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Scout Day Spotlight: Force Ohio

WARRENSVILLE HEIGHTS - “Good facilities and good people on staff.”

That is what Josh Bieneman points to as the backbone to Force Ohio.

It all started in 2012 when Bieneman, currently the director of Force Ohio, joined the organization.

“I came over from another program the week before tryouts in July of 2012,” Bieneman reflected. “We had five teams going into fall. Then we got a random phone call from a dad who thought he had the top 13 team in the state and needed to find a higher level track for them.”

Over the next couple years expansion continued, with the east side organization adding teams from the west side. The higher level teams began going under the name UA Force Ohio.

“We now have 31 teams from 8U to 18U,” explained Bieneman, whose three main training facilities are Force Westlake, Force Northfield Westlake and Force Eastlake. “We have 370 kids right now and by the time the season rolls around we’ll have 400.”

Bieneman points to strong facilities as a big reason for the extreme amount of members at Force Ohio, which also has the largest soccer program in the state.

“Force Ohio is like a little college setup,” Bieneman said. “There is so much foot traffic it gives us exposure.”

Strong coaching is a priority with Force Ohio according to Bieneman.

“We try to maintain good coaches,” noted Bieneman, who said there are 70 total baseball coaches helping at this time. “We only have one to three leave each year, that helps with retention.”

Four full-time staff members include assistant director Larry Mosley (Westlake varsity coach), Anthony Mendoza (assistant coach at John Carroll), Jeremy Coleman, who is in charge of player development, and Bieneman. Another key associate with Force Ohio is Cody Dearth, a former pitcher at Youngstown State who is now the varsity pitching coach at St. Ignatius, Dearth is head coach of the 17U UA Force Ohio team.

“When we started a lot of the programs around were one guy’s ideas,” Bieneman said. “When I started the program we got good coaches in there that wanted to share ideas. It was not my way or the highway. We try to take ideas from 70 guys and share the information. I think that’s why we’ve held onto coaches.

“The core of the organization is about work and education,” Bieneman continued. “We train and play hard. We have a lot of different things like a sports psychologist (Dr. Udelf) and a vision coach (Dr. Andrich). Our goal is to get guys in at a younger age and then they stay with us. We want them to be around good people and be here until graduation.”

After that it is, hopefully, on to the next level.

“We’ve had 73 college commitments since 2012 and a nice amount selected to the PBR Future Games or PBR Junior Future Games,” Bieneman said. “That’s been by far the most efficient way for our higher-level people to get exposure. We’ve had no one that’s done that with less than two or three offers.”

The “partnership” with PBR continues this year with Scout Day slated for Feb. 2.

“We’ve done that since they started it the first year,” Bieneman said about the PBR event. “It’s been really good for us. It’s helped us get a couple guys on the radar like Chad Rogers, a 2020 commit to Penn State (currently the fourth-rated 2020 in Ohio). He came with his team from Mentor. He’s a three-sport guy that loved baseball. PBR Scout Day was his coming-out party. He ended up ranked really high after that.”

Additional exposure comes throughout the summer, something that helped alumni move on to schools like St. Bonaventure, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Ohio University, Indiana and Youngstown State.

“We try to match our travel with the players,” Bieneman explained. “We don’t travel for the sake of travel. Before we pick our schedule, we ask parents and players where the see themselves going to school. If they say the midwest, we won’t leave. If they say the east, then we go there. We try to go to an area they’re looking at going to school.”

It has helped Force Ohio grow into the large organization it is today.