Looking back at the high school baseball coaches:High School Baseball Coaches over the years

Just a thread that was going through my head last night, as I was trying to think back to all of the local baseball coaches from over the years and here is part of what I came up with and I’m sure you can add to this list……

Northwest Guilford may have only had 4 baseball coaches over roughly the past 50 years…..Sandy Gann, John Hughes, Tommy Waynick and Sonny Gann…
Western Guilford may have only had three baseball coaches over the past 50 years….Alan/Hoyt/Casey Jones, Brett Stell, Chris Causey….
Southeast Guilford has had a few with Bill Slayton, Ronnie Rudd, Kevin Callahan, Lynn Coble and David Beasley…..(May have missed some.)….State 3-A Title for Coach Slayton back around 1969….Roy Turner is another former baseball coach at Southeast Guilford High School…
Grimsley has had Raymond Johnson, William Hardin, Alan Ashkinazy, Jason Simmons, Chris Eggers and there had to be more…..Keith Shumate also on the list of former Whirlie baseball coaches…..
Page The only two I can tell you are Luke McKeel and current coach William Hardin….Spencer Gaylord, Don Stowe and Clayton Nance are also all former Page baseball coaches…
Smith with from what I hear was a real good one in Jackie Joyce(may have won a State 4-A Title), Alan Ashkinazy, Derrick Johnson and JB Baynes…..
Dudley with a gentleman named Robinson and current coach Larry Farrer….Coach Farrer is the name that stands out the most with me….He has been a big plus for the Dudley baseball community….
Northeast Guilford with Coach David Lawing and current coach Brad White…Coach Lawing was there for long/Lawing time….Also heard that Rusty Lee coached baseball at NEG…From the old days a name that is coming to my mind is Bob Boles, not Roy Boles…Roy may have been the football coach at a few of our county schools….Also for NEG we add in Fred Styles and Charlie Gamble….Bobby Chappell is another for the group of former NEG baseball coaches…
Southwest Guilford with Coach Reid Holmes and I and can not tell you another baseball coach’s name from SWG, just Coach Holmes…They won the State 3-A or 2-A Title back around 1994 and not sure who the coach was…Rusty Lee may have also been the baseball coach at SWG for a few years and I think he was their AD….Mike Herndon was there back when the Cowboys won the State Title…
Ragsdale And the only coach I have ever known of at Ragsdale has been Coach Donnie Maness, who took the Tigers to the State 3-A Title series back around 2007….I remember the days of Shorty Rickman at Ragsdale, but not sure who Shorty’s coach was back then…Pretty sure Shorty got drafted by the Orioles and so did the Terry Clapp kid out of Southeast Guilford….Dave Mizzel and Buddy Jones join the list of baseball coaches at Ragsdale HS.
Southern Guilford with Coach Siler back in the day from what I hear and then Jay Terrell may have taken the team for a while and Coach Charlie Gamble III was there for many years and current coach Jeff Carter has SG at (19-3)….
High Point Central….The only names I know of here are current coach Ken Morgan and former coach Ken Helms…
High Point Andrews….Only one coach in the history of my mind and that is Randy ‘Nat’ Norris and there have been plenty more, but wonder who they were…Somebody out there may be able to bring us up to speed….Aldine Payne is a former baseball coach at HP Andrews…..
Northern Guilford….Only two coaches in the history of the school and the program and that would be current coach Landon Kimrey and the original coach Johnny Smith….
Eastern Guilford with just two coaches I can think of in current coach Jay White, the Coach of the Year in the county last season and I believe it was Coach Brady(Joe) that had the program for so many years before Coach White….Coach Tommy Grayson may also have take the Wildcats’ team for sevearl seasons…..Ray Cooke was also the baseball coach at Eastern Guilford….

Looking back at the coaches…..

16 thoughts on “Looking back at the high school baseball coaches:High School Baseball Coaches over the years

  1. Bobby Chappell-NE Guilford
    Clayton Nance-Page
    Keith Shumate-Grimsley
    Mike Herndon-Southwest Guilford
    Aldine Payne-HP Andrews

  2. Good list of those names above and I was talking with somebody over at Page last week, about Coach Nance…Had always thought about Coach Nance as football man, but ‘Baseball Man’ too….

