Greg Immke has been working to touch the lives of young men and women through baseball and softball programs for more than a decade.

“Hey, I’m glad you’re here.”

In a room filled with families, baseball players who have gone on to participate at the collegiate level and four baseball teams of nine-and 10-year old boys, Greg Immke, founder of the Bandits Baseball organization, gently grabs a boy by the arm, makes eye contact with him and says, “Hey, I’m glad you’re here.”

A high school standout at St. Joseph-Ogden, a pitcher for Parkland College and in the Eastern Illinois Baseball League, baseball is no longer about what he can do as an athlete, but rather, touching the lives of young men and women though baseball and softball programs.

Putting aside personal accolades, Immke refocused his mission from striking out batters to providing opportunities that allowed a community of baseball or softball lovers to work hard in order to find personal and team success.

“I tell people all the time, I don’t know much in life: I know grass and baseball,” Immke, who also owns S&G Custom Mowing, said. “That’s the only two things I know. So, what little I know, I put a lot of effort into. I tell kids all the time, whatever you choose to do in life, do it the best you can.

“Everyone is going to struggle, so you just try to impress upon the kids that whatever you do, do it 100 percent.”

After coaching his oldest children, Shelby, Abby and Brock, in rec ball, Immke got involved with coaching the Fast Pitch Cruisers softball program and then developed the Bandits Baseball program in the St. Joseph area when Brock was nine-years old.

With a mission to provide local opportunities for local children to have a quality baseball education, Immke saw Brock and the Bandit teammates through graduation. He also coached his youngest son, Isaiah’s Bandit baseball team before it dispersed.

Until three years ago, Immke used his lawn care storage shed as a batting facility for local players. Today, youth baseball programs near St. Joseph rent out a baseball practice facility on his rural property to give their players access to pitching, hitting and batting opportunities in the winter months.

Immke stepped aside from coaching the Bandits after his son, Brock, graduated from the program in 2014.

Alongside an established business that employs nine lawn care professionals, Immke now spends his time giving back to the baseball and softball community through coaching his daughter Shane’s year-round travel softball team in Peoria while also coaching the Prairieview-Ogden Junior High baseball and the Heritage High School softball teams.

Last year, Immke rekindled the Bandits program when St. Joseph resident Josh Jones asked him to host a new group of young young baseball hopefuls.

Jones not only wanted a local travel team option for his son, but also wanted to give a new generation the opportunity to find the same success that Bandits players knew years ago.

In 2018, the Bandits fielded two local teams from the St. Joseph, Ogden and Royal areas. The 2019 season will include four teams made up of regional players.

“The goal isn’t to be huge,” Immke said. “That isn’t what we are trying to do at all. We are trying to teach the kids lessons through baseball.”

Immke mentors the young coaches that are guiding the next generation of Bandits.

Players who work alongside the Bandits organization learn lessons about accountability, responsibility and work ethic. Immke passes out T-shirts at the beginning of each season with “no excuses” written on the back.

“I see a lot of kids through here,” he said. “They might have an excuse or reason why they didn’t do it or why it didn’t work, and in baseball as in life, excuses don’t go very far.

“I’ve got nine employees with my business. We’ve got five children, and it’s the same concept, there’s not a lot of excuses that build anything.”

Immke also makes sure that players, coaches and parents know that they are representing an organization that is built upon good character.

“How do they act at the diamond? How do they act towards the umpire? The other team? How do parents act?” he said, emphasizing that each is a point of importance.

Immke said he wants to live by the standard he asks his teams to follow.

“I coach all the time;” he said. “I don’t ever get mad at umpires. Ever.”

Unlike some other youth organizations across the nation, the Bandits pride themselves on inclusivity with youngsters who want to hone their skills and become better players. The organization does not hold tryouts, and when possible, makes sure everyone bats.

Knowing that athletes develop at different stages as children, Immke has seen how this philosophy has benefited players, including his own son.

When Immke’s son, Brock, was 9 years old, the Bandits team set goals for the players. When they went into junior high school, the goal, if the player so chose, was to start on the junior high baseball team.

“All eight Bandits that were from St. Joseph started in seventh grade,” Immke said.

As the boys aged, their next goal was to get a varsity uniform at their respective high schools as a freshmen.

“Everybody got a varsity uniform except my kid, Brock,” he said. “Both of my boys were late bloomers.

