Meeting with the Savigny sur Orge club
BTVF: Can you introduce us to the Savigny Lions club, its origins, and its history?
The Lions club is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year! Founded in 1982, the Lions club reached the top tier as early as 1985 and achieved good results starting in the early 1990s. The values and approach of the club explain the Lions’ longevity at the highest level: Savigny is the only first-division baseball team to have played at the highest level in France and Europe for 36 years, in perfect harmony with local practice and the welcome given to young people. Over 100 internationals have been trained and played in the Lions team in all age categories.
This season again, the club has fielded a team in each of the age categories of the regional championships as well as a women’s softball team.
Lionesses at school
The club is above all 36 very motivated and competent volunteers who work all year round to animate and run the association. Our strength lies in our coaching staff, with 15 volunteer coaches, five of whom have experience with the French national team, and three educators employed to promote and develop the sport locally, particularly among young people, schools, and community centers, as well as for people with disabilities or to promote sports health. The training of our players is essential, and the club is committed to offering a pedagogical project as well as quality coaches who follow the players and players throughout their development within the club.
We believe that baseball and softball, as sports that can be practiced by a large number of people (men and women of all ages), in a school, associative, friendly, competitive, or high-level setting, must uphold the values of the sport they represent. Our educators are trained in this spirit and adhere to our values.
We are also experimenting with a new, highly participatory governance model, drawing on the expertise of our members and involving licensed players, parents, and supporters who are willing to contribute their time and knowledge to the Lions’ adventure. This is a setup that takes time and requires resources to coordinate all the projects, but we are convinced that the transition must be made for an ambitious club project! Finally, after 10 years without a field for their first team, the Lions have maintained their tenacity and proved it again this season with a very encouraging record for their teams before the summer! See article on the Lions’ website here
Summer of associations
BTVF: What activities does the club develop?
The Savigny club, through the values it defends, seeks to diversify its actions and open up to more inclusive practices.
This is why the club has recently taken an interest in « Sports Health » with the implementation of actions in favor of the practice of a supervised sports activity. The club thus develops three aspects on this subject:
- a special program for our members who need it (supervision, reathletization, injury follow-up, etc.)
- a supervised physical activity for parents: the parents of the Lions who wish to practice a physical activity around bat sports during their children’s training but not only: we have offered to the parents of nearby schools, who wish to take up a physical activity, especially after the restrictions of the confinement, to do so during their children’s activities.
- a physical activity within a medicalized approach, in collaboration with health professionals, such as sport on prescription, for example.
The Lions also advocate access to our sport for all and multiply actions in favor of the development of our practices in schools, community centers, out-of-school activities. Last June, the club’s educators organized with the handball club a tournament bringing together 150 children from CP to CM2 from 5 community centers or leisure centers.
In this sense, the club also organizes baseball camps during the summer. In collaboration with other associations in the city, the club has created the « Summer of Assos » program, which offers multisport camps for young Saviniens aged 6 to 16. This year will be the 7th edition of the Summer of Assos!
LIONS D1 Credit D. Henry
BTVF: The 2022 championship is in full swing, and the club’s flagship team is standing out more and more. What are the stated objectives, and how do you plan to achieve them?
The objectives of the First Division team have been the same for a few years now: to win a national title and bring Savigny back to the European scene.
After the 2021 season, where the team had qualified for the semi-finals of the French Challenge and the championship, we are determined to continue our ascent and maintain the pace to achieve this. 2022, whatever happens, marks a further step for the team, with the title of finalist in the French Challenge, and also with our qualification for the semi-finals before the last day of the championship.
Lourey, Acuña, Ruiz, Bivens
The team is on a streak of 8 consecutive wins, and a double success against the Cometz on July 23 for the last day of the championship would allow us to approach this semi-final on a streak of 10 consecutive wins in the championship. This is the first objective before the semi-finals: to finish in first place in Group A with a record of 13 W – 3 L.
Then, it will be up to us to be present in the semi-finals of the championship to access the final and confirm that the Lions are now serious contenders for the titles. This semi-final could be the key to completing one of the objectives, which is to find a place in the 2023 European Cup. If the Lions reach the final and face Rouen again, we will then be qualified for a European competition next year, since Rouen is already European because of its title in the French Challenge.
How to achieve all this? By continuing to be rigorous and working hard during this summer break in July, in order to be ready for the rest of the adventure.
Qualifier Euro 2023 Credit Les Lions de Savigny
BTVF: Can you tell us about your policy for training and recruiting your high-level players?
Regarding training, we are lucky in Savigny to be able to count on quality coaches for all age categories, from the 6U to softball and up to D1. It’s a real strength to be able to follow the evolution of young players, to be able to exchange with other coaches before and after category changes, and to have a real coherence in the content of training according to age. A young player evolving from the 15U to D1 will learn a lot in 6/7 years, with different methods, supervised by at least 6 coaches and assistant coaches. This gives many opportunities to learn and perfect all aspects of the game.