    Bobby Chappell must be the man that took NEG to the top back in the 60’s….

    Thanks for the coaches that we can add to our list at the end of the day….

    Do we have more names that we need to bring forward and add to this list???

  3. Was Coach Herndon the ‘Title Winning’ coach at SWG?

    Seems like his name does come to mind…….

    Good lists….

  4. That Spencer Gaylord is a good one there…Have heard of many of the names, but I have never heard of him previously….

    Most all of the other names come back to recollection, but some are on the outside part of the plate…

    Spencer Gaylord, a good name from the past and good one to add to the list….

  5. That Roy Bowles or Roy Boles/Bob Boles discussion is a lot like the old name-game with Darrell Royal of Texas and Frank Broyles from Arkansas….Royal and Broyles and Boles and maybe Bowles….

  6. Bobby Chappell played on the teams that won the state in 64 and 65.
    He was the Head Coach prior to David Lawing at Northeast.

  7. Roy Turner Jr. was head coach at Southeast and brought Kevin Callahan in as assistant. Kevin got the head job a short time later.
    On another note– A class act by Dudley to recognize Kevin Callahan at their home field in Friday Nights game against Southeast. Kevin was a Dudley grad and played at Dudley. A touching moment– good job Dudley.

  8. I think Buddy Jones coached for a while at Ragsdale and possibly the current coach’s father. Another coach Maness.

    Not much turnover in the positions. Almost like they are tenured. very un-business like.

    In fairness, there is a lot more to being a HS coach. In addition to practices, you have to teach all day, grade tests and papers at night, and usually take care of the field. Personally I think we sometimes expect too much from our HS coaches.

  9. On the Northeast side of things who was that coach back in the mid-60’s?

    Was it Bob Boles back then??

    On the Ragsdale side of things, lots work goes into that program and with all the teaching that they have to do too, makes for a busy field/profession…

    Many times schools like to hire their own, like WG-Coach Causey, NWG-Coach Gann, Eastern Guilford-Coach White, Ragsdale-Coach Maness….Schools are fortunate to be able to utilize talent that came through their system/baseball program and bring ones that played there for their school….If you come up with-in a certain school/protect, you will be sure to protect your own…

    Still looking for many more names from the past that were there on our local baseball fields as coaches….

  10. I remember Dave Mizzel…He was the son of the legend Wilmer ‘Vinegar Bend’ Mizzel if I’m not mistaken…

    Ray Cooke was a Guilford College man back in his days as a college baseball player for the Quakers…He was a good one…

  11. Fred Styles was at NE during my tenure at Western Alamance after Bob Boles in the mid 70’s.

  12. Charlie Gamble was the head coach at NE Guilford before coming to Southern Guilford in the mid 80’s.

  13. @gotigers(and other “tiger supports”) –

    No one can make everyone happy all the time…that is a fact of life…that most people understand. But baseball and competition has nothing to do with making people happy…so deal with it.

    As far as Coach Maness at Ragsdale…just dating back to 2008, under his leadership the program has a recored of 103-64. And I am quite certain that during the years of around 2000-2007 they posted several 20 win seasons as well.

    Nope, they havent won the state title. But the overall success of the PROGRAM no one can argue. That is success. And the parents of ALL the players during that timespan should see it that way WHEN/IF they look at this thing for what it really is….A PORGRAM…a TEAM SPORT. It is crazy to me how that amount of sustained success gets such ridicule. Coach Maness is not perfect…and he knows it. I’m sure he has regrets…but we all do.

    One thing that needs to be said that never is….is my final point. In all of those years under his watch…during all of the sucess and the wins…the coach has been the constant. The only variable has been the changing of the players. So to pin all the blame on the staff/head coach for a “down year”(and how awesome is it that a down year is still a winning record) makes no sense.

    Im not sure if you run a business…but to me…what would be un-business like, as you put it,…would be to run off a guy who has managed that program to those levels for years. If you or other “fans” in tiger land are gauging success on a state title…well, first thats laughable, but secondly, fire most every coach in Guilford County, and the entire state for that matter.

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