PRESS RELEASE
Under the Lights Baseball Organizations Excited to Announce First Program Director
July 19, 2024
Lethbridge, AB
Under the Lights is excited to announce Josh Burgmann as the Program Director of its various baseball programs. Josh was born and raised in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Burgmann attended the Vauxhall Academy of Baseball from 2013-2016. Josh played on the Canadian Junior National from 2014-2016. During his time with the Junior National Team he traveled to Florida, Australia, Dominican Republic and he also represented Canada in 2015 at the U18 Baseball World Cup in Osaka, Japan. In the fall of 2015, Josh signed to play D1 baseball for the University of Washington who compete in the PAC-12 conference. Josh was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 30th round in 2016. He decided to attend the University of Washington instead of signing with the Cardinals. Josh attended the University of Washington from 2016-2019. Josh missed the majority of his freshman season at UW due to having Tommy John surgery. He returned halfway through his sophomore year when UW went on a run all the way to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. UW’s appearance in the 2018 College World Series was the first appearance in the program’s 100 year history. In 2019, Josh was selected to the Golden Spikes watch list at the halfway point in UW’s season. At the end of his 2019 year, Josh was selected in the 5th round to the Chicago Cubs. Josh played short season A ball in Eugene for the duration of the 2019 season. Covid shut down the entire minor league baseball system in 2020. Josh unfortunately ran into injuries during the 2021 and early in the 2022 season, which eventually led to Josh’s decision to retire from baseball. Burgmann has always had a passion for coaching and helping athletes grow and learn both on and off the field. He started helping coach at Vauxhall while he spent the offseason’s training at the Academy. After he retired from playing in the early part of 2022 he started coaching at Vauxhall full time and then spent the 2023 season coaching at the VAB as well. Josh currently is the Pitching Coach for the Bulls and PBA. Josh and his wife, Taylor, currently live and reside in Lethbridge and are loving life here in “The Windy City”.
Kevin Kvame, President/CEO of the organization commented on the hiring, “Our core branch being Prairie Baseball Academy and the Lethbridge Bulls have benefitted from Josh’s enthusiasm and we are thrilled to bring him on board to take our baseball programming to a new level.,”
“The purpose is to bring a higher focus on our core values to all coaches, players and support staff. We want to not only say these are our core values of accountability, hard work, respect and loyalty but we want to make sure everyone is living them.”
In addition to his job as the pitching coach of both the Bulls and PBA, Josh will also be using his immense baseball experience and knowledge to design pitching programs for the various baseball organizations within under the lights. These programs aim to develop young pitchers and protect arms as they move up through these programs. All of these youth baseball organizations are thrilled to have Josh on board to help further player development and implement new changes to these programs to better serve the community, the kids and their families. This is the first of many additions to be announced by Under the Lights and we look forward to sharing them all with you in the coming weeks.
