Experienced tutor in Baseball in Ames, Russ offers private lessons tailored to your needs.

Russ has been awesome with my son. He brings a lot of energy to every session and you can tell he genuinely loves what he does. My son looks forward to going every time, and the results speak for themselves. His swing has really improved and he is way more confident at the plate now. Highly recommend Russ if you are looking for a hitting coach.

I Was a 1st time user of the this website website looking for instruction for my 8 yr old son. Luckily I got a message back from Coach Russ. First thing I noticed is his love for coaching. He is very knowledgeable about techniques that teaches kids the right way. He is very patient and encouraging to my son, and I have seen the results right away. My son loves to go to lessons from him, and we still use coach Russ. I would 100% recommend him for any age. I promise you that you won’t regret it.

Russ Hortman has an unique characteristic about himself that I believe every child should get a glimpse of themselves. He is a man that is very caring for the success of community and youth that are going through a hard time on the baseball field and beyond. I played baseball with his son. We had a very talented team and we went on to have numerous accolades that season that I’m still proud of till this day. I played catcher for my team, but I lost my confidence mid-season when trying to throw runners out. I feared I was a weak link on my team, and as a catcher you never want to believe that. You are an unspoken leader and I feared I was letting my team down by failing at my task. Mr. Hortman came to me and asked if he could work with me. I didn’t hesitate to accept the offer. I loved competing and I always want to the best at every craft I pick up in life. All it took was a few hours in a church gym and I learned so much about character, and how to conquer that fear to gain my confidence back. I ended the season with all-district acknowledgement. I believe that would have never happened without the help of Mr. Hortman, and I still thank him to this day. For the last out of baseball I played, I caught a runner trying to steal second to retire the side. That bittersweet moment was thanks to him. He has so much knowledge that can be transferred, on and off the field, and the mentality he taught me that night in the church gym is something I continue to use in my life today.

Clark Mangun-Liberty

My name is Matthew Williams and my son Andrew has been playing baseball for many years under the direction of numerous coaches. He is currently a junior at Liberty High School playing on the varsity team doing duties primarily as pitcher and outfielder. Over the years he has played most positions and has a great set of skills. For at least 2 years during his junior high years Andrew had the opportunity to be coached by Russ Hortman. “Coach Russ” is one of the best coaches that he has ever had. Coach Russ was able to teach the skills both basic and advanced that have lead him to be the ball player he is today. Russ has the ability to assess and explain the skills in a way that any player can understand. He focuses on the fundamentals of throwing and hitting that many other coaches seem to gloss over. I have seen him take a player that was struggling and after a few minutes of intense review and teaching, correct issues that had been limiting their performance. Often he would identify actions that the player was doing, and had been doing for years, that were so obvious that they should have been corrected years before. He would then give them straight forward instructions as to how to correct and improve. On several occasions I saw players improve so much that they or their parent would ask him for further instruction at a later date. Russ is not the first baseball coach that Andrew has had, but if you were to ask him to name the single most important coach he has ever played for, I am sure it would be Coach Russ.