David Gourlay, president of the Ottawa Champions Baseball Club, discusses the importance of volunteerism in building strong communities. He uses baseball as a metaphor, noting that like a baseball team requiring cooperation between players, communities rely on volunteers working together for the public good. As an example, he highlights the Miracle League of Ottawa, a volunteer-driven organization that provides accessible baseball for children with special needs. Going forward, he advocates for more inclusive volunteer strategies to engage new Canadians and applying entrepreneurial principles to better manage volunteer resources and ensure mutual benefit.

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Remarks to Ottawa Sports Summit by
David Gourlay, President – Ottawa Champions Baseball Club
November 26, 2016
Our Community and Volunteerism – A Baseball Perspective
Good afternoon – thank you to Marci for the kind invite here today. We
are so fortunate in Ottawa to have a champion of sport like Marci and I
appreciate her commitment to ensuring our community is sport
conscious and growing the synergies between sport, recreation, leisure
and of course, all of us.
What a great day today as we dedicate time to talking about sports and
how we can deliver a stronger fabric in Ottawa to maximize
participation in our sports culture.
We are here today to have a collaborative dialogue on volunteerism and
how volunteers can fill crucial gaps in programming and sport service
delivery. We must ask how a strong volunteer culture enhances sport in
Ottawa and how we can best approach it, because curiosity on the
importance of volunteerism is progress and asks us to be disruptors as
we challenge assumptions on:

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ü How it builds inclusion
ü How it strengthens participation
ü How it promotes healthy living
ü How it makes Ottawa a more sport-conscious community
So, let’s approach this in the following manner….volunteerism in sport is
a profound public service where each of us as volunteers build cohesion
in our respective communities.
As you know, I am a baseball fan. I am also a volunteer – my role with
the Ottawa Champions is exactly that or as I refer to myself, Ottawa’s
greatest corporate volunteer. But I do this because baseball and sports
are a calling as they make us better as a community and people.
So, I would like to provide a metaphor and naturally, it is about the
game of baseball. It is a sentiment that I trust is reflective of the Ottawa
Champions identity as a community leader striving for progress and
change – as a forum for public service based on our own vision of
volunteerism.
In the mid 1990’s, accomplished documentary filmmaker Ken Burns
interviewed former New York Governor Mario Cuomo who sadly passed

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away two years ago. In Baseball, Governor Cuomo said,
"Baseball is a community activity.
You need all nine people helping one another.
I love bunt plays. I love the idea of the bunt. I love the idea of the sacrifice.
Even the word is good.
Giving yourself up for the good of the whole.
You find your own good in the good of the whole.
You find your own individual fulfillment in the success of the community”
Baseball as community
Community as the public good
Us in a community working collaboratively for change and progress in
society.
Governor Cuomo’s insight is a metaphor for how baseball can make our
community stronger. From kids in Little League to teenagers learning
specific skills of the four seam fastball, the curve, the pivot to turn two
for a double play...judging the fly ball in the outfield and defensive shift

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alignments. These youngsters all have dreams – they are inspired by the
players of today who exude natural talent and skill. But it’s also not just
the kids - there are parents, coaches, managers, neighbors, colleagues,
family members who spend numerous evenings watching games,
cheering on the players and enjoying the game on a warm summer
evening in ball diamonds all over Ottawa and they are volunteers.
The time and financial investment they commit to the enjoyment of the
game by their children is all part of how we excel as a community.
At the core – this is community. To win a baseball game we need all nine
players helping one another. That is the sport and like us in a
community, when tragedy strikes, when there is pain, when there is
need, we always achieve cohesion to become those 9 players on a field
who help one another. We give ourselves up for the whole...
Some of you may know then, we have this team called the Ottawa
Champions Baseball Club. If not, I’ll speak to you later.
I am often asked, why did we name a team the CHAMPIONS ? Well, let’s
talk baseball – because it is our identity and brand that is unique and
personal to this community for two primary reasons.

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First off, it begins with our commitment to the fans and families that
decide proactively to spend their hard earned dollars with us. Naturally,
we are committed to fielding a winning team.
And we have delivered on the field – in our inaugural season in 2015,
we just missed a playoff spot taking the excitement for our fans to the
final long weekend of home games in Ottawa and then in 2016, we
earned the name across our jersey and won the CanAm Championship
beating the Rockland Boulders in triumphant fashion taking it to Game
5.
Second – we want to be Champions for our community and City. We
have implemented a business strategy that has seen us invest in and
support local, Ottawa “born and bred” businesses. In fact, our
philosophy is that if it is made locally or regionally and meets our
budget, we “go local”. Names such as Gabriel Pizza, Dingerz Batting and
Pitching Center, Extension Marketing, Origin Café, East Coast Limos,
Ottawa Special Events, Kichesippi Beer, Clocktower Breweries and
SamBat all accentuate this commitment.
We also aspire to champion our local charitable sector that work hard to
raise funds for important causes and deliver needed services in our

