PBA’s first coach enjoyed ‘building a program’

By Lethbridge Herald on September 12, 2023.

Herald Photo by Justin Seward Blair Kubicek enjoyed watching some fall baseball between the Prairie Baseball Academy Dawgs and Parkland Twins during PBA's alumni weekend at Lloyd Nolan Yard on Saturday.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Prairie Baseball Academy’s first ever coach, Blair Kubicek, was in town to partake in Alumni Weekend this past weekend with former and current players and staff.

Kubicek was PBA’s coach from its inceptionin 1995 to 2010 in what was a stint in his 60 years of being involved in the game.

Kubicek compiled a 353-279-3 record with PBA and during his tenure had 110 players go on to four-year institutions and 27 players were  either drafted or signed into professional baseball.

“Building a program,” said Kubicek.

“That’s the most joy of having this facility, and just putting together a facility and a program that young Canadian kids could come to, and have the college experience and possibly could go on from here.”

Kubicek credited his business background for forming the PBA program.

“I was a fairly successful business (man) in Victoria, before I went to Seattle in 1990 to coach junior college baseball in the US to find out what was  going on with college baseball because I was sending young kids to the US and they were coming home at Christmas time,” said Kubicek.

“So I wanted to find out what it was all about and spent four-and-a half years there and then came here (and) started this program.”

Kubicek said this program kind of really took off in about 1999.

An international championship tournament was being held in Edmonton in 2000 and Lethbridge was able to host those five teams for a series.

“We called it the Millennium Series and from that time on, it’s a slow growth after you hit a certain plateau,” said Kubicek.

“It doesn’t necessarily go higher but it’s very difficult to maintain a level of excellence in college baseball. And Todd’s (coach Hubka) been able to maintain a level of excellence and built on that monetarily little, by little, by little, by little. You step back after 30 years and go yeah we really did get something going here.”

Kubicek wanted things to be fair within the team.

“Just to be fair,” said Kubicek.

“No promises. We promised that you’d  get an education, promised that you’d get a Canadian education, which was much more important than anything we did ,because you’re going to take that to your grave,” he said.

“I’m probably going to take my baseball career to my grave. There’s not 10 of us in Canada that coached.”

Kubicek choked back tears talking about a compliment he often received in his career.

“Parents come to me and said, ‘ We sent you a boy and you send us back a man,’” said Kubicek.

Kubicek coached Dustin Molleken, who was the only to get drafted to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2003 and make his Major League Baseball debut with the Detroit Tigers in 2016.

He also moved on one of his players  to the big leagues while with Edmonds Community College.

While Kubicek admitted a lot of his PBA Memories couldn’t be printrd, it was about the comradery.

“My fondest memories are coming back to this and having young people that I coached 25 years ago come up and say, ‘Hey coach, how’s it going?,’ and knowing that they’re doing very well in life,” said Kubicek.

“We’ve got a whole bunch of just tremendous parents that have come through. They have become tremendous parents (and) very successful businessmen. Baseball is…  a fleeting  moment in most young people’s lives. I mean if you can have a college career in baseball, you’ve been pretty successful. So it’s a building on life experience, etcetera, and that’s what we tried to share with these young guys.”

Now at 75, Kubicek is retired out in Nova Scotia with  his family and does some consulting work for facilities.

He was one of the first inductees into the PBA Hall of Fame in 2020.