Also, as there is no better training than playing matches, the objective – regardless of age category – is to play as much as possible. It is essential for us that the club does not revolve only around our First Division team, and that young people of all ages can participate in all baseball and softball championships, tournaments, opens, and events possible during the year, and this under good conditions.
L Bernardi Chiba – EDF 12U – Credit FFBS
At the First Division recruitment level, there are two distinct profiles: foreign contributions and French players, but for both types of profiles, the staff’s policy can be summed up in one word: continuity. For us, it is important to capitalize in the medium and long term on new recruits, and to avoid having « consumer » players. By « consumer » we mean: a player who will come to play, and even play very well, but who will not have a real personal project linked to the club and who will probably play in another league the following year.
Of course, new faces appear every year and some do not reappear the following year, but this is generally linked to life choices rather than the desire not to return to play with the Lions. It is not impossible to see some former Lions reappear in the coming seasons.
Then, and this is an aspect that may surprise, we will favor our network rather than specialized recruitment sites or spontaneous applications.
LIONNES 15U SOFTBALL – Credit D. Corre
Beyond the sporting aspect, it is also an incredible human adventure to play a season in First Division and for the coaching staff, the compatibility with the team – on extra-sporting criteria, in line with the values of our team and the meaning we want to give to our adventure – whether for a French or foreign import, is a crucial criterion.
BTVF: Tell us about the adventure of your baseball field, and the hopes you have?
It’s very difficult to tell such an improbable story… « Once upon a time, the baseball field of Savigny Sur Orge ».
The field was built in 1989 to host the Senior European Championship that France was organizing. At the same time, houses were built at the back of the field. A 7-meter high net was installed to protect the houses from the balls that crossed the net. In 2012 – 10 years ago – the mayor at the time, who had come to support us in the European Cup and who was preparing for the finals of the French Championship, summoned the club’s president to the town hall. We were all very enthusiastic, as at the time, we had submitted a project to improve the field, in order to better protect the neighbors from the balls by raising the net but also by evolving the layout of the field with stands, larger « dugouts » with storage space for equipment, a covered hall to ensure training during the winter and a clubhouse in order to develop reception and our economic model. The surprise was total, since Madame the mayor announced to us that she was closing the field for safety reasons and to build a swimming pool in order to prepare for the municipal elections…
Our astonishment did not delay our reaction, just as radical as the decision: mobilization, demonstration, positioning of some members of the club in order to prepare for the elections, etc… We are a club of competitors and we never give up. In 2014, it was finally a new mayor who was elected and at the end of his term, he launched a project for a new improvement of the field. The project was voted on, the work began and the following elections, organized in full COVID, gave a new majority to the town of Savigny… The new mayor, who did not think he would be elected, was therefore not ready to take on the responsibilities of a town of 37,000 inhabitants and decided to stop all the work. But in the meantime, a winning appeal had been made on these same 2020 elections, new elections had been organized in 2021 and had again brought to light a new municipal majority. Yes, it is indeed three different mayors in three years: we are in 2022 and it has been 10 years since the Division 1 team has been playing away, but all the young and senior men’s and women’s teams have been playing on the baseball field.
Today, in the post-COVID period, the current Mayor of Savigny, Alexis Teillet, is carrying out an ambitious project for the sporting practice of his city. Aware of the dynamism of the sports associations of the city, as well as of the health issue, he wishes to offer sports facilities adapted to the inhabitants of his city and to the projects of the clubs. The baseball club is part of the project and a project to rehabilitate the field, with protection for the neighbors, and a welcome for all practitioners, leisure, competitors, high level should see the light of day during the last quarter of 2022. The club should be associated with the design of the improvements.
Ten years of struggle that could only be achieved with the civic approach of our members, with the support of the French Baseball and Softball Federation and the clubs that supported us, with the support of the Departmental Council of Essonne.
So yes, we have plenty of projects, first of all to design a baseball sports facility that will allow us to welcome all the inhabitants of our city, the agglomeration and the department of Essonne, but also to strengthen our role as an associative actor in our territory, to strengthen our position as an actor of the Social and Solidarity Economy by being an employer, and a trainer, to allow everyone to practice a sport at the level they wish, from discovery to the daily preparation of a European or World Championship…
BTVF: What can we wish you?
Health first! Because you have to be physically fit to achieve all our ambitions…
Sports Health on the Savigny field
- To regain our field to train and play in the best conditions for all our members, so that our young people from the club and the city can rub shoulders with their champions on a sports field, a baseball field;
- To continue to bring pleasure to all our members to play
- To make baseball and softball shine in Essonne
- To continue to perform in Division 1
- To succeed in setting up our clubhouse project, which would allow us to strengthen the social bond that we try to build through all our actions
Statements collected by Didier Cannioux with Valérie Thibault from Savigny
