Indoor Facility in North Adams Going Strong After One Year
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- Monday marked the one-year anniversary of The Cages at the Mill; an indoor sports training facility located at the historic Blackinton Mills on Massachusetts Avenue.
The facility was developed by Rob Livingstone and offers 3,000 square feet of padded, 5-milimeter turf, two batting cages, and instructors for baseball, softball, soccer, and lacrosse.
Over the past year, Livingstone has found that the facility has been very well supported by the community. His coaches and administration have seemed to get a better understanding of the sports calendar year and when the athletes are in need of the facility and what it offers.
“There’s certain pockets of time throughout the twelve-month year that we can expect lower than usual attendance,” Livingstone said. “Same thing on the high side when there will be pockets of time, especially during the winter months when out volume is extremely high and really takes more work to manage.”
Livingstone is confident in the decision he made more than a year ago to open the facility, along with the coaches he’s hired to help benefit the youth sports community since its opening.
Although there is competition in the area [like the Fieldhouse in Canaan, N.Y.] Livingstone feels that they are in a good place for its first year mark.
“There are competitors in the area, but I feel like the one thing that really separates us and is very clear amongst the community is that we have a very clear vision that revolves around the kids and their success,” he said. “I think the genuineness of our coaches as well as our staff is very apparent as soon as you walk in the doors and I really think that the parents appreciate that and the kids succeed off of that emotion.”
A year ago when asked about the vision he had for the Cages he said, “There’s an endless number of people we’re trying to get involved. This is going to be a community effort.”
And throughout the past year it’s been quite the success with bringing in coaches and student-athletes from the community to make the Cages beneficial to the youth who are accessing it. Just to name a few; Mike Gladu, Dave Page, and Jared Shannon are among the nine regular instructors that are at the Mills.
“Whether it’s softball, baseball, we have a lacrosse instructor as well,” Livingstone said. “We have a lot of different instructors that work in different capacities.”
Livingstone most recently hired senior athletes for baseball, softball and lacrosse from Williams College to run lessons, which has been “a big addition.”
“The 12-and 13-year-olds in the community want to be like college players, not like college coaches,” he said. “Having them [college players] has been a huge addition for us and we’re really excited about that avenue and making these college athletes accessible.”
Another new addition to the staff at the Cages is the new Drury co-athletic director, Christian Watford, who works at the Duquette’s Baseball Academy. Livingstone said that Watford is bringing in more than a dozen girls and boys this week for open hit that are from South County and from Duquette’s.
“Our market is going to expand, I think our coaches all bring a different market share and have a different sense of certain connections,” he said. “It’s been great to watch the coaches’ coach and really develop quality relationships with the kids, which has been our number one goal.”
Going into the second year, Livingstone is looking to continue to grow and deliver a consistent product every day to the kids.
“We really stand by that: delivering a great product to the kids and really genuinely caring about them and cultivating those relationships with the young kids," he said.