by British Baseball Federation, www.britishbaseball.org
Liam Carroll has been selected by the Great Britain Baseball programme and the British Baseball Federation to serve as Head Coach of the newly formed GB Under-23 National Team. Carroll will join team General Manager Jo Ratcliff on the staff, who was appointed in November 2011. The Under-23 Team has been created to fill the gap between Junior and Senior international baseball and to give promising young players additional competitive experience that will help them succeed at Senior level.
US tour
The GB Under-23 team will travel to Boston, Massachusetts in July 2012 for a specially-created “Revolution Tour”. The players – who are halfway through a try-out and roster selection process – will face off against a selection of teams from two very competitive summer ball associations: the New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL) and the Futures Collegiate Baseball League (FCBL). Throughout the spring and early summer, Carroll will work with a large pool of players in the UK to fashion and then select a competitive squad.
The tournament will include a special series opener and welcome party on the island of Martha’s Vineyard and an Independence Day celebration in Montpelier, Vermont, some 239 years after the American colonists dumped three shiploads of British tea into Boston Harbour.
Background
Liam Carroll is BaseballSoftballUK’s full-time Regional Coach and Club Development Officer for London. He has a long history with the Great Britain Baseball programme, first as a player with the GB Cadets (1996-1997) and Juniors (1998-2000), and then as a Senior team player at the European Championships in 2003.
Carroll has also coached extensively for Team GB. He was an Assistant Coach with the GB Cadets in 2007 and 2010 and with the GB Juniors from 2004-2006 and again in 2010. In 2008, as Head Coach, Carroll led the GB Juniors to a second place finish at the European Championship Qualifier.
Carroll’s North American career began as a player at Porterville College in California. He went on to serve as Director of Baseball Operations at NCAA Division 1 University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV) between 2005 and 2010, where he worked with 16 players who subsequently signed professional contracts with Major League Baseball organisations.
In the British domestic leagues, Carroll has played for the Bracknell Blazers, Brighton Buccaneers and London Mets. He was an Assistant Coach for the London Mets in 2007 and 2008 when they won back-to-back BBF National Baseball Championships. Assisting Carroll on the New England tour will be Brian Essery (GB Senior Team Pitching Coach) and Darryl Reid (GB Senior Team Third Base Coach). Additional staff will be named during the spring.