(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Henk Seppen)
 Ronald Jaarsma new Head Coach of HCAW
Nederlands
 BUSSUM (Neth.) -
Veteran Ronald Jaarsma is the new Head Coach of HCAW, the club announced on Saturday-morning (February 10).
Jaarsma is the successor Danny Rombley, who stepped down immediately after completion of HCAW's season last year.
With that, Jaarsma will return to the club where he has played the majority of his career and also made his coaching-debut, including a short stint as Head Coach.
Jaarsma, who was not active as a club-coach last year, also has been the Head Coach of Neptunus and Amsterdam Pirates.
Jaarsma's coaching-staff will be named shortly.
...Ronald Jaarsma as Head Coach of Amsterdam Pirates...
...during the 2022 season...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
Danny Rombley led HCAW in two seasons.
In 2022, he had a successful first season with the Bussum-based club, as HCAW captured the Dutch Championship-title for the first time in 24 years.
In the best-of-seven Holland Series, HCAW swept Neptunus in four games.
Last year, HCAW again was a contender and a favorite for the title.
Halfway the season, HCAW won the European Champions Cup for the first time in club-history.
In the Final, HCAW defeated Parma Angels from Italy.
However, after completion of the European Cup-tournament, HCAW's results in the regular season were less successful, also due to some injuries.
HCAW again reached the Play-Offs, but in that best-of-five series, the team was dethroned and eliminated by Amsterdam Pirates.
After the final game, Rombley stepped down.
HCAW then announced that Rombley already had informed the club-management as well as the group of players in the week preceeding the final games that he had decided not to return as Head Coach of HCAW in 2024, due to private reasons.
A long search for a new Head Coach followed.
But on Saturday, HCAW announced that Ronald Jaarsma will be Rombley's successor.
Before turning to coaching, Jaarsma played in the Dutch big league as an outfielder mostly for HCAW, but be also played for Rotterdam-based Neptunus.
After having started his career in youth-teams at HCAW, he went to Neptunus after the 1992 season.
There, he played for Tridents (the second team of Neptunus) in 1993-1994 and then returned to HCAW, where he also played in its second team in 1995.
Hereafter, Jaarsma went back to Rotterdam, again played for Tridents, but also made his debut in the big league-team.
Jaarsma then played for Neptunus in 1997-1998 and was on the roster for the 1999 season, but left the team in the first month of the season to return again to HCAW, where he finished the season.
Jaarsma continued playing for HCAW thereafter and retired after the 2008 season.
The following year, Jaarsma became the 3B Coach of HCAW, assisting Head Coach Jurjan Koenen in 2009.
He held the same position in 2010 in the staff of Bill Froberg.
During the 2011 season, Jaarsma took over as interim Head Coach of HCAW in the second half of the competition, replacing Froberg.
In the remainder of the regular season in 2011, the team was led by Jaarsma and also in the Play-Downs to finish in sixth place overall.
In those years, Ronald's father Ron Jaarsma was the main-sponsor of HCAW with his company Mr. Cocker, where Ronald himself also worked.
Since 1985, Mr. Cocker was HCAW's main-sponsor for a record 30 years!
Unfortunately, Ron Jaarsma passed away in April 2022 at age 74.
After not having coached in 2012, Ronald Jaarsma became the 3B Coach of Sidney de Jong, who was the new Head Coach of Amsterdam Pirates in 2013.
When De Jong was succeeded in 2014 by Charles Urbanus, Jaarsma stayed on as 3B Coach.
During the 2014 season, Jaarsma filled in as Head Coach for two games when Urbanus was stricken by the flu.
Jaarsma also was the 3B Coach of Pirates in the staff of Urbanus in 2015 and 2016.
In those years, Jaarsma's name already was mentioned frequently as the possible successor of Urbanus in the future.
However, an unexpected separation between Pirates and Jaarsma followed less than a week before the start of the 2016 Holland Series against Neptunus, as he was discharged of his duties by the club's Board.
