‘The little athletic league that could’: Youth sports program rebounds in Micanopy

Micanopy’s Babe Ruth Baseball and Softball program is wrapping up its fourth year thanks to the efforts of area families and local volunteers.

The town’s once thriving youth sports program went defunct more than a decade ago.

It stayed that way until a local clergyman and parents brought the sports program back to Micanopy in spring 2021. Since then, families like the Hoovers, the Mountains and the Davises have kept the Micanopy Athletic Association not just alive but growing.

The program relaunched with two coed teams playing rookie ball and T-ball at the Carson Roberts Sports Complex. Now it has six to eight teams a season, with a third sport – softball – added in 2022. Eighty-five players, the highest number ever and three times more than in 2021, registered last spring.

“We are definitely the little athletic league that could,” said Olivia Hollier, the association’s secretary.

Hollier, 38, like most of the association’s directors, coaches and “team moms,” also has children who play in the league. Youth sports in Micanopy survive thanks to the efforts of about 20 community volunteers, all of whom squeeze in time to organize registration, size new uniforms, coach and keep score between parenting and full-time jobs.

Parents worry about players aging out of the leagues, especially as they opt to join their middle and high school teams, with no younger children to fill their place.

The potential for more youth sports, like soccer or football, in Micanopy rests on the initiative of other parents to get involved, said Brittany Hoover, the association’s vice president.

“Even on the craziest days, we’re here for the kids,” said Hoover, 38. “And we know if we didn’t do it, no one else is going to step up.”

For the Hoovers, who trace five generations of their family heritage in Micanopy, the Carson Roberts Sports Complex is home to many family memories. Chris Hoover, Brittany’s husband, spent his childhood playing baseball at the complex with his father Jack Hoover, a coach for the town’s former sports organization, Micanopy Association Recreation Co-Op (MARC).

Now 39, Chris Hoover coaches two leagues for the current sports program, which includes his daughter Evee, 13, and son Owen, 9.

Before Micanopy youth sports relaunched, Brittany Hoover drove her children 30 minutes in opposite directions to play ball two to three times a week in other communities. Now, her children make it to their practices and home games in five minutes. She and her husband use the time they save not having to drive to arrive early to set up the fields and the concession stand.

“It actually is just so much better, as far as our daily lives, having the sports program here,” Brittany Hoover said.

After softball practice ends, Xia Williams, 11, sometimes walks home because she lives just a block away. Xia got her start playing on Micanopy’s coed baseball team and joined the softball league as soon as it launched. The weekly practices are a chance to see the familiar faces of girls the sixth grader doesn’t go to school with – teammates turned friends.

“I always have fun here,” Xia said.

Bishop Christoper Stokes, a senior pastor at New Beginning Christian Worship Center and the association’s president, said children playing together is a perfect antidote for a divided nation.

“They don’t know anything about Republicans, they don’t know anything about Democrats; they don’t know anything about Black, they don’t know anything about white,” Stokes said. “They don’t know anything about separation,” he said. “All they know is, ‘These kids are my friends.’”