So Auburn made the baseball hire, one that I think is good for the university. John Pawlowski will venture from College of Charleston to take over the sleeping giant that is Auburn baseball (Kendall Rogers' words on Rivals.com - not mine), bringing with him extensive pitching knowledge and expertise garnered from his previous stops at Arizona State, Clemson and the Show. I'm excited to think about what he's going to do working with kids like Cory Luckie and Grant Dayton.
While Pawlowski is an obvious improvement over what we had and brings legitimate hype to next year's team, I still think with the money we're giving this guy ($300K/season with tons of bonuses and incentives) could have led to someone with just a little more tournament experience than what he brings to the table. At the same time, he has CoC expecting to make it to NCAA regionals after building that program from scratch - something he won't have to do at AU. To sum it up, he's a good (possibly very good) hire, but I was holding out hope for a great one. I'll support this guy though, and everything I've heard from friends who have spent time with him at CoC is positive.
My regular season team, the Bombers, wraps up the season either tomorrow or Tuesday. I'm going to hate giving up this team. They've been a blast to coach and hang around. We're going to celebrate our regular season championship with t-shirts, pizza and trophies following Monday night's game. (I'm trying to convince the opposing coach from our Tuesday game to play us Monday night so we can get it over with.) They have no idea its coming.
My all-star team qualified for state with a 3-2 record at the district tournament, falling short 17-16 on Friday evening in the third-place game. We got better as the week went on, and I think we have the ability to make some noise in the state tournament if the bats follow them to Pontotoc. I feel pretty good about the pitching staff, seven of eight defensive spots and our offense. Unfortunately, we had one player quit due to playing time but I feel pretty good going with what we have.
So with this whole baseball coaching thing, I had two main goals for myself heading into April: 1.) win the regular season title and 2.) coach a team to the state tