From the Tasmania Examiner – Launceston, Tasmania, Australia

Neilsen gives pitch on game
BY PHIL EDWARDS

NSW and Australian softball head coach John Neilsen has about 20 years’ experience as a player and coach of softball.
The 49-year-old from Kurrajong near Sydney, has coached the defending national under-16 boys’ champions NSW since 2001 and has been Australian under-19 national head coach since 2005.

“I got into coaching because someone had to coach my daughter’s side and I just continued on with it,” Neilsen said.

He was Australian assistant coach when the team won the world championships in 2005 and then took the men’s under-19 team to another world championship title as head coach in Canada last June, when Australia beat Canada 2-1 in the final.”

He said softball was basically a non- professional and self-funded sport which could prove expensive for parents.

“If any kids make a state squad over a four-year period or a national team you could be looking at about $25,000 so it keeps parents broke,” he said.

Neilsen said that while the profile of the sport was not high Australian softball teams were among the best in the world.

“Our women won a bronze at the Olympic, our under-19 girls won a world championship bronze as did our men’s team and we won a gold in the under-19 men’s,” he said.

He said there was not a lot of rivalry between softball and baseball but a lot of baseballers played softball because it was a faster game.

“We have a smaller diamond and plenty of action but a lot of baseballers can’t handle the speed of pitching from a closer distance,” he said.

Pitchers at the under-16 boys’ national championships reached speeds of around 110kmh over about a 15m distance.

That speed increased to 125kmh for the under-19 age group.

“If you have a good pitcher generally it will keep you in the game,” he said.

Editor’s note: John Neilsen was the head coach for the Gold Medal winningAustralian team this past summer, at the ISF Jr. World Championships at Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada.