An Outside View: A bit of nostalgia

The TSSAA State Baseball Tournament had a bit of a nostalgic flavor for at least one coach and one writer. It was like a trip down memory lane. As such journeys go, there were both good and bad memories. Brian McCord, the head coach of the Seymour Eagles who led his team to the Spring Fling in his first year at the helm, coached at Hickman County in middle Tennessee for several years. By his own admission, one of the reasons he looked to move east was that he knew year in and year out he could not compete with Marshall County, a long time powerhouse in the high school baseball ranks. It wasn’t that he was running from the competition. He simply had a firm grip on reality. When it came to tradition, talent, and facilities, Hickman County wasn’t on the same playing level and McCord would have always had to play second fiddle to the team from the next county over. Baseball aside, who could blame a guy for wanting to move to these mountains that we affectionately call God’s Country? It also has a reputation for playing some pretty good baseball. It must have seemed like deja vu all over again for McCord when the brackets for this year’s tournament were announced and, that’s right, as fate would have it, the Eagles’ first opponent was none other than Marshall County. It had to bring back bad memories when Marshall County handed the Eagles a crushing 14-4 loss to send the Eagles into the losers’ bracket. As frustrating as that must have been, it surely was equally as gratifying when the Eagles returned the favor and bounced Marshall County from the tournament one day later by a score of 13-3. For the Eagles it was payback for the first round loss but for McCord it must have been much more. The move to East Tennessee had paid off as this bunch of Eagles created a whole lot of new memories for Coach McCord. For this writer, it was a different sort of nostalgia as I watched boys that I had coached as youngsters compete for a state championship. Before moving to Seymour in 1998, I lived in Murfreesboro and coached youth baseball for six seasons. All of the players that I coached are now in high school and a total of ten of them dotted the rosters of Riverdale, Oakland, and I hesitate to say Marshall County. I coached some of these guys from the time they were six years old until they were twelve, some on fall league teams, and still others on various all-star teams. I stay in frequent contact with several of them and get by to see them play when I am in middle Tennessee or when they are in a tournament in these parts. With that kind of talent, you can imagine what kind of teams we had. So you don’t misunderstand and think I am bragging, I am the first to admit that good players make good coaches. They helped me fool a lot of people into thinking I knew what I was doing out there. Still, I hope that I had some impact on them and helped them in some small way to reach this level in their baseball careers. Maybe they see that all of the hours we spent on baseball fundamentals really did mean something after all. My coaches and I stressed pitching and defense at an early age and maybe some of the lessons stuck. I was rooting for my guys to win that elusive state title that we never could win together at the lower levels. But it wasn’t meant to be. I know they are disappointed but I hope that they are able to keep it all in perspective. It’s just a game. You play it as hard as you can and you learn to win and you learn to lose with dignity. Just seeing them play at that level makes an old has been coach feel good. More than any other, baseball is a game of nostalgia. Memories are created one game at a time, some are just better than others.