Urban Youth Academy

From BR Bullpen

The Urban Youth Academy is a facility set up by Major League Baseball in Compton, CA to provide training and guidance to teenage ballplayers who have graduated from the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities youth program, and have enough talent to look forward to either a professional career or attending college on a baseball scholarship.

The Academy is run by former major leaguer Darrell Miller; another former big leaguer, Carl Nichols, is a coach. Also deeply involed is Jimmie Lee Solomon, MLB's Vice-President of Baseball Development. The Academy is located on the campus of El Camino College's "Compton center", in one of Los Angeles, CA's tougher neighborhoods whose population is largely black or hispanic and where sports facilities are inadequate while the temptations of drugs and gang membership are ever present. The Academy provides both coaching and training facilities and life skills coaching that assists gifted teenagers in achieving their goals in spite of the long odds. It was set up in recognition that there was a major gap in facilities to accompany teenagers at a critical age when they can easily fall into a circle of addiction and criminality from which it is extremely difficult to escape.

In 2011, the first two graduates of the Academy to reach the major leagues were Trayvon Robinson and Efren Navarro, a few weeks apart. Many more top prospects were in the pipeline at the time, besides Navarro and Robinson, including Anthony Gose, Aaron Hicks and Reggie Williams. Given the success of this pilot project, MLB decided to open a number similar facilities, the first two in Houston, TX and in Puerto Rico, and another in New Orleans, LA. Facilities in South Florida and in Philadelphia, PA are also on the horizon.

In 2011 also, the Academy decided to extend its services to young women by starting a softball program for them. It also organized a series of games with an All-Star team of high schoolers from Japan; the Academy has also sent teams to Japan itself. On January 28, 2012, it held its first almuni game, featuring graduates such as Robinson, Navarro and minor leaguers Ricky Oropesa, Desmond Henry and Virgil Hill, playing against current members of the program and others who have moved on to college baseball programs. Among the latter was Darrell Miller Jr., recently recruited by UCLA.