Baseball player who turned his life around now coaches kids to follow his example
ROXBURY - A baseball player is giving kids a lesson he's lived through, inspiring them to discover a path to college and beyond.
BASE turned his life around with sports
It's interesting what a little coaching can do. Baseball coach Jaime Roldan isn't just giving kids a lesson, he's lived it.
"They're, honestly, almost carbon copies of me when I was their age," said Roldan.
Roldan grew up in a low-income family. His parents immigrated from Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
"My mom worked two to three jobs to support us and that wasn't easy for her to do," said Roldan.
When Roldan was around 16 years old, he started playing baseball for BASE. The nonprofit uses sports as a vehicle to have conversations with kids about health, wellness, college and career development.
"I would say from the age of 13 to 15, I was involved in a lot of street activity and I think me coming to the BASE opened my eyes a lot to what I was doing," said Roldan.
"Coaching here at the BASE, we try to preach resilience and that is always exactly what Jaime is," said Steph Lewis, the president and CEO of BASE. "How do we put the young folks in positions to see someone that they want to be like and that is Jaime Roldan."
"The BASE made me realize what was important"
"I went from a student who almost got kicked out because he was failing every class to being a 3.0, 3.5 GPA student because the BASE made me realize what was truly important," said Roldan.
The program took Roldan on college tours and showed him what was possible. He ended up playing collegiate baseball at Eastern Nazarene College and now attends graduate school at Southern New Hampshire University, where he's studying psychology.
"They're the ones that got me into college, kind of opened my idea to going to college," said Roldan.
Now he does the same for kids at BASE, volunteering Tuesdays and Thursdays to run practices. He also coaches a few teams.
"I try to do as much coaching, as much instruction as possible just because if it's not me, then who is going to do it?" said Roldan. "The last thing I would want for these kids to do is be on the street not doing anything." He said when the kids practice with him at BASE, he hopes they come away with discipline.