Notes, quotes and a thought
or two….
Throughout my years in newspapers, I have been fascinated with dominant sports teams and what makes them that way. Is it players? Is it coaching? Is it tradition? Is it luck?
As time goes by, I think I’ve found one common factor and that’s hard work.
I was recently talking with Neshoba Central softball coach Trae Embry, who is in the middle of one of the most incredible stretches in Mississippi high school athletics. Embry has won 12 straight state championships at Neshoba Central, six in slow-pitch and six in fast-pitch. They are the juggernauts of juggernauts. They are the South Panola of fast-pitch softball.
Embry has received tons of accolades in recent weeks, all the way from The Meridian Star’s Premier Preps of East Mississippi Coach of the Year to the Clarion-Ledger Coach of the Year to National High School Coaches Association National High School Softball Coach of the Year.
Embry is 183-13 in fast-pitch at Neshoba and 426-72 lifetime including his time at Eupora.
Part of Embry’s success can be laid at the hands of pitcher Aspen Wesley, a Mississippi State commit. Wesley is as dominant as they come but that doesn’t really account for the six slow-pitch titles. I’ll even go as far as saying that she’s the first girl I’ve seen throw that I thought I couldn’t hit.
Embry told me when he showed up at Neshoba Central, he found a group of talented players that were hungry to win and willing to work.
Somewhere there, I think, lies the key to winning. Talent plus hard work.
I got the same thing talking to St. Andrews baseball coach Mark Fanning. In a recent interview with Fanning, who just won his first state championship, he talked about winning his first state title. He talked about coaching a group of high-achieving players who pushed for starting positions every day.
On Monday night, I got to talk to retiring West Lauderdale baseball coach Jerry Boatner. Boatner is much like Embry. He’s been blessed with good talent at West Lauderdale but much of that talent he developed.
Boatner’s wife told me that one year she sat down with pen and paper and figured out how much he was actually making per hour and it came out to 30 cents an hour. But these men don’t work for hourly rates, they work for the kids and for the rings.
I’ll even go to the basketball courts. Doyle Wolverton built a dynasty in girls’ basketball at Leake Academy. In my first year at Leake, I would go watch Coach Wolverton practice. I was expecting something complicated. But what I got was very simplistic, based on hard work and defense.
Look at Newton County softball. Year in and year out, Newton County is right there when the championships are being played. Coach Justin Chaney was raised on hard work and defense. He often tells me he is proud of how hard his kids work. Again, he has talent but a lot of it he helped develop.
There are some common factors in all of these winning programs.
First all, they have good players. Great players can make any coach look good. Leake Academy softball coach Doug Jones said while he was in the middle of his 85-game winning streak, he didn’t do anything special but had one Division I pitcher and eight other players that went on to play junior college softball. Most days he just sat on his bucket played cheerleader.
Secondly, most great programs have great coaches who develop players. Anybody can win one state championship with the right players. But to build a program, it takes working with a different group of kids every year. The think I love about Jerry Boatner was his players looked the same at the plate in 1990 as they did in 2018. That’s no accident. You either did it Boatner’s way or found yourself on the bench.
And then there is work ethic. Most everybody thinks that their team works hard and most do. But some work smarter and harder than others. When you get a group of kids that want to be better, you can push them as hard as you want.
And then there is competition. As most of these programs start to succeed, the numbers come along with that. Generally, there are players pushing each other to be better. If you are a starter and decide you don’t want to work, there is someone to take your place. And coaches love players who will compete for them.
Through 25-plus years of covering sports, I’ve heard these time and time again from championship coaches. There must be something to it.
Robbie Robertson is sports editor for The Newton County Appeal. You can email him at rrobertson12811@yahoo.com.
