Jonathan Haines

During my two years volunteering with Southern Tier Select/Bomb Squad Travel Baseball, I acted as the head coach for the 16U Bomb Squad team out of Hornell NY, and the 18U Southern Tier Select team also out of Hornell. This granted me the opportunity to give back to my local community and help young aspiring athletes to have guidance and mentorship. This past summer was a step up for me as a head coach, due to the age group being high school seniors aspiring to play college baseball. The process of guiding over 15 youth baseball players in navigating the college athletic recruitment cycle was very rewarding. This allowed me to help many young baseball players get in contact with college coaches, and helped me utilize my networking skills I have developed over my four years in undergraduate as a student athlete.

During my internship with MLB DC China, I got to work one on one with over 40 Chinese international armature baseball players ranging from the ages 14-21. I was tasked with helping them adapt to American culture as well as gave them guidance on the skills and steps needed to take to be a successful student athlete at the collegiate level in the United States. MLB DC China is a partnership with Major League Baseball and China, which aims to help develop and grow baseball internationally. This internship allowed me to be on the ground and witness how sports can aid foreign relationships between nations. During this internship I also got to interact with MLB China's interpreter, and trainer on a daily basis. During this internship I was able to have dialogue on many political topics that relate to China's Government. I got to see the perspective of Taiwan in the lens of Baseball through China's selection process on their National Baseball team. These conversations where vital in gaining a wholistic perspective on the Chinese Twain relationship.