by European Baseball Coaches Association (EBCA)
Each year EBCA honors a number of deserving European baseball coaches for their accomplishments and presents the awards among their peers during the annual EBCA convention. This year´s winners are:
- EBCA Coach of the Year: Sven Hendrickx (BEL)
- EBCA Grassroots Award: David Körber (AUT)
- EBCA Career Achievement Award: Jan Bagin (CZE)
Sven Hendrickx, who led the Belgian National Team into the winner´s round at the Men´s European Championships this year, was a first base man on the Belgian national team in the 1995, 1999 and 2001 European Championships. As a coach he previously managed team Belgium in the 2008/2011 European Championship Qualifiers and the 2010/2014 European Championship. In this year’s European Championship he managed his young team to an unexpected sixth place finish for the first time in over 20 years.
Austrian David Körber personal baseball roots are with the Vienna Homerunners, After ending his playing career David started coaching for the Homerunners until today. David also works as the Director of Talent Development for the Austrian Baseball Federation and is in this role an important element in the youth development in his country that participated in the 2015 Pony World Series as well as sent four players to the 2016 MLB Cadet Elite Camp. David credited the whole Austrian staff for this award inisting that it is the reflection of team effort.
Unfortunately this year´s EBCA Career Achievement Award winner Jan Bagin was unable to attend the award ceremony but sent us a “Thank you”- video message instead. Bagin has been involved in Czech baseball for more than two decades and had a major impact on the development of baseball in Prague by gradually improving the Prague Eagles facility to its current standard as one of the best baseball and softball complexes in all of Europe. Furthermore Jan is the current tournament director of the Prague Baseball Week, a renowned international competition that exists for more than 30 years now.
Candidates for these EBCA Coach of the Year and EBCA Grassroots Award were proposed by the general public, the EBCA members and EBCA board. After the short listing by the EBCA board, the general public voted for their most deserving winner. The EBCA Career Achievement Award is solely selected by the EBCA board.