“I was already retired with one leg in mind,” says Matt Vance a few minutes after he was introduced as the new coach of the Guggenberger Legionnaires Regensburg in the Armin Wolf Arena.
Vance is the successor to former master coach Martin Helmig, who surprisingly announced his resignation last week.
At the presentation, the mood among those responsible for the Bundesliga baseball team seemed relaxed. “Of course we thought about it: How can we continue now, how do we want to continue? Then we immediately sat down and heated up the telephone wires, if they still existed,” says sports director Ralf Kettner, describing the past few days.
A quick, but not hasty, solution was sought in order to advance squad planning on the one hand and, on the other hand, to give the team the opportunity to get used to changes before the start of training. “If you look at the personnel now, it’s all been well thought out,” says Kettner optimistically.
Plan to get back on track
In the end, the choice fell on club legend Matt Vance. He was active with the Legionnaires for 16 years, celebrated championships, suffered bitter defeats and experienced the farewell, return and further farewell to his predecessor Helmig. “I have had a lot of experiences as a player and have experienced a lot,” said the future trainer, who said in relation to the new season: “I have a plan that I hope we can implement to get back on the road to success to come.”
Vance says he learned a lot from his predecessors, who he experienced as a player and captain. He already had in mind that sooner or later his path could lead him back to the sidelines. But it also came as a surprise to him that things would happen so quickly. “After a few convincing words, he said yes, actually it’s in his blood and he enjoys doing it,” reports Kettner of the discussions beforehand. Furthermore, as a player, Vance “always led by example. He was always the one in whom you could see that the will and motivation were there until the end to achieve the maximum.”
Tasks will be divided in the future
Vance is not alone in his new role. The positions of head coach and general manager have so far been taken over by one person in charge. Since, according to Kettner, “the position was often filled with problems,” the positions will be divided between two people in the future. The manager appears more in the background and primarily takes care of organizational tasks.
This position will be taken over by the Italian Tomas Bison. In the recent past, he was responsible for rebuilding the youth department of the Legionnaires. He will continue to fulfill this task. This was the prerequisite for Bison, who had already held the position of head coach before Helmig’s return before deciding to take on the new challenge.
Path from youth to the first team
He assesses the commitment of the new head coach very positively: “I have been in baseball for many years and can say that he is a special guy.” His goal is to create a framework in the youth system in which the Legionnaires can have a future “We have a constant pipeline of players who will hopefully play in this stadium and represent Regensburg in the first division.” The team is complemented by Devon Ramirez, who will be working as a playing assistant coach in the future.
The club has long had the goal of uniform development from the bottom to the top, says chairman Armin Zimmermann. The Legionnaires have the structures for this: from the youngest in the tee ballers to the second team in the second Bundesliga. According to Kettner, the solution with Bison as manager makes it possible to focus more on continuity for the talents that are being developed at their own location and “who are living this dream of being able to play in the first team here in the stadium.”
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“A lot has changed” in the youth sector in the past two years. Now it’s about maintaining the focus and developing people, says Kettner, who notes, however, that this process could still take some time. “What is of course the big dream is to be able to present a local hero here again. This is priceless. And that’s where we want to go again,” said the board about its long-term ambitions.
