This past summer, Ole Miss baseball held its 19th annual youth baseball camp.

Now, the program is setting its sights on their first-ever coaching clinic.

The coaching clinic is one of a handful of offerings from the Rebels baseball camp between now and when the regular season kicks off in mid-February. This weekend, on Jan. 11, they’ll host their first coaches clinic, but they’ll also have a handful of other camp offerings from Jan. 18-19, as well as the Ladies Baseball Forum on Feb. 1.

“The coaches clinic is something we’ve wanted to do for a little while now,” said assistant coach Marc MacMillan. “The dates worked out this year that we could finally introduce it. The timing is great, because not all coaches are in a position to attend the ABCA or their respective state conventions. It was important to us that the clinic be informative, but affordability and easy accessibility by hosting it at time when coaches could save money by driving to Oxford for the day verses staying overnight were given significant consideration. We’re excited to introduce it and present the opportunity to get coaches here to Ole Miss and talk baseball.”

Saturday’s clinic is a half-day of what the team describes as ‘comprehensive instruction’ led by head coach Mike Bianco diving into teaching the game and developing culture. It costs only $20 and is geared toward coaches at all levels, from travel ball to high school to college.

Another new program the team is introducing this year is a winter clinic targeted at junior college players. Running just half a day on Jan. 19, the clinic costs $75 and is geared toward specifics needed for those JuCo freshmen and sophomores.

“The biggest difference between the JuCo Camp versus our traditional Winter Specialty Camps is the duration,” MacMillan said. “They’re college baseball players, and therefore, a full day may not be necessary. But it’s an opportunity for them get some additional instruction and reps prior to the start of their workouts beginning.”

Capping the winter instructional season will be the Ole Miss Ladies Baseball forum. This is something the Rebel staff has been hosting for a few years now, but there are always a few little tweaks to make each year’s program different.

“We can’t take full credit for the idea of a women’s forum, because obviously football did it first,”  MacMillan said. “However, they have been some of our biggest supporters. We love doing it. It’s important we continue to mix it up so that it’s not the same thing every year, but also to recognize those parts that the ladies really enjoy and want to keep as part of the forum. We’ll have our staple events such as our Q&A with the players. But this year, we will include new sessions such as data analytics, as it’s had the fastest-growing impact on the game in the last decade.”

Along the analytical lines that this forum will focus on include introduction to concepts such as spin rate, bat speed and launch angle.

Like over the summer, Ole Miss also has a series of camps targeted for grades 1-12 over the Jan. 18-19 weekend. Where the summer camps occur over four days, with each day targeting a different skill, winter camps are more specific. The team is offering one camp for pitching and catching specialists and another for just hitting, as well as a two-day specialty camp.

More information can be found on the Ole Miss athletics website.