President of Burnside Little League , Bray has been on the board for 12 to 13 years , but the name “ Bray ” goes on further than that .
“ My family ’ s been with Burnside Little League goes all the way back since almost its conception ,” said Bray . “ I played there . Both of my boys played there . My dad and my uncles played there . All my cousins played there .”
Burnside Little League began in 1961 , making it the second-oldest little league in the state of Kentucky . Now played entirely in Burnside ’ s Cole Park , the Little League has provided children with a fun family excursion every summer since .
Bray attributes the success of the Little League to the people of the town .
“ Burnside being a very small community , we ’ re all really strong family-based ,” said Bray . “ Everybody knows everybody . It ’ s a really good atmosphere .”
Over the course of the decades , it ’ s grown in size to encompass two fields ( soon to be three ), and a dozen teams .
“ Being so small , some years you have good numbers ; some years you have bad numbers . Last few years have been really good for us ,” Bray said . “ The year prior was the biggest year ever . We had 13 or 14 teams . Most we ’ ve ever had . For a park where we only have two fields , that ’ s a lot .”
One advancement Bray mentioned was softball . Softball was once a sport played in Cole Park for a short period , but there were never enough girls to play each position .
“ Being such a little place , we didn ’ t have a lot of girls that played ,” said Bray , “ and the girls that we did have played baseball with the boys , and they were very competitive .”
However , due to the league ’ s explosion in number of players , there are now enough players to where now the softball league ’ s number of teams equals that of baseball ’ s .
Bray also told of the difficulty he had playing through the pandemic .
September 2022 SEKY - Life in Southeast Kentucky • 31