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community. These are dedicated champions of public service.
We are proud to have the Miracle League of Ottawa as our official
charity – an organization I co-founded in 2012 when I met the
Desrochers family in Orleans and their son Bryce who has inspired this
entire City on why a fully accessible recreation hub is required for
children and young adults with special needs who simply want one
thing – to enjoy the game of baseball equally.
The Miracle Field opened in August 2015 with a rubberized field surface
to minimize harm and provide easier mobility for wheelchairs and
walkers, a clubhouse with accessible washrooms and change-rooms and
a canteen that is fully accessible for the kids to prepare and serve food.
This was a $1.8M project that the City of Ottawa facilitated with their
commitment through a donation of land and 50% funding. We enjoyed
the support from other local champions such as Progressive Waste
Solutions/Friends De Mer Blue Fund, Claridge Homes, Trinity
Developments and the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Miracle League of Ottawa is completely volunteer driven as it
delivers a core public services and values – equality, accessibility and
fairness. As an organization, its’ resourcing relies on the passion, time

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and energy of a small volunteer-led Board of Directors and the parents,
families and friends who participate regularly in the enjoyment of the
kids playing baseball. It is this voluntary commitment that has raised
$1.8m in capital resources, organized over 7 events in a 3 year period,
leveraged our profile to conduct community outreach, managed social
and digital communications and much much more.
However, being a purely volunteer-driven organization poses a lot of
challenges and stress. We all have families, jobs and other personal
obligations – at times, we have found it difficult to manage the
expectations of our constituency, corporate partners and families – this
is the greatest challenge for organizations that rely in part or completely
on volunteers. A great example of this was in the summer of 2014 when
we qualified for the Kraft TSN Celebration and represented Ontario for a
$100k prize. We thought this would be a simple community process to
execute – instead, it cost many of us the summer managing the demands
of a 3 hour event and complex logistics. The lesson ? Always understand
the parameters of a volunteer led initiative event well in advance and
don’t be afraid to ask questions to understand capacity and resources.
Volunteering is a public service, but as with most initiatives, a balance in

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life is required and a strong sense of self-awareness on our own
limitations and boundaries. At the Miracle League, we were a small
group of committed crusaders whose dream was Bryce’s dream and as
he says, “If you say your dreams aloud, they will come true”
But as can be the case, over-taxing causes burnout and charitable
organizations need to adjust volunteer capacity strategies to
understand the “art of the possible” and manage these precious
resources accordingly.
This is where a fundamental two way process exists between
volunteerism leadership in sports organizations and volunteers
themselves. At the Ottawa Champions, we enjoy great support from
volunteers to assist us in a variety of core tasks – their passion for sport,
learning and insatiable thirst for success inspires me daily. Whether
they be interns from Algonquin College or baseball fans wanting to
access the real aspects of “inside baseball”, a two way street relationship
of collaboration, respect and understanding where we extract maximum
value from a volunteer while ensuring their focus benefits their
aspirations, skills and interest leads to a valued win – win and great
cohesion.

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This approach will be applied in a profound way in the years ahead.
Ottawa is bidding to host the Canada Summer Games in 2021 that will
include baseball and softball programming. The Ottawa Champions are
honoured to be playing a leadership role in supporting the Ottawa Bid
Committee to ensure we secure the Games and showcase our
community on the national stage. The Games rely on thousands of
volunteers to deliver crucial infrastructure and support and this “two
way” process and business modeling will be essential to the success of
the Games.
The future of volunteerism in sports is in the approach, the organization
and applying entrepreneurial principles to management. We must also
now turn our attention to being much more inclusive to our immigrant
populations of new Canadians who are arriving in Ottawa and seeking
cohesive and inclusive opportunities to engage. Sport provides that
embrace and open arms opportunity.
If you have read or watched Moneyball – you will understand it too is a
metaphor. Baseball as a game is transforming... technology assessing
player performance, delivering advanced metrics for on field and off
field performance. Those who adopt, thrive. Those who don’t...fall

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behind. Our team, the Ottawa Champions is invested in that business
model – ensuring continual transformation and direct relevance in our
community. Our approach to volunteers as with the Miracle League of
Ottawa is absolutely no different.
Volunteers bring passion and excitement – I can see it in this room now.
We all thrive off those values and traits. These build communities from
the ground up and make us better.
I started my remarks with a focus on community. Ottawa has now
joined the hundreds and thousands of cities worldwide that proudly
state they have a professional baseball team – because they, like us now,
know that baseball belongs here and makes our community stronger.
To conclude, the Ottawa Champions are invested in the future of our
community. A discussion about baseball in Ottawa is a discussion about
our community. Our future will be characterized by our team initiating a
dialogue on our place in local communities around us such as
Overbrook, Vanier and Alta Vista – places we are proud to call our
neighbours. We will also be innovative and tap into our local and
regional networks where profound change is occurring – social
entrepreneurship is an example and I will be asking the question of how

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can a baseball team be engaged in these exciting opportunities ?
Volunteer capacities are part of this approach as community – let us all
learn from each other today and share knowledge, experiences and yes,
the mistakes we may have made. Mistakes lead us to success in the
future.
I have always approached baseball and our Champions as a public
service as we provide families the opportunity to enjoy quality time in
the community at affordable prices and in a hospitable, family friendly
environment. Municipalities have an obligation to ensure their
communities have affordable entertainment options for citizens to enjoy
quality time as it enriches lives. I believe we deliver that – public service
is about the opportunities to deliver change, advance progress and
achieve cohesion.
Would you have ever thought of a baseball team within a community as
that – a public service ?
Likely not, but I hope that now you have and you will come see us in
2017 and learn for yourself.

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Thank you