Post by CEZAR on Dec 16, 2013 13:20:13 GMT -6
I was talking with Bill Conroy and asked him if he could answer some questions for us here at ILSOFTBALL, he said yes and was thrilled to answer, it was quite a few questions and here they are in his own words, Bill Conroy's story and his thoughts about softball! enjoy,, thanks Bill..
I grew up on the Southside of Chicago near the Beverly area. I played two sports throughout my time at Bogan H.S.. Was fortunate enough to be an Evans Scholar and receive a full ride to college which I spent 2 years at University of Illinois in Champaign/ Urbana and 2 years at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. I got into IT recruiting right after graduation and was fortunate enough to be successful and start my own company with the help of some technical partners by 1991.
Between 1983 and 1991, I spent most of my spare time as a member of Beverly Country Club, the same golf course that I grew up caddying on. During those years, I spent most my time sandbagging (hustling) my time on the golf course and developed a nickname as Billy the Bandit. I was preoccupied with spending my time making money at work, hustling well to do, members sons on the golf course or chasing women and I lost grasp on what was important and I started getting heavily involved with the youth sports in Beverly including helping start up the Beverly Bandits youth softball program.
The youth program at Beverly was filled with talented athletes but had no quality coaches in the softball world, including myself. After a few years of financing kids taking pitching lessons with Skip and Steve Ball and hitting lessons with Tom Brennan and Mark Doran at Diamond Sports Academy, the group became a travel team with the name Beverly Bandits. The team started out as a local team that was primarily financed by myself but after playing in the Friendship Games in Southern California and winning the Fireworks Tournament in Colorado in 2001,we began playing more games outside Chicago with a stronger emphasis on playing west coast teams.
In 2004, I was approached to start a professional franchise in Chicago and started the Chicago Bandits, which played its home games at Benedictine College in Lisle, IL. I was voted as the NPF President from 2005-2008 and found there wasn’t enough time in the day to run the NPF, Chicago Bandits, Beverly Bandits, Hi-Tech Solutions and spend any meaningful time with my family. I decided to focus on family, business that pays the bills and the Beverly Bandits. Since 2008, I have put more emphasis on growing youth softball throughout the country and growing the Beverly Bandit program to national recognition.
The Beverly Bandit program has had success at local, national and collegiate recruiting levels with winning the Colorado Fireworks tournament, the Louisville Slugger Tournament (Boulder) 3 times, 8 top 5 finishes at Nationals including the 2013 PGF national Championship at 16U. Personally, I have been heavily involved with the growth of PGF throughout the country but with a personal emphasis towards the Midwest. During that same time, the program has continued to grow and now the Beverly Bandits have 214 players that have gone to play college ball, culminating with our largest class ever (24) in the 2014 class.
My style of play has always been to be aggressive and I love winning almost as much as I hate losing. Getting the kids taken care for college is main priority but it is a lot easier to accomplish if we have a winning, quality product on the field.
The student athlete that doesn’t understand you need to work just as hard in the classroom as you do on the softball field. If they don’t change the attitude, then I will change it for them. There are no guarantees that anyone will be a Bandit for life.
I believe a good softball program can be accomplished at many different levels depending on whatever the goals of the players, parents and coaches are. For me personally, I wouldn’t consider it a successful year unless all my seniors were committed to play college ball and the organization had success at Boulder and PGF Nationals.
I believe you can be a good coach without being organized but you will never become a great coach without those skills.
My dad and Bob Knight were my role models, both did things there way, regardless of what people thought, I am not always agree with what they said or did but I truly respected the fact that they weren’t afraid to do things there way.
Dealing with upset parents is never easy but I am fortunate to have good coaches that try to communicate the issues and my biggest problems come after the season if someone isn’t invited back.
Your message has to change in regards to motivating players or it becomes stale and if I can’t motivate a player then I need to find a coach in our program that press the right buttons to get the most out of a player
Banditfest is our programs best public relations and advertising tool. Off season work involves 3 hour weekly practices at the Rosemont dome involving heavy reps of infield and outfield defense as well as live pitching and hitting.
I believe I have a pretty good relationship with most my players and most would feel comfortable picking up the phone and calling me if they need anything. In general, I think I would be described as generous, competitive and demanding.
Role models
I respect what the programs did before just as I hope the best programs 30 years from now will respect what we have accomplished.
Varsity, JV and all the softball organizations and governing bodies don’t care what I think of them. If they have quality coaches and care about the kids then I am all for them. If they have a different agenda, then I have a problem.
I think there are great female and male coaches in Illinois but my top female travel coaches are Jenn Tyrrell,
Laura Harms, Kathy Young and the Douglas twins.
As far as any last comments, I think we all have a responsibility to be role models for our youth and sports can be used to teach young people important values in live. Softball is the sport of my choice and my job is to try and get as many young ladies involved in the sport as possible, PGF is the vehicle that I am using to get as many players interested in the game but I could never begrudge any other organization for doing the same thing. I think we would accomplish far more if we worked together to help make the sport better.
