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Show ! A9 mirii p. THE PARK RECORD www. park record.com WEDTHURSFRI, MARCH 1 3-1 S, 2002 Strader climbs to the top of Park City's playground Former little league umpire is now calling the shots for Snyderville youth sports and high school baseball By TIM SULLIVAN Of the Record staff Matt Strader's first taste of Park City was as a little league umpire. Hunched behind home plate, he saw the town's finest youth athletic talent parade by. Convinced by a friend to apply. Strader, a former college ' baseball player, had ventured up to the area ' from Salt Lake simply looking for work in ' sports. After getting tie umpire gig, though, be was hooked on youth sports and Park City. f- From there, you could say Strader - worked his way up, ascending the ranks of the Summit County recreation scene to his current responsibilities of recreation coordi-'nator coordi-'nator for the Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District and Park City High School head baseball coach. "WTien I first became an umpire, I knew what I wanted to do as a career," Strader remembers. "And after I came up here, I didn't want to go anyw here else." Now, the relative longevity Strader has garnered m local youth sports is paying off he says he takes pleasure in coaching kids on the high school team who he called "safe" or "out" back in their little league days. "For me it's a perfect fit," Strader says. "I've seen these kids playing together for years." AogelFre Strader is probably one of the few people in Park City w ho grew up in another resort town. His family moved to the ski town of Angel Fire, NM when Strader w as 13, from nearby Albuquerque. Strader said his mother, moth-er, who was raising the family, was a real estate agent and the market was good in Angel Fire. Strader attended Taos High School, about 20 minutes away, where he found he enjoyed school sports like football and baseball. base-ball. "I was a bia kid and athletic," he savs. He did well in those sports, earning an athletic scholarship to New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas. But in his freshman year, he injured his knee while playing football and had to sit out the rest of the season. Strader realized he wanted to attend school elsewhere. He was tired of being a minority (he says Anglos constituted 20 per cent of his high school student body ) and he w anted that "big college feeL" His next stop was University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, where much of his family lived, but it wasnt his last Strader says w hile at U.N.M. he and a friend looked into an exchange program of universities in the Western U.S. His first choice was Hawaii, but he ended up with Utah. He packed his bags and headed to the Beehive State. "I moved here completely blind," he says. In Utah. Strader turned his athletic attention atten-tion to skiing. W ith two ski resorts nearby in Angel Fire and Taos, he had grown up racing. rac-ing. But this time around, Strader got into freesty le moguls. He joined the Snowbird u . . After I first Became an knew what I wanted to do as a career ... After I came up here, I didn't want to go anywhere else." - Matt Strader Basin Recreation Coordinator freestyle team and traveled around the Intermountain West for competitions. "I hked the adrenaline of pounding bumps," he says. "The excitement." Strader skied on the team until his knees, already injured from playing football, became to weak to compete. But by that time, he w as sold on his surroundings. "I ended up falling in love with Utah and stayed here," Strader says. In addition to the mountains, Strader says he hked the people of Utah "clean and pure." as he describes them. Things began to fall in place for the University of Utah graduate. He met his wife, Jennifer (Summit County's code enforcement officer), on a blind date in 1996, and he settled into life in Park City. After his umpire stint, Strader worked in several capacities for Park City Recreation. He was a field supervisor, a recreation programmer and eventually became the city's recreation coordinator. A strategic game When Strader switched over to the Basin last month, he was basically following youth sports. Before this year, both City and Basin kids participated in youth programs run by Park City Recreation. But since Snyderville has seen the better part of Western Summit County's recent growth, it now has the majority of the kids 70 percent, a "critical mass" as district officials say. The two recreation recre-ation boards decided last year that the administrative duties of youth sports should therefore be given to Basin Recreation. The district then, needed a youth sports coordinator coordi-nator and Strader answered the calL "I saw the grow th, f saw the opportunity," Strader said "It w as hard for me to leave the citv. but it was a career decision." 'The Basin's first program, youth baseball, begins next month but Strader says not much about the youth sports will change with the switch. What is changing, he says, is the makeup of the Summit County youth population. popu-lation. Strader insias that the consequences of the growth are Umoire I positive. He savs, for example, that efits from the many kids who have recently moved from California, where they played year-round. OveralL it's a better synergy, he says. "There are more kids coming in at a different leveL" Strader's high school coaching job in many ways complements com-plements his youth sports career. He joined the team eight years ago as an assistant, becoming the head coach four years later. While Strader's job with Basin Recreation is more administrative, the coaching position allows him to work with the games and kids more closely. "I love the strategy of the game," he says. "Baseball is a strategic game." He says he enjoys passing on his knowledge knowl-edge to those he coaches. "I love seeing kids learn the game." Strader explains. "Seeing their faces saying, 'hey, that worked."' The team has already -begun play this spring, just having returned from a weekend in St George. Strader says the team won't be able to play on Park City's fields for at least another month, close to the end of the sea- . -IT. ill it: f - nil 1 KVJ 3 l'h J V H son. Shov el liaison Strader still plays baseball on a Park City team and skis occasionally, but he says he funnels his personal energy now more into his children 1 1-year-oki Alex, four-year-old Sarah and one-and-a-half-year-oki Sammy and their sporting endeavors. "From here on out. it's more about my kids." savs Strader. "being a soccer dad and a softball dad." About his kids and about shovel racing a profile of Matt Strader would be incomplete incom-plete without a discussion of his most secret sport - L ' ' I 7M w '. ! -g "J -ft i TIM SULU VANi PARK RECORD Matt Strader is the Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District's new recreation recre-ation coordinator. His personal sports interests include baseball, football, skiing ski-ing and shovel racing, an obscure sport popular in his New Mexico hometown. Growing up in Angel Fire, Strader and his brother John had been exposed to resort employees riding snow shovels down the ski slopes at breakneck speeds. While John has stolen the shovel racing spotlight, claiming world records and cham- pionships. Matt says he is content to ride a shovel every now and then. He adds that he is John's shovel racing batson to L'tah. and the Utah Olympic Park, where John and his New Mexico pals hope to race their sleds somedav. 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