HOME AWAY from home for baseball players


BY COLE PARKINSON insight magazine


Stadium, but in reality, most of the time players can be found at the player residence across the street.


V Opened in 2011, five years


after the program started, the facility was a major necessity for the academy to continue to grow.


Relying heavily on billets in the first five


years, the $1.5 million multi-purpose facility has been a major addition to the Jets program. “It was critical and probably saved our pro-


gram.When you look at something like that, it took a lot of pressure off the billets, but it also allowed a lot of billets to stay involved, just at an arm's length. Every player has a billet, but they aren’t involved every day,”said Jets head coach Les McTavish.“It certainly has been great and it has been huge for our program. It has allowed us to expand the life of the acad- emy,and we continually try to add and make it better.”


auxhall Academy of Baseball players are known for their time at Jets


In the over 10,000 square-foot building, there are 30’by 12’ resi- dences, with a three-bedroom res- idence managers house, and there are six front-load washers and dry- ers.


Not just a dorm, the sports ther-


apy room,weight room, clubhouse and the offices are also located


within the building. At the beginning of setting up a residence


for the players,having the building close to the stadium was a major key. “One-hundred per cent and we got lucky because we bought part of the wing in the school when we built it.The catch was, it was going to cost a ton to fix it up to what it is today,”continued McTavish. The role of residence manager was another major portion of the facility and their contribu- tions over the years have been hugely benefi- cial for the Jets. “Our residence managers have been great all the way through and we have Jimmy and Lisa Vulcano in there now,”explained McTavish. “They are basically fully in charge of opera-


tions in the residence, right from cleaning and supplying breakfast and they look after main- tenance and the daily scheduling.They are like parents away from home.They are the parents for these boys when they are here, so they are hugely, hugely important to our program.The boys spend more time in the residence than they do anywhere else.” With Jimmy and Lisa Vulcano taking over as


residence managers this year, the experience so far has been a good one for the family. With their son John still currently playing for the Jets, last year saw the graduation of Liam Vulcano from the program, and it helped spur the decision to take over. “Yes, but also because we have a son in


Grade 10 and in Grade 9 and their goal is to become Jets one day.We thought if our kids were going to be involved, it would be a per- fect time.We know it is going to be a short season of our life that we will be here,but we feel like now is the time. It’s a big change for us,” said Lisa Vulcano. "I know how difficult it is on the parent side of things to be away from their kids. I know and saw what Liam went through when we weren’t here and


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