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Edmonson County's Number One Source For Local News and Information

Little League Program Director Greg Hudson Resigns

6/10/2015

2 Comments

 
PictureGreg Hudson (EdmonsonVoice.com file photo)
Darren Doyle, Edmonson Voice

After being hired less than 3 months ago as the new Little League Program Director, Greg Hudson has resigned from the position. The resignation comes as a surprise to many as there has been an overwhelming majority that feels Hudson’s impact on the program has been positive.

The program has faced its share of ups and down over the last several years and depending on who you talk to depends on how the program is viewed, but with many folks saying that this year’s season was an improvement in the overall program, the question now becomes what went wrong, and why did Hudson resign so suddenly?

“I can’t do this job properly if I have to be a lawyer more than I am a program director,” Hudson said. According to Hudson, the job came with its expected share of gripes and complaints, but that there were a couple of coaches and one parent specifically, that latched on to a couple of issues and wouldn’t let go.

Hudson said certain coaches challenged him in the process in which the All-Star coaches were selected, as well as the manner in which some rained-out games were not made up. Hudson said he had to cut a couple of games out of the season due to time constraints. 

Hudson said that overall, he felt good about the direction of things, but it was frustrating to have a handful of folks continuously threatening to go above him (to fiscal court or the Judge Executive) in order to get their way, especially when he felt that it wasn’t in the best interest of the majority. Hudson said he also received threatening phone calls and text messages on different occasions throughout the year.

Judge Executive Wil Cannon said that overall, his office had received good feedback on the status of this year’s program and said he still feels that Hudson was the right guy for the job, however, because Fiscal Court governs the Parks and Rec Program, sometimes they intertwine with one another in ways that are detrimental to both.

According to Cannon, the straw that might have broken the camel’s back was when a parent requested Hudson to show secret All-Star ballots when their child was not chosen for the All-Star team.  Cannon said Hudson did not show those ballots, which resulted in the parent visiting Cannon to make an open records request. Cannon said that because Parks and Rec is governed by Fiscal Court, Parks and Rec falls under open records law in certain cases.

“My opinion is this,” said Cannon. “Local government does not need to be organizing or administrating the little league program. The little league program has procedures on how to set up a board and how run a program. In every other surrounding area I’ve spoken with, the little league sets up its own board. The local government only supplies the fields to play on, as well as field maintenance, along with utilities and a building for concessions. We could possibly set it up like that here and the Little League program won’t have to fall under the same guidelines as Fiscal Court.”

Cannon pointed out that not all records and documents from Parks and Rec are subject to the open records law, such as the All-Star ballots. “There are limitations with certain documents,” Cannon said. “Especially those involving juveniles. You can’t just turn over documents that have juvenile’s names on them to the public. Plus, the coaches made their All-Star selections in confidence. If we make that public, no coach will vote the way they feel because of fear of a backlash from others.”

Cannon said that the only documentation the Little League board or director would have to make public would be those not pertaining to juveniles or matters conducted in an open meeting. In the instances with All-Star coaches and secret ballots, neither of those fell under that category, but he says it opens the door to similar issues in the future unless the county government gets out of the picture.

Hudson said balancing it all was more than he’d bargained for, and that he wasn’t aware of some of these issues before taking the job. “As much as I hate not doing what I wanted to do with this job, there was so much negative stuff people were saying that my family was being exposed to,” Hudson said. “It if was just me, that’s one thing, but I’m not going to continue to do this will all this stuff going on.

A recent EdmonsonVoice.com poll asked “What impact do you see from the changes implemented in Parks and Rec this year? 70% said positive, 22% said negative, and 8% said no change.

“Here I wanted to do something good for the county and the people, but I feel like I’m in over my head if I’ve also got to be a lawyer,” Hudson added.

This means that the upcoming little league basketball season that will start this fall is now in question. With no program director in place, it’s not clear what will happen at this point. Cannon said that he still feels that Hudson was the best applicant for the job. Cannon was asked, “If the best applicant for the job has resigned in less than three months, where do you go from here?”

“My recommendation to Fiscal Court will be to disband the Baseball/Softball board after the completion of this season, and that Fiscal Court not have anything to do with appointing any more board members,” Cannon said. “They can follow the guidelines of Babe Ruth and/or Cal Ripken rules in setting up their own board. They can do that themselves and there’s plenty of time to do that before next season.” 

Hudson was also recently hospitalized for an artery blockage and was set to have surgery this week, but he said the issue was not a factor in making his decision. Hudson has agreed to remain until the end of this year's baseball/softball season, and will officially be relieved of his duties sometime in mid July.

2 Comments
Mark Ashley link
6/15/2015 01:05:24 am

I think it is a shame two coaches and one parent can cause this much of a problem. Here's a suggestion, let the kids go to the park and play ball and have fun, and ban the parents from the park, when I was coaching they were always more of a problem than the kids, the kids just wanted to play ball.

Reply
Walter Duncan
6/16/2015 01:39:12 am

I have withheld my comments long enough. I do not want the job, but if I had it I would make sure that all officials and parents knew the something about what they are doing. You can't have a successful program when everyone plays by their "own set of rules".

Little League Baseball, Inc. has a complete program that trains everyone involved from the ground up. There aren't any questions that are not covered. Several years ago, when I was involved, John Rowe the Little League District Administrator was willing to train the whole program as to how to have a successful program. It was working for a while until some people became jealous and/or was afraid that we couldn't compete with other Little League programs around us.

I was so disappointed with everyone. Yes, I agree we can't compete with the programs around us but it's not because we don't have the talent in this county, it's because no one wants to work together to make it happen. In order to have a successful program we have to have the training. We have to put the time in. It's not the talent the kids have or don't have. It's all in the effort and time volunteers put into the program. (If you want your kids to have talent, they have to be coached by people that know how to coach. And they have to have parents that are involved in the program. You can't just put them on the field and let them play. It's much more than that. The program is not about any one individual kid or any certain clique, it is about them all.)

I have been around this stuff all of my life. I have been involved with it all over this state. I have experienced it from all levels and roles. I think that I know a little about what I am saying. Get the training or lose our programs. If we lose our programs then we will lose our kids. And we will lose any hope that our school system has of competing with area schools in sports and academics also.

Think about these things. Get organized as Judge Cannon suggests. It is not the county's responsibility. It is the responsibility of the parents and volunteers to get the training necessary. Just because you played ball when you were young does not make you an expert on how to set up and run a successful program. Get the training and stop complaining!!!!!!!

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