Miramichi Man is Baseball Canada's Coach of the Year

Every year Baseball Canada awards its Lionel Ruhr Memorial Award.  The Baseball Canada Coach of the Year Award is awarded to acknowledge outstanding leadership and guidance as a coach demonstrated by an individual.

Candidates for the award are evaluated on a number of criteria including NCCP certification status, the level of baseball coached, performance and by recommendations from Provincial Presidents or Coaching Coordinators.

For the second time (the first in 2008) the winner is Miramichi's  Mark Noel.  Since 1982 when Baseball Canada began handing out the award, Noel is only the third Maritimer to win.   Noel is a history teacher at James M. Hill Memorial High School.

[caption id="attachment_25750" align="alignleft" width="300"] Mark Noel and his wife Cheryl at the 2013 Baseball Canada AGM[/caption]

Noel was given the award last night at Baseball Canada's AGM that was held in Halifax.

For the past 20 years Noel has been coaching baseball players from the PeeWee to Midget levels.  For the past 8 years he has been the coach of the NB team in national Canada Cup tournament - an under 17 event that Baseball Canada uses to make its selection for the national team.  Noel has also coached the last two Canada Games teams from NB.

This September Noel had the opportunity to coach  a Maritime team in Toronto at the "Tournament 12", the inaugural showcase of young Canadian baseball talent.  His team, a big underdog, won the event and several of his players were scouted by colleges and big league teams.

When asked if the "Tournament 12" was also a showcase for his abilities as a coach, Noel just laughed it off.  "Not really," he said.

Noel said that he has had the pleasure of coaching a lot of talented kids, and he finds that more than anything he is teaching kids to love the game.  "Many of them have all the talent you need to succeed.  They just have to figure out if they love it enough to put the work into it to get to the next level.  It takes a lot of work,"  he said.

"They have to ask themselves, 'Do I really want to do this?'"

Noel said he "stole" tricks and tips from all the coaches he ever played for or worked with, but it was another Miramichi coach the he credits for instilling in him the love the of the game that has got him this far.  Noel says  he had a lot of great coaches, but it was Bobby Jardine who was his greatest inspiration.