LAUREL HILL — Laurel Hill School’s baseball team hasn't made the playoffs for six years, and it’s been eight years since it's won a playoff game.
But Andrew Wirth, a 2009 Crestview High School graduate and former Bulldog baseball player, wants to revive the program. He replaces Ronnie Smith, now LHS's girls basketball coach, in the dugout.
Wirth takes much of his baseball philosophy from his high school and middle school coaches. “I played under great coaches: Coach (Tim) Gillis, Coach (Chris) Sweatt and Coach (Dexter) Day,” he said. “My biggest thing was integrity, coming in.
“I told them from the beginning, ‘Success without integrity is failure.’ Everything we are doing we will do with character and class. We will rebuild, and we are starting with a fresh slate, basically.”
CHALLENGES AHEAD
The Hobo baseball team has been down so long the team no longer knows how to win, Wirth said. "It seems like an atmosphere of failure,” he said. “What we are trying to do is have some pride and take some character … It’s just the pride thing — pride in our school, pride in having all of our fans here, and not to get embarrassed at home.”
One challenge is the team's absence of upper classmen. The Hoboes have one senior, Jared Simmons, and two juniors, Cody Boutwell and Lane Alford. Alford is out with an injury.
“I’m dealing with sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders, one or two ninth-graders and two or three 10th-graders,” Wirth said. “I’ve got one sixth-grader, Dalton Raef, in my starting nine, so we are very, very young.”
'DISCIPLINE IS HUGE'
Wirth wants to win, but win the right way, he said.
“I came in and I told Mrs. (Lee) Martello and Mr. (Greg) Brock, our principals, that my philosophy coming in is I would rather lose every game with a bunch of character kids than win a bunch of games with a bunch of punks,” he said. “Discipline is huge. Grades — if you can’t be a student first, you can’t be an athlete. I check the grades every Friday. I’m holding them to a standard they might not be ready to be held to. I told the parents that, too.”
Wirth said he has talked to Gillis and Day about ways to instill discipline and build the program the right way.
STARTING YOUNG
LHS's baseball program has struggled, but its biggest rival, Paxton, has thrived. The Bobcats have been to the playoffs 10 straight years, and a large part of Paxton's success is the youth baseball program in that community.
“I think starting young is very critical,” Wirth said. “Paxton has a great program over there. “I’d love to see one here.
“If I had a five-year plan, that would be in it. What I hope to do, since we get them so young, is start a Little League of sorts. What we have right now is sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders and, in two or three years, hopefully we will be good."
CHOOSING A ROUTE
Wirth, who's played baseball most of his life, said he knows what it takes to be successful.
“I had some absolutely top-shelf coaches: Coach Gillis and Coach Sweatt," he said. "Just my experience from that, I know what it is to be successful. I know what it looks like.”
Having experienced his own success in baseball makes Wirth that much more determined to give the Hobo players the same opportunity.
“I played at the 6A level and I know what it takes to get there (to the top),” he said. “I know which route we are headed.
“It’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of commitment with these young guys, keeping them committed, keeping them upbeat, keeping them optimistic.”
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Coach aims to rebuild Laurel Hill baseball team