Collaboration to include content and events supporting softball coaches and players at all levels
RENTON, Wash. (Dec. 18, 2019) – Axe® Bat and Total Sports, operator of The Art of Coaching Softball (AOCSB), today announced a multiyear strategic partnership to enhance learning, training, and competitive opportunities for players and coaches at all levels of the game.
The collaboration establishes Axe Bat, one of the country’s fastest-growing bat brands, as the AOCSB’s exclusive bat supplier and Axe Bat’s parent company, Baden Sports Inc., as the exclusive supplier of softballs.
The partnership expands Axe Bat’s visibility and engagement with the softball coaching community and will enable deeper interactions and more in-depth feedback as Axe Bat continues its development of softball-bat handles, barrel technologies, and other potential new products for the sport.
“Our mission is to make the world’s best bat for your swing,” said Jay Helmick, Senior Vice President of Axe Bat. “Coaches are ideal partners in that effort. They spend their lives studying, thinking about, and teaching the game. We have a similar obsession with bat-making and are eager to share our collective interest in the sport as we work to grow and improve it with AOCSB’s leadership in the years to come.”
Axe Bat’s unconventional approach to bat design has won countless converts in baseball, where elite pro hitters such as Mookie Betts and George Springer are among many who swing the company’s patented Axe Handle exclusively.
With the recent introduction of its Power Gap™ Barrel, a groundbreaking technology that uses a tiny air gap between a double-wall construction to improve performance along the full hitting face, Axe Bat hopes to make similar in-roads with high-level softball players. The technology builds on Axe Bat’s experience developing barrels that are intended to be hit on only one side, similar to a golf club – a design advantage made possible by how the Axe Handle orients the barrel in the same direction on every swing.
The new technology is featured on Axe Bat’s flagship fastpitch softball bat, the 2020 Avenge Power Gap.
Axe Bat, Baden, and AOCSB will produce instructional content and plan events designed to help coaches and players in their preparations for practice and competition. AOCSB’s lead knowledge instructors, Ken Eriksen, head coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team, and Kirk Walker, assistant coach at UCLA and recently announced head coach of the NPF’s California Commotion, will play key roles in the collaboration.
“We’re excited to have found a partner in Axe Bat that shares our passion for softball and our commitment to improving the game for all involved,” said Eriksen. “We’re looking forward to introducing Axe Bat’s innovative and high-performing bats to our community around the country and are eager to begin collaborating on providing coaches of all levels valuable tools to help them teach the game.”
Axe Bat’s performance benefits are derived from the patented Axe Handle, which is designed to support the biomechanics of the swing, giving players better bat control with maximum bat speed. Learn more at www.axebat.com.
About The Art of Coaching
Founded in 2011 by coaches Terry Liskevych, Russ Rose, and John Dunning, The Art of Coaching (AOC) provides coaches with the tools they need to improve their players and teams. AOC offers comprehensive beginner-to-elite coaching education at annual clinics as well as extensive online instruction through coaching videos, certification courses, pre-made practice plans, worksheets, and blog articles. For more information, visit www.theartofcoachingsoftball.com or www.theartofcoachingvolleyball.com.
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