irons said. “They were excited for everything we were able to do with them, and then our players and our former players were also great just being able to kind of adjust on the fly as we had to. I think our goal is that all the kids have a great time and that they learned some things, and I think we accomplished both of those.”
Kids got to spend time batting and learning how to field and catch ground balls and fly balls among other baseball fundamentals. However, the locations of those drills was different than in years past.
The coaches moved some of the hitting drills to the indoor batting cages to dodge the rain, and they also took advantage of OMHS’ two gyms to host fielding drills for the campers. Despite the changes, Irons believes they still made the best of a less-than-ideal situation.
“Typically, we spend all our time on our field and just a little bit of time in our indoor hitting facility, and Tuesday and Thursday we weren’t able to get on the field at all because it was raining so much, so we spent most of our time in the gym,” Irons said. “Fortunately, we have two gyms and we have a little small kind of multipurpose turf area a lot of fundamental things like building ground balls and catch a fly balls we were able to do in the gym pretty much the same way as we would’ve done them on the field, so that was good, and spent more time hitting in the batting cages than hitting on the field than we normally have, but we were able to get it figured out.”
The final day of the camp on Thursday saw the campers go up against one another in throwing and fielding competitions that were fun for all involved.
“It’s always fun to see that competitive spirit come out of the campers and so that was really fun to see on Thursday,” Irons said.
Irons always loves seeing his players and former players coach and build relationships with the kids who attend. He always reminds his players that the kids look up to them as role models, and he was impressed with how well they handled that and modeled how to be a good person and good player.
“It really is one of my favorite weeks of the year to watch that and watch our players interact so well with the younger guys and even some of our former players in college come back to help,” Irons said. “They just do such a good job. They’re so patient and kind especially to the younger campers, the first and second graders. We really just want to nurture and encourage their love for the game.”
In turn though, the campers end up fueling the players and coaches’ love of the game. Irons said seeing the pure joy on each kid’s face as they learn a new skill or accomplish a feat in a competition reminds them why they fell in love with baseball.
He hopes that the players will take that into their own games as they play in high school and remember that even though the focus is often on winning and making it to college and the pros, baseball at the end of the day is just a game.
“There’s just so much joy and enthusiasm they play with, and I think that’s probably a lesson to be learned there for our players too that sometimes the higher level you can get it, it is a little more stressful, and there is a little more on the line, but probably just a good reminder that we could all probably play with a little more joy and enthusiasm,” Irons said.
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