“He was disappointed, but as a coach, I’m telling him how he has to approach this,” Greg Immke said.

“Fast forward to his senior year, he didn’t lose a game pitching. He was the team MVP, he was the Pitcher of the Year and he was All-State. And he was the only one who didn’t get a varsity uniform (as a freshmen).”

Brock is now a fifth-year senior, pitching at the University of Illinois Springfield.

“Don’t put those kids where you think they are going to be because you never know when they get older,” Greg Immke added.

Jones said that his Bandits’ team follows the leadership of Immke by not talking about wins and loses.

“It’s keep getting better, it’s work hard and try to improve,” he said.

“It’s a culture that we are trying to teach them,” Immke said. “And the parents, too. If you have a parent who is only about wins and loses, this isn’t the place.”

The product of this framework has led to roughly 30 baseball and softball players receiving scholarships to play at the collegiate level.

St. Joseph-Ogden graduate and Purdue University pitcher Dalton Parker said that the Bandits organization really helped him, and others, to find success.

“They instilled hard work, and just being able to care,” Parker said. “We are a small, close knit group of guys in a small town of best friends. We had one goal and we could carry that throughout school, baseball, travel team, just working hard toward common goals.”

Professional baseball player Cole Taylor (from Salt Fork), who currently plays for an affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels, the Inland Empire 66ers, said being a part of the organization led to more than just success on the field, though.

“You become a family over travel ball,” he said. You have a bond with the guys you spent the entire summer with, whether it’s one, two, three, four years. It’s just nice to come back and see guys you haven’t seen in a while.”

For Greg Immke, this is a great reward for years of hard work.

In that same room that held 9 and 10-year old Bandit hopefuls, six former Bandit players, including Taylor, Parker and Brock Immke, gathered in the winter practice facility during their time away from school to talk to the boys about how the Bandit program helped shape their lives.

Immke lit up as each athlete walked through the door.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

The post Someone to Know Near SJO: Greg Immke first appeared on SJO Daily.

What did you do over holiday break?

It’s doubtful that St. Joseph’s Bailey Dowling was the only Illinois teenager to travel to Florida with family over the holidays.

However, it’s a certainty that she is the only teenager from the state in that time period to secure a spot on the elite 20-player USA Junior National Softball Team.

Tryouts took place in Clearwater, Fla., starting on Dec. 28. They ended on Jan. 1.

Dowling had to endure an extra day of tryouts before the final selection process began.

“It’s pretty insane to think that being from a small town, I’ll be representing the USA and have that on my shirt,” Dowling said Thursday night, shortly after returning from the 16-hour trip by car with her father, Brett.

The latest accomplishment is just another in a long line of remarkable achievements for the high school junior.

Less than two months after her eighth-grade graduation (July 10, 2016), Bailey Dowling gave a verbal commitment to attend the University of Alabama and play softball for the Crimson Tide.

She hadn’t even spent a day in high school.

Starting seven months after her collegiate commitment, she demonstrated the accuracy of her reputation.

She blasted 22 home runs as a ninth-grader, tying for the third-best single-season total in IHSA history.

She followed that up with 21 home runs as a sophomore and needs just 18 more to break the all-time IHSA career record.

Her ability to hit the long-ball was beneficial in the recent national tryout.

***

Twenty-nine players received invitations to the USA softball tryouts, which take place every other year.

More than 120 other athletes between the ages of 16 and 19 attended an open tryout on Dec. 28, hoping to join those 29 seeking spots on the Junior National Team.

Brett Dowling accompanied his daughter to the event.

“Where she separated herself is with the bat,” Brett Dowling said.

The hitting phase of the open tryout was structured so that each candidate was allotted 10 swings on a front toss from 15 feet and an additional 10 swings off live pitching from 30 feet away.

“Out of her 20 swings, she hit six over the fence,” Brett Dowling said.

Her approach?

“I pretended like it was batting practice,” Bailey Dowling said.

Unlike typical high school diamonds, where the fences are placed at 200 feet from home plate, the fences at Clearwater were set at 225 feet.

“She is a power hitter unlike any other I’ve seen at her age,” Brett Dowling said.

His opinion was supported by the results of the open tryout.

Only one of the other prospects at the open tryout hit more than two home runs. That player hit four.

There wasn’t a lot to separate Bailey Dowling from the others during the infield defensive drills, where the requirement was to field eight ground balls at third base and make a throw to first base.

“The infielders there were all super-great,” Brett Dowling said.

When the day’s workout ended, Bailey Dowling was one of 14 to be extended official invitations to try out for the USA Junior National Team.

***

“The atmosphere was intense and, at the beginning, it was kind of intimidating,” Bailey Dowling said. “I was out of my comfort zone.”

She wasn’t alone.

“It was the same for everyone else,” she said.

Bailey Dowling has played summer-league ball since she was a 6-year-old.

“Most of the other 42 girls were ones I had played with or against my whole life,” Bailey Dowling said.

The hitting portion of the official tryouts was not like a typical scrimmage.

Four players batted each inning. Every fifth inning a different pitcher entered the circle.

“The whole goal was for each player to hit off of each pitcher,” Brett Dowling said. “That makes it pitcher-dominant because you didn’t have an extra at-bat to adjust.

“There were not a lot of balls put in play. They all struggled.”

The timing of the USA Trials wasn’t ideal either for athletes who had a spring season in 2018, followed by a full summer season and a limited fall schedule.

Bailey Dowling’s last tournament with her Georgia-based travel team took place in early November.

“I worked out after that, but I didn’t see a softball field or a live pitcher,” she said.

Entering the competition with the nation’s best players, she said, “I didn’t expect anything.

“I was going out to play the game, knowing it was softball and the game I love. I saw it as having fun.”

During her opportunities at the plate in the final tryout, Bailey Dowling walked once, hit two singles and clubbed one home run. She struck out four times.

Across the board, strikeouts were more the norm than the exception, Brett Dowling noting that at least one of the candidates struck out seven times.

***

When the last session ended on New Year’s Day, Brett Dowling found it difficult to be optimistic.

“I was hoping,” he said, “but I didn’t know how to feel about her chances.”

Bailey Dowling shared many of the same doubts, acknowledging she didn’t perform up to her expectations.

“I’m hard on myself and criticize myself,” she said. “I saw more negatives than positives.”

There was no ceremony to introduce the USA Junior Team selections. Instead, players were notified by email.

The final roster of 20 featured 10 athletes were are currently college freshmen, eight who are current high school seniors and two who are now high school juniors.

Bailey Dowling, 16, was one of the two youngest selections for the USA team.

She and three others made the team after first surviving the day-long open tryout that preceded the official three-day tryout.

The outcome helped Bailey Dowling gain a different perspective.

“I was thinking I should have looked more at the positives,” she said. “Seeing the best (junior) pitchers in the country, you won’t make it look perfect.”

Four of the 20 on the USA Junior Team are either at Alabama or have committed to playing there.

The others besides Dowling are current freshmen Skylar Wallace (infielder) and Montana Fouts (pitcher) and current high school senior Lexie Kilfoyl (pitcher).

Two other members of the travel team Dowling now plays for — Georgia Impact — were named to the 20-player Team USA roster: Kelley Lynch (pitcher) and Julia Cottrill (catcher).

***

Dowling won’t be taking much of a break from softball.

Open gyms at St. Joseph-Ogden will start on Tuesday.

“Two days a week,” Dowling said.

The open gyms will be led by the Spartans’ three captains, Dowling, Hannah Dukeman and Katie Poulter, since coaches can’t be involved.

Weather permitting, SJ-O will open its 2019 schedule on March 18 with a game at Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley which will also mark Larry Sparks’ debut as the SJ-O softball head coach.

For Dowling, there will still be plenty of softball once the prep season ends.

Team USA will have a camp, followed by a series of exhibition games, in Columbus, Ga., starting June 28.

Another camp and a series of games will be scheduled for mid-July in Spartanburg, S.C., before the 20-player roster is reduced to the 17 who will participate in the Junior Women’s World Championships that will be held in Irvine, Cal., starting in early August.

“I don’t think it has sunk in yet,” said Bailey Dowling, who last spring was chosen as the state’s Gatorade High School Softball Player of the Year.

It has hit home for plenty of others, however.

“Since the announcement, our phones have blown up,” Brett Dowling said. “We’re super-excited.”

The post SJO’s Dowling named to USA Junior National Softball Team first appeared on SJO Daily.