Learn with the Best ~ By Training with the Best

Bryon Mitchell is a SPARQ trainer and his coaching is available through sessions that are held at Whitney Young High School in Chicago.

SPARQ training is all about gaining that extra advantage and that extra step that you might need when legging out a hit to first base. Where do you want to be, on first base or on the bench?

All high school players need to develop quickness. SPARQ maximizes athletic potential and provides a simple measurement to test, train and develop your skills. in short, SPARQ helps an athlete improve in the key areas of Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction and Quickness.

The Stanford University Baseball All Star Camp in Palo Alto California utilizes SPARQ to test a player athletically and physically. The Stanford All-Star Baseball Camp is widely regarded as the best in the nation! At this camp players get to experience first hand the Stanford success formula ~ hard work, self-discipline, goal setting, and commitment to excellence. A big focus of the Stanford camp is developing individual player skills and also developing speed. A special running development program is held every day by Don Lien, one of the top speed coaches in the country.

Stanford All-Star Baseball Camp

For the second consecutive year a Whitney Young High School student is "down on the farm" and is attending the Stanford University All-Star Baseball Camp. The camp is limited to 75 participants and has a total staff of 70 and 50 college coaches from around the country are represented. In addition to Stanford, some of the colleges at the camp are: Army, Boston College, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Harvard, Hawaii, Kansas, Pacific, Pallomar, Penn, St. Johns, UC San Diego, UConn, Villanova, William and Mary.

Stanford Varsity Head Coach, Mark Marquess and Assistant Coach Dean Stotz run the camp. The camp is baseball intensive and features games played on the Stanford University Sunken Diamond. The Sunken Diamond was constructed in 1931 and has often been referred to as the most beautiful college facility in the country.

At this first rate camp players receive individualized instruction and written evaluations. Sam Spitz (Class of 2008) represented Whitney Young in 2006. It was reported in the Chicago Sun Times on August 19, 2007 that Spitz has committed to attend Yale University where he will also play football upon his upcoming 2008 graduation.

Valmar Jordan (Class of 2008) and Jason Ormond (Class of 2009) attended the 2007 Stanford Allstar Baseball Camp. Jason spent an additional 5 days on on campus for a total of 10 days where he also received individualized hitting and pitching instruction from the coaches at Stanford. The focus of pitching instruction at Stanford is on all aspects of pitching including the mental approach, fielding the position and the mechanics of pick offs. Hitting instruction at Stanford is all about improving the mental approach at the plate including techniques to developing more power and bat speed.

SPARQ Testing at Stanford

Click on the Icon in the center of the screen below to get a view of SPARQ Testing which was a part of the 2007 Stanford Baseball Camp.

Hitting From A Tee

At the Stanford University Baseball School players swing the bat a lot. In fact each participant is evaluated and will receive 100's of supervised swings each and every day by professional level coaches each and every day. In fact many players will wear out one or sometimes even two sets of leather batting gloves during the four day camp because the swinging methodology is so much a part of this camp and what is done over and over gain to create "muscle memory." It has been well researched that to swing the bat consistently it is best developed by hitting over and over again off of a tee. The coaching is very serious at the camep and the Stanford philosophy advocates an emphasis on developing a consistent swing by hitting off of a tee. This is how the players in attendance get so many supervised repetitions.

The use of a batting tee teaches a player to pick a spot and then to let the hand-eye coordination take over. The value of hitting off of a tee is that it forces the development of good swing mechanics because you cannot jerk your head away and hit the ball consistently. The batting tee does not lie. Many of the best hitters in the game hit off a tee religiously. So if you want to get better at the plate follow the Stanford philosophy and take at least 150 swings a day off of a batting tee. The tee is probably the best drill you can do and the tee tells you each and every time what is happening. If the ball leaves the tee properly then the swing was right and level. If not, then the swing was wrong in some manner of the swing and hitting mechanics.

Practice, practice, practice. You have got to do it over and over and over again. If you want to get better and develop to the highest level of proficiency, that is the key.

Believe in the tee and it can change your game.

Academic Standards

Stanford University was founded in 1885 and is one of the most selective universities to attend. The school is located in Palo Alto, California and was ranked as #4 in the nation by U.S. News and World Report ~ 2008 Colleges and Universities Ranking.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.