Thank You Red Devils

We use words to try to capture the complexity of the brilliant world.  We may say something as it becomes a thought in our head or add permanence to an idea by putting it in writing. Music and videos add tones to these words to portray emotion.  But no matter how perfect and eloquent the words we choose may be, words always fall short of truly representing the senses and feelings of the human experience.  These words below are no different.  There is no way to fully capture the honor it was to be the baseball coach at Lower Columbia College.

To the community:  THANK YOU!  From day one I was welcomed in by strangers and made to feel like Cowlitz County was my home. So many of you became close personal friends. These are friendships so genuine that they are sure to last a lifetime. I will never forget an early morning in August 2014 that changed my life and our program. Driving down Industrial Way at 4:15am to meet friends for a day of fishing on the river, it might as well have been Times Square with the heavy traffic of trucks and workers hauling timber and other products to and from the industrial part of town. I was immediately inspired and thought to myself how I wanted to make sure our team always had the toughness and grit of this town. We spent the next three-plus years using this as the model of what we wanted our team to represent. Your example made the people in our program better. Hopefully we did the same for you.

To the players and coaches who wore the Red Devil uniform before my time in Longview: THANK YOU! You also made me feel welcomed from day one. The tradition and expectations you created pushed us to be better. Whenever there was a challenge or obstacle in the way of our dreams your legacy screamed motivation through every corner of Story Field and the Red Devil uniform. You were an inspiration in everything we did.

To my friends and family: THANK YOU! From life long friends to the most recent, your support was unwavering. Lunches, dinners, fishing trips and memorable nights at the house during the tournament will never be forgotten. It was so great to have my wonderful family at so many games. During the game I probably acted like I didn’t know you were there but I knew exactly when you came in the ballpark until when you left. It was great having all of you there so often. I have to say a special thanks to my parents. You came to so many games and were a glue that kept everything together. Lastly, I don’t know where to begin when it comes to my fiancé, Jennifer. I will always remember the rock you became for me during the time at Lower Columbia.

To the coaches I got to coach with: THANK YOU! When we began working together we would always meet and diligently spend hours going over responsibilities and baseline expectations. The vision was always to set a foundation for the expectations and then let your creativeness and passion allow you to DO YOUR JOB at an elite level. You exceeded this vision daily with what you did for the program. You made me a better coach and person. You became great friends. More importantly, you developed our players on the field while showing them what it meant to be a man in the way you lived your lives.

Finally, to the players: THANK YOU! We pushed you every day to find new limits. We demanded your best. We challenged you. And with everything we did you responded in a way that inspired me to be better every day. It is said that entitlement and laziness have overtaken America’s youth. You transcended this notion in the way you took so much pride every day to work to earn everything. John Wooden once said “Finding the right players who put the interests of the team ahead of their own requires finding mature individuals who understand that what helps the organization ultimately helps them.” This quote epitomizes the Red Devils. At a time when individual success is valued more than team success by so many, our foundation was built by you all who were wise enough to live Coach Wooden’s words and put the TEAM first. The team and individual recognition you earned was a direct result of this wisdom.

After the 2017 NWAC Championship current and former players celebrated together with the trophies.

I can’t begin to explain how lucky I feel to have been a part of these teams and to stay in touch with so many of you still to this day. What we were able to accomplish working toward our BUILT4LIFE pillars - athletics, academics, leadership and citizenship - during your time in Longview was more than I could have ever dreamed of. But the biggest wins for you all are still to come. Getting your first jobs and promotions, becoming a husband and one day being called daddy will be bigger than anything you ever accomplished on the field. It will be a wild ride with ups and downs and highs and lows. Remember that the path to doing what is right and working to be the best you can be will always be worth it. Hopefully the skills you learned in your time as a Red Devil can be a guiding light.

WIN ANYWAY!


This is an excerpt from an attempt to record what I believed to be the foundation of our baseball program at Lower Columbia.  The entire text is here.