The reason for this unexpected decision was the fact that Jaarsma had been approached by Neptunus for a coaching role at the Rotterdam-squad in 2017, which he accepted.
As Neptunus was the opponent in the Championship Final, the Board of Amsterdam Pirates decided to 'give Jaarsma a honorable relief of his duties'.
Back then, the Pirates-Board stated: ,,Amsterdam Pirates has had a fantastic cooperation with Ronald Jaarsma for four years.
With pain in our hearts, we respect his decision, but we regret that Ronald now has come in a sticky situation.
With the Holland Series approaching, we have decided to relief Ronald Jaarsma honorably, but effective immediately, of his duties as Assistant Coach of L&D Amsterdam''.
It also was made clear immediately that this simply was a decision to protect Jaarsma against possible conflicts of interests during the Holland Series between Pirates and Neptunus.
And it was added that the Pirates-door always would remain open for Jaarsma to return to Amsterdam and that a possible coaching job in the future remained a possibility.
That indeed happened five years later.
...Ronald Jaarsma won the title...
...with Neptunus in 2017 and 2018...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
And so, in 2017, Jaarsma coached in his first full season as Head Coach in the highest league when he first led the team of Neptunus.
In his first season, Jaarsma won the European Champions Cup with Neptunus, captured the Championship-title and won the Award for Coach of the Year.
Ronald Jaarsma led Neptunus in five seasons (2017-2021) and guided the team to the Holland Series in each of his five seasons.
In all these Championship Finals, Neptunus faced Amsterdam Pirates.
In his first two seasons as Head Coach, the Rotterdam-team captured the title in 2017 and 2018 and also won the European Champions Cup.
Jaarsma also was named Coach of the Year in 2018.
Neptunus appeared to be en route to another title in 2019, as it then won the first three games of the Holland Series.
However, Pirates then became the first team in history to come back from a 3-0 deficit and win the next four games to capture the title.
In 2020, Neptunus lost the first two games against Pirates, but the Holland Series was then halted due to new measures against the coronavirus (COVID-19).
In 2021, Neptunus lost the first two games, then won the next three, but Pirates came back to win Game 6 and 7 to prolong its Dutch Championship-title.
In October 2021, Jaarsma and Neptunus separated.
Three days earlier, despite capturing the title, Pirates Head Coach Michael Duursma stepped down, as he was unable to combine coaching with his regular job.
A week after the separation with Neptunus, Jaarsma was named the new Head Coach of Pirates for the 2022 season.
In 2022, Jaarsma led Pirates to the Play-Offs, but the team was then dethroned by HCAW in the best-of-five series.
HCAW went on to capture the title.
After the season, Jaarsma stepped down.
Like Duursma the year before, Jaarsma stated that at that moment it difficult to combine coaching with his busy job, as it would take more and more time to do things properly.
Jaarsma was succeeded by Mervin Gario, who led Pirates to the Bronze Medal in the European Champions Cup-tournament and the Championhip-title last year.
Jaarsma didn't coach last year, but in the upcoming season, he will be back in uniform at his former club.
Undoubtedly, he will wear his familiar uniform number 17.
Last season, that number belonged to outfielder Kevin Dirksen, but he has transfered to Neptunus, meaning the number becomes available again for Jaarsma.
Throughout his career as Head Coach, Jaarsma always coached at third base himself.
Except during his lone season with Amsterdam Pirates, when he led the team from the dug-out.
In 2010-2013, Ronald Jaarsma was one of the coaches of the Netherlands Women's Baseball Team in the staff of Manager Percy Isenia.
In 2010 and 2012, the Orange-squad participated in the World Championhip in respectively Venezuela and Canada.
In 2001 and 2002, Ronald Jaarsma played in twelve international games for the Netherlands National Baseball Team.
In those years, he participated with the Orange Team in one World Port Tournament (2001), one European Championship (2001) and one Haarlem Baseball Week (2002).
(February 10)
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