Los Alamos Little League President Joe Coulter address the Kiwanis Club. Photo Courtesy Kiwanis

BY BROOKE DAVIS
Kiwanis Club

Joe Coulter, President of the Los Alamos Little League, gave a presentation to the Kiwanis Club at their February 3 meeting. He discussed the history, programs, challenges, and goals of the organization.

The Los Alamos Little League, founded in 1952, is the oldest league in New Mexico. In 2016, they merged with the White Rock Little League to create a county-wide league that competes with other teams in northern New Mexico. Coulter became the president in 2025 and said that there are between 300 and 350 kids from the ages of 4 to 16 enrolled. There are 100 volunteers who work as coaches and all the other myriad jobs required. They are seeking paid umpires with baseball experience.

Although baseball and softball are competitive sports, the focus of the league is to help build good human beings, promoting and teaching resiliency, teamwork, patience and perseverance. Los Alamos Little League is the least expensive youth sports league in the community. The league is healthy but is looking to grow, hopefully back to pre-pandemic participation. Los Alamos has baseball and softball programs in their schools. This is important to the Little League as they act as a feeder to provide interested and more experienced players to the school teams.

The season starts this year on March 12 and the biggest challenge they are facing is the condition of the fields that they rent from the county. They are currently unsafe and unplayable due to the large number of gophers and the holes they create. There will be two field gopher abatement events on March 7 and March 14. Volunteers are needed!

The league has worked to create a fun environment and Coulter encourages all kids to consider the Little League and sign up for their programs.