Coach Ballantyne earns prestigious honours
Ballantyne named to Waterloo Region’s Top 40 Under 40 and Team Canada coaching staff
WATERLOO, ONT.- Laurier Baseball’s spirited head coach Scott Ballantyne has earned high honours for his hard work both on and off the baseball diamond.
Ballantyne has been named to the Waterloo Region’s Top 40 Under 40 list, and has also been named as a member of the coaching staff for Team Canada at the World University Baseball Championship.
A graduate of The Laurier School of Business and Economics, Ballantyne is a long-standing employee at Ernst and Young LLP, where his co-workers nominated him for the award.
“It’s a great honour and very humbling” said Ballantyne. “I have a great support system at EY, within the Laurier Athletic Department, the Panthers Baseball program, and most importantly at home with my wife Amy and son Ty.”
Aside from coaching at Laurier, Ballantyne is also the head coach of the Junior Kitchener Panthers of the Inter-County League. On top of all that, he still manages time for his wife Amy, Laurier graduate and former cheerleading coach, and their newborn son Ty.
At the end of July, Ballantyne will travel to Tokyo, Japan for the World University Baseball Championships as a coach for Team Canada. This is Ballantyne’s second showing coaching for his country, as he also held a coaching position for the 2008 tournament in the Czech Republic.
The 2008 tournament hosted four players selected in the first round of the 2009 Major League Baseball (MLB) draft, while plenty of other big names have been a part of the program in the past including Aaron Hill, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Dustin Pedroia.
“2008 was a tremendous learning experience for me,” said Ballantyne. “A lot of what I was able to instil in our program paid off in 2009 as our team was able to rise to the occasion and compete in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) finals.”
Ballantyne will be working diligently the next few months following Team Canada prospects, while continuing to recruit for Laurier.
“I hope that it will reflect positively on both the school and our baseball program,” commented Ballantyne. “There are a lot of people associated with the school and our program that put a lot of time and effort in and something like this will hopefully draw attention to that fact.”
