Warriors 12U Players and Coaches Prepare for Cooperstown Challenge

By Patrick McGavin- Photos by Lauren Gray

Orland Park— Growing up in the northwestern edge of Illinois, Mike Erwin was rarely idle or not involved with some kind of physical activity.

He was a three-sport athlete at Pearl City who has always been used to being in the middle—a quarterback in football, a point guard on the basketball team, and a shortstop in baseball.

He loved the passion and the possibilities.

“Sports have always been part of my life,” he said. “It’s just something that I grew up around.

Now I’ve done the same thing for my kids.”

Erwin is the coach of the Orland Park Warriors 12U team who is preparing what might be called a classic rite of passage or boys’ adventure story, like something out of Mark Twain.

With the rest of his players and coaching staff, he is about to embark on a once in a lifetime experience.

The Warriors 12U team are eagerly anticipating taking part in the Cooperstown All Star Village tournament June 5-11.

The core of the 10-player roster has been together with Erwin dating to their days as members of the 8U team.

The tournament is just what it sounds like, a dream, a magical moment, in the New York town where the game has its roots, and where the Hall of Fame is located.

In past seasons, the team has played in important and high-value tournaments from Peoria to Indianapolis. This is something else, this is “Cooperstown,” where the game has a special meaning and importance.

The tournament is exclusive to 12U programs. The Warriors are ready for their close-up.

“This is our first journey to Cooperstown, and everybody is really excited,” Erwin said. “Anybody that we’ve talked to is really pumped up about the trip.

“I talked with some other programs, and they’re mad their team is not going, or they’re going to another tournament somewhere else. It’s the perfect idea that the tournament is only for 12-year-olds, and there’s only one season you can do it.”

In that sense this is the moment of no return.

“If you miss this one season,” Erwin said. “You can never return. You can never do it again.”

The team and coaching staff also have significant overlap with the Orland Park Pioneers youth football league organization.

The Pioneers football program is made up of four levels—super lightweights, lightweights, junior varsity and varsity.

Mike Erwin is the offensive coordinator of the lightweights program, where he coaches his son, Jason. His top assistant, Al Krokos, is the director of the program and the head coach of the junior varsity.

Community and continuity are just crucial elements of the binding or connective threads that link the two programs. The two also share a culture, tradition and point of view.

“We have had five players who have been together since 8U, and we have a bunch of kids that go to school together, or they’re playing other sports together,” Erwin said.

“After the baseball season is done, they typically spend the rest of the summer golfing over at Silver Lakes.”

It is impossible to overstate the importance of chemistry and shared bonds in a sport like baseball. 

The friendships and connections tell just one part of the story.

The essential part of coaching is making sure the kids realize they feel valued and important, and not simply a number. The consistency of performance, and the growth year to year is not possible without their direct engagement.

Erwin measures his progress not by the results but how deep and extended the players want to sustain their own private journey.

“As a coach, my goal is not how many championships we win,” Erwin said. “It’s how many kids at the end of the summer want to play the next summer.

“If a kid raises his hand and says he wants to play high school baseball, we want them to get the proper offseason and proper training to develop those skills so that they have that opportunity.”

Five of the players, or half the roster, have been in the program dating to 8U. Those players are middle infielder Jackson Barlog, outfielders Noah Tylka Luke Katsoulakis, catcher Keegan Watson and infielder Carter Erwin, the coach’s son.

Those veteran players are boosted by the presence of four newcomers, middle infielder Luke Krokos, outfielders Nathan Velez and Austin Flynn, and catcher Christopher Leprete.

Middle infielder Drew Thompson and outfielder Tyler Zukowski are the other returning players.

At an age where fundamentals, skill and development carry their weight in gold, the emphasis is not just on a question of wins or losses, runs, pitching total or a player’s statistical profile.

Competitiveness is not the same as a single-minded vision or point of reference.

“I think the key is finding that healthy balance of being competitive, which is fun for the kids, developing, which is important for the kids, and doing it the right way,” Erwin said.

“With some organizations, the sole focus is winning, and if you’re not one of the top nine, it’s going to be a long summer. We do our best to develop the roster from top to bottom. A lot of these kids, they’re friends, their families are friends, so that fits the larger mentality of coming together.”

The Warriors have played about half their schedule. The team is 15-10-1. That is the sweet spot, the ideal location, of where Erwin wants the program to be.

“If you’re a really good travel baseball team and playing the correct competition all summer long, you should be just a little bit over .500 for your season,” Erwin said.

“If a team is 20 games over .500, they’ve just played the wrong competition the whole summer. A big part of the development is playing the right competition, which means you’re going to win some games, you’re going to lose some close games, and the ball is going to bounce the wrong way sometimes. That’s the measuring stick of what we use.”

In order to accommodate the Cooperstown schedule, Erwin opted out of being in a league this season. He wanted more flexibility with the schedule.

Everything connects, and everything makes sense. Erwin said a couple of area programs who are not attending the tournament expressed envy with the Warriors.

Following his decorated and versatile high school career, Mike Erwin played quarterback for four years at Knox College, a Division III program in Galesburg.

He is keen to bring to his young players the ideas and values he learned as a top-notch college athlete.

“I believe that having played college sports, the level of dedication it takes, I’m not trying to bring these kids right now to that level of seriousness,” he said.

“Their goal in life is a big focus of mine. I’m trying to make it fun, help them compete, and develop the right way. i also want to say how much I appreciated doing this since 8U with assistant Coaches’ Jim Watson and Jon Barlog. We’ve done this together all five years now and I could not have or would not have wanted to do it without them.”

Meet the Orland Park Warriors 12U: