Today we’d like to introduce you to John Taft.
John, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was living in Brockton at the time and I wanted to get involved with coaching in the local little league. Growing up in Malden where Baseball was a huge part of the community, it was an eye opening experience seeing the difference from how my experience was growing up to what the kids of Brockton had. We had well maintained fields in Malden and these kids were playing on stone dust infields. Our uniforms were always replica MLB teams and they had tee shirts with teams named after colors.
As we were approaching the end of the season, I reached out to some of the parents of the players on my team asking them when the League banquet would be, and I was shocked to find out that the league didn’t do this. When I was a youth player it was a big deal every year to go to the League banquet. This is where we got to hangout with our teammates, friends we played against, and were given our awards for on field performance. After finding out the League didn’t do this for everyone I decided to put together our own team event. We didn’t have a fancy hall or anything to host the event, so we did it on the same stone dust field where it all began. All the parents helped out with coordinating the event from donating food & drinks, bringing a grill, getting a DJ, and of course the parents vs. players game. I secretly went and created awards from funny to on field performance and announced these from our mock stage and DJ equipment. This whole experience truly made me fall in love with coaching, and still to this day I receive more fulfillment coaching then I ever did playing.
I ended up moving after that season to Newton where I became very involved in Newton East Little League which since has merged into Newton SouthEast Little League. This time around I joined the board and sat on the board for 6 years so I could be directly involved not just on the field but in the league as well. My first year with Newton SE I got involved with coaching a regular season team and the Williamsport program which is the All Star team that competes to advance to the Little League World Series. Since then i have won 2 Massachusetts State Championships and advanced to the New England Regional Championships in Bristol, Ct for the Little League World Series. One in 2013 and one in 2015, and also made it to the State Finals in 2014. With the success I had coaching I’ve been honored twice by the Boston Red Sox Foundation twice receiving the George Berardi Memorial Trophy.
With my hands on approach that first year I was approached by a parent for the first time for doing private lessons. From there, one player turned into two players, to 5 players and became group clinics. Initially I just focused on private lessons and development clinics, but since then It’s grown into so much more. After two years of training and continuously being approached to start my on Elite travel program, I met my current business partner and the two of us assembled our first Elite travel team. To date Triple Crown has over 130 players with 9 travel teams and 20 coaches that compete In an Elite League in New England and compete in tournaments Nationally and I have been very lucky to be invited down to Cary, NC twice to represent New England at USA Baseball. In the last 5 years of competing with our Elite teams we have won 3 Division 1 New England Elite Championships and multiple tournaments.
I’ve also started a charity called Kings for Kids made up of all our Triple Crown Kings players who need to participate in the charitable arm of Triple Crown Baseball. We have worked with Children’s Hospital Boston and 7 local food banks in local communities raising over $30K in years. In all the on field success I’ve had, To me this is the greatest thing that has come out of everything!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I think we went through normal struggles like all new businesses as they grow the first few years. I think the biggest struggle we face today is space as Triple Crown continues to grow every year. Ultimately I would like to own my own space with state of the art training and a site that has our own fields. Getting aligned with the right investors and real estate location is my biggest need to date.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Triple Crown Baseball story. Tell us more about the business.
Triple Crown Baseball has established a program that focuses on all aspects of player development. Our mission is to develop impact players through a clearly defined training structure and competitive pathway, as well as through a comprehensive coaching philosophy and structure. We believe that all players should be able to develop their baseball skills and knowledge to the best of their ability, both individually and as members of a team, in order to maximize those skills during the game.
We strive in developing all of our players both on and off the field. It is important to me that we understand the impact coaches have on their players lives and how we help mold them in their journey through life.
I am most proud of the charitable I formed within Triple Crown called Kings for Kids. A few years ago I sat down one of my teams and asked them to write me a two paragraph essay about if they could help their community how would that and in what way. Almost all my players said they wanted to help other kids in various ways. With the name of our baseball teams being the Kings, I named our charity “Kings for Kids”. To date we’ve worked with Children’s Hospital Boston and 7 different food pantries in Massachusetts.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I don’t Necessarily believe in luck. To me everything happens for a reason and although we may not understand why things happen in the moment, It becomes clear as we continue on our path in life. It hasn’t always been easy to get to this point, but I truly believe hardwork, resilience, and staying focused on our goals is what has got us to where we are today, and not luck!
Contact Info:
- Website: TCKings.com
- Phone: 17814202949
- Email: johntaft@triple-crown-baseball.com
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