Bill Conroy
I grew up on the Southside of Chicago near the Beverly area. I played two sports throughout my time at Bogan H.S.. Was fortunate enough to be an Evans Scholar and receive a full ride to college which I spent 2 years at University of Illinois in Champaign/ Urbana and 2 years at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. I got into IT recruiting right after graduation and was fortunate enough to be successful and start my own company with the help of some technical partners by 1991.
Between 1983 and 1991, I spent most of my spare time as a member of Beverly Country Club, the same golf course that I grew up caddying on. During those years, I spent most my time sandbagging (hustling) my time on the golf course and developed a nickname as Billy the Bandit. I was preoccupied with spending my time making money at work, hustling well to do, members sons on the golf course or chasing women and I lost grasp on what was important and I started getting heavily involved with the youth sports in Beverly including helping start up the Beverly Bandits youth softball program.
The youth program at Beverly was filled with talented athletes but had no quality coaches in the softball world, including myself. After a few years of financing kids taking pitching lessons with Skip and Steve Ball and hitting lessons with Tom Brennan and Mark Doran at Diamond Sports Academy, the group became a travel team with the name Beverly Bandits. The team started out as a local team that was primarily financed by myself but after playing in the Friendship Games in Southern California and winning the Fireworks Tournament in Colorado in 2001,we began playing more games outside Chicago with a stronger emphasis on playing west coast teams.
In 2004, I was approached to start a professional franchise in Chicago and started the Chicago Bandits, which played its home games at Benedictine College in Lisle, IL. I was voted as the NPF President from 2005-2008 and found there wasn’t enough time in the day to run the NPF, Chicago Bandits, Beverly Bandits, Hi-Tech Solutions and spend any meaningful time with my family. I decided to focus on family, business that pays the bills and the Beverly Bandits. Since 2008, I have put more emphasis on growing youth softball throughout the country and growing the Beverly Bandit program to national recognition.
The Beverly Bandit program has had success at local, national and collegiate recruiting levels with winning the Colorado Fireworks tournament, the Louisville Slugger Tournament (Boulder) 3 times, 8 top 5 finishes at Nationals including the 2013 PGF national Championship at 16U. Personally, I have been heavily involved with the growth of PGF throughout the country but with a personal emphasis towards the Midwest. During that same time, the program has continued to grow and now the Beverly Bandits have 214 players that have gone to play college ball, culminating with our largest class ever (24) in the 2014 class.
My style of play has always been to be aggressive and I love winning almost as much as I hate losing. Getting the kids taken care for college is main priority but it is a lot easier to accomplish if we have a winning, quality product on the field.
The student athlete that doesn’t understand you need to work just as hard in the classroom as you do on the softball field. If they don’t change the attitude, then I will change it for them. There are no guarantees that anyone will be a Bandit for life.
I believe a good softball program can be accomplished at many different levels depending on whatever the goals of the players, parents and coaches are. For me personally, I wouldn’t consider it a successful year unless all my seniors were committed to play college ball and the organization had success at Boulder and PGF Nationals.
I believe you can be a good coach without being organized but you will never become a great coach without those skills.
My dad and Bob Knight were my role models, both did things there way, regardless of what people thought, I am not always agree with what they said or did but I truly respected the fact that they weren’t afraid to do things there way.
Dealing with upset parents is never easy but I am fortunate to have good coaches that try to communicate the issues and my biggest problems come after the season if someone isn’t invited back.
Your message has to change in regards to motivating players or it becomes stale and if I can’t motivate a player then I need to find a coach in our program that press the right buttons to get the most out of a player
Banditfest is our programs best public relations and advertising tool. Off season work involves 3 hour weekly practices at the Rosemont dome involving heavy reps of infield and outfield defense as well as live pitching and hitting.
I believe I have a pretty good relationship with most my players and most would feel comfortable picking up the phone and calling me if they need anything. In general, I think I would be described as generous, competitive and demanding.
Role models
I respect what the programs did before just as I hope the best programs 30 years from now will respect what we have accomplished.
Varsity, JV and all the softball organizations and governing bodies don’t care what I think of them. If they have quality coaches and care about the kids then I am all for them. If they have a different agenda, then I have a problem.
I think there are great female and male coaches in Illinois but my top female travel coaches are Jenn Tyrrell,
Laura Harms, Kathy Young and the Douglas twins.
As far as any last comments, I think we all have a responsibility to be role models for our youth and sports can be used to teach young people important values in live. Softball is the sport of my choice and my job is to try and get as many young ladies involved in the sport as possible, PGF is the vehicle that I am using to get as many players interested in the game but I could never begrudge any other organization for doing the same thing. I think we would accomplish far more if we worked together to help make the sport better.
Bill Conroy