By Angel Verdejo
Killeen Daily Herald

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third part of an extended Sunday series by the Daily Herald examining the impact of select and amateur athletic union teams on recreational sports.

The names may be different — AAU teams, select and travel teams, and club teams — but the images are mostly the same.

Teams loaded with superstars across regional or state-wide boundaries, coming together at tournaments to compete, win and collect trophies. Players, some just starting school, traveling across the country to win "national championships."

There are parents shelling out hundreds and thousands of dollars, many hoping their investments will one day turn into athletic scholarships. Then there's the shoe companies and other businesses pumping in money to get their own piece of this very-profitable pie.

For many of the area's talented athletes, this is their path. Killeen High basketball star Ta'Shawn Thomas, for example, plays his club ball with a 17-and-under Houston Hoops team that also boasts all-state guard J'Mychal Reese, a junior at Bryan, and Irving's Keith Frazier on its roster. Copperas Cove's Amy Rosenbaum, a standout setter on the high school volleyball team, plays on an Austin Juniors team that includes players from six different high schools.

Many elite select teams do stockpile top talent, whether for their need to win or give athletes an out-lying areas a chance to play. But not every travel team is based on collecting trophies or padding their resumes.

What about organizations that exist where all the athletes come from the same area, and will likely all end up attending the same school, thus creating a feeder system?

That brings us to Cove Select Baseball and its three Cove Hounds teams.

The baseball program began this year with one purpose — building a pool of players for the high school.

Finding a balance

Cove had consecutive Class 4A playoffs trips in 2007-08, its first appearance to snap a streak of 31 years without postseason play for the Bulldawgs. In their return to 5A in 2009 however, the Dawgs have struggled, winning four district games that year and just three last season.

"This was actually the third time trying to get it started," said Bret Anderson, one of the Cove Select Baseball program's founders and coaches. "The first time, a few years ago, was a small group of guys. We just got together and tried to start a program to get some of the top-end kids and get them playing together.

"At that point, it was more about making our city league more competitive when we went to the Texas Teenage tournaments."

Cove Select Baseball is only open to students in Cove's school district, and agreements were made to allow the teams access to the school's facilities. There were no tryouts, but mainly word-of-mouth pitches to kids and parents who already played baseball or would be interested in travel ball.

There are three teams — all named Cove Hounds — playing in 9-, 10- and 12-and-under divisions. Eventually, Anderson said, the program would like to fill teams at every age until the kids reach high school.

With it being the program's first year and keeping its player pool to just Cove students, the results weren't pretty. In tournaments sanctioned by Super Series Baseball of America, the three teams combined for a 12-63-1 record. The youngest two teams had the most success, as the 12-and-under Cove Hounds won just three games during a season that ran from February to June.

Helping merge the gap between a select program and the school was Brian Jost, the former Cove High head baseball coach and current assistant principal at S.C. Lee Junior High School.

"Obviously, in most parts of Texas, we don't have junior high baseball," said current Cove head coach C.J. Wilk, an assistant under Jost. "So anything you have going on with a good city parks and recreation (department), which I think is the key, but the select stuff is a by-product of it as well.

"That's my junior high system."

At the Texas Teenage Baseball district tournaments two weeks ago, the Cove Reds won their Senior Midget tournament to advance state, beginning Monday in Athens. Two other Cove teams finished second in their respective divisions (machine pitch and freshman open base). A good number of these players, Anderson said, are with Cove Select Baseball as well.

"What the Cove Hounds-part did, was probably give the kids another 30-40 games, just guessing off the top of my head," Wilk said. "They get that extra experience and practice, so it was good for the kids."

Building for the future

Though the long-term benefits are in place for the Dawgs, feeder-system programs aren't always possible.

Lampasas softball standout Marisa Bogart recently returned from a tournament in California with her select team, the Texas Avengers Gold. Her Avenger teammates include five other Lady Badgers, giving the travel team a heavy Lampasas slant. But the Avengers also features players from Sonora, Beeville, Cameron Yoe, New Braunfels and Forney.

Bogart and her Lady Badger teammates used to play for the Lampasas Shockers a few years ago, but time commitments and exposure to college coaches in bigger tournaments eventually led to the team dissolving and several Lady Badgers making the move to the Avengers.

"It's not easier," said Bogart, adding the team has practiced in Waco and Temple. "The team chemistry was lacking on the Avengers compared to the Shockers because we all knew each other and we went to school together, but it's a lot more common (now) for a team to have kids from all over."

While Bogart said she enjoyed her time on the Shockers, she understands the need for teams to want to attract more talent and play in bigger tournaments.

"I think both models work," Anderson said of Cove's feeder-system program versus other travel teams that use larger player pools. "You take nine great kids and put them together for a week, those teams are evidence that it will work. I don't think their high school program will be as strong as ours will be, but they're going to be stronger at the Super Series level.

"Us, we're not going to be quite as strong at the Super Series level, but I think they'll be stronger at the high school as a unit when they get there."

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