Super Bowl-winning coach helps provide new scoreboards at KC youth sports complex
LENEXA, Kan. (KCTV) - It’s not often that a Super Bowl-winning coach turns up at a Kansas City-area youth field, but that’s what happened Wednesday. Former Dallas Cowboys head coach Barry Switzer was at the 3&2 Baseball Complex in Lenexa singing the praises of youth sports.
“It teaches you the intangibles of team sports,” Switzer said. “Kids that play that learn so much about life.”
Switzer’s company, Youth Scoreboards, was unveiling a new scoreboard system at the complex.
“It may look like a traditional scoreboard, but it’s actually a 6-and-a-half by 10-and-a-half LED screen that looks the part,” said Jon Phillips, the CEO of Youth Scoreboards and a former player of Switzer when the coach led the Oklahoma Sooners.
Phillips moved to Kansas City in the 1990s.
“Between outs, between innings, between games, we have ads that drop into it from the Cloud.”
And the whole system can be accessed with any smart phone.
“The scorekeeper swipes a QR code, the mechanism comes up, and they have control of the board,” Phillips said. “They have control of the outs, the inning, the timer, pitch county, everything, and it’s very intuitive.”
There’s nothing like the scoreboard at the youth level for the simple reason that it was designed for major college football.
“The first one we did was for the University of Texas,” the former Sooner head coach said. “And we ended up having Tennessee and Alabama in the SEC and we had Texas, Texas A&M, several schools throughout the Big 8.”
One night spent watching a youth baseball game convinced Switzer and his partner that youth complexes needed scoreboards like his. Switzer said he watched as a team mom was yelled at constantly, badgered throughout a game about the score. So a smaller version of their major college scoreboard was developed. Now, it was recently installed at 3&2.
“The 3&2 Complex is amazing,” Phillips said. “It’s been here over 60 years and it’s a staple in the community and it was the right place for us to dedicate this technology.”
Switzer said the scoreboards were given to the complex for free. When the initial investment is paid off, the complex shares the advertising revenue with the company.
“The kids really really love it,” Phillips said. “They all wanted to stand in front of the scoreboard and take pictures.”
Youth Scoreboards hopes to install 75 scoreboards across Kansas City before next baseball season.
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