A few months back, I got the news from Mr. Kendall, the athletic director at CHC that I would not be asked back to coach the 2016 baseball season with my best friend, Drew Hansgen. A new rule mandates that only teachers on staff shall be allowed to coach for Chapel Hill. I really wanted to see that group of kids go off to the high school level with a winning record and tons of great memories. I coached four seasons and I really wanted to make it five. The decision to release Coach Hansgen and I effectively drove the final nail into my service to Wayne Township, but I appreciate that Kendall broke the news to me early.
I was certainly disappointed, but I looked at it as a good thing. It would have been extremely difficult for me to get off work in time to hustle across town every day of the week to hold a two hour practice. Many of these practices end up getting canceled on short notice due to inclimate weather. The practice and competition schedule was always hectic, and I won't miss that. Plus the schedule, for some strange reason, was always laden with road games. Sometimes it would be nearly nine o'clock before I got home from our games. My dog would have to suffer long days without being let out to pee. Not being in the building on a daily basis as a teacher, I would have been out of the loop. There would have been less interaction between myself and other staff members so I would not have been as aware of the litany of discipline issues regarding my players as I was in the past. And that was something that consumed a great deal of my time, which is another thing I won't miss.
Here's some good news, Herron has a baseball team! If you are familiar with our campus, then you are probably wondering how this can be. Our three buildings and parking lot occupy approximately half of a city block. It is about as small as it can get. We're surrounded by homes, businesses and apartment buildings so there are no practice fields for our athletic programs to take advantage of. One thing I like about Herron is this is not seen as an obstacle. Our players trot out to MLK park every day, which is about a quarter of a mile away, and home games are played at Manual High School, which is located two miles south. We also have a track team, and a tennis team among others. The track team has to run down to Crispus Attucks High School for their practices and meets.
All I had to do was inquire with Mr. Hughes, the head coach and meet with Miss Wiggins, the AD on Thursday, and I was cleared to help coach The Acheans. They are two weeks in to their season, but have not played a game yet. As I said earlier, Herron doesn't see obstacles, but on the day of my first practice I recognized a couple. We had five players absent for a choir performance. A handful of the players have never played baseball before. And there is no diamond at MLK park, just an enormous field. I took some ground balls with the players, and it was pretty choppy. It was also chilly out, but despite the setbacks there were no complaints, as a matter of fact I would say that the players' demeanor was down right rosy.
I was impressed with Mr. Hughes' coaching style and I like his assistant, Joe Esposito from Toledo (I'm not making that up). After the outfielders got done shagging fly balls, one player remarked that they had caught more than ten for the first time. The infield was hardly any better. I took the liberty to give special instruction to the young man who will be playing second base. He is very much a beginner, but eager to learn, which he did and fast! I saw lots of improvement out of him in just one practice.
We ended with a run down drill that was absolutely hilarious! In a run down the objective is to get a runner caught between bases and tag him out in the least number of throws or at least run him back to his original base without letting him score. There is always one or two guys that want to run for the entire drill. This team is no different. The team captain volunteered himself to run back and forth while the fielders tried to figure it out. This poor kid got blasted in the back twice by errant throws. Luckily he was uninjured, but I almost hurt myself laughing so hard. These kids are surely going to need lots of work on that part of the game as well as others. Hopefully I can help them with that.
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