Expanding to Spain
Also coaching P.E.I.’s Canada Games women’s team and national junior men’s team
The former captain of Canada’s senior men’s softball team, Jeff Ellsworth, has added another continent to his rapidly expanding coaching resumé.
The former captain of Canada’s senior men’s softball team, Jeff Ellsworth, has added another continent to his rapidly expanding coaching resumé.
Ellsworth, recreation director for the Town of O’Leary, recently signed on as hitting coach for Spain’s national women’s team.
Ellsworth, 39, who retired following a 10-year run with Canada’s national senior men’s team at the end of the 2015 season, is also head coach of the Canadian national junior men’s team, and Prince Edward Island’s Canada Games women’s entry.
He was also an assistant coach with a professional women’s team in the United States last year.
Back from Mexico
Just back from a tournament in Mexico, where the team he played for finished second, Ellsworth is poised for a busy year of ball. Much of his work with the Spaniards will be via video review. However, it will involve a few trips per year to Spain to work with the team as they prepare for Olympic qualifiers in the fall of 2019. Ellsworth took over as head coach of Canada’s national junior men’s team a week prior to the world championship last July. The team won bronze, moving up from seventh at the 2014 championship.
In October, Ellsworth was confirmed as the team’s head coach for the new two-year cycle. He is currently in the midst of a cross-country team selection process. Ellsworth said between 24 and 30 athletes will be invited to O’Leary around the end of August for a final selection camp. That camp immediately follows the Canadian under-18 men’s championship, which is also being held in O’Leary. It is anticipated several of the players trying out for Team Canada’s junior club will play in the nationals.
Prince Edward Island’s Canada Games women’s team has been training all winter, and is now moving outdoors for Monday and Wednesday practices in O’Leary.
They will be entered in several tournaments this year, including one in Moncton next weekend, and O’Leary’s Scotiabank Cup next month, leading up to the Canada Games in Winnipeg from Aug. 7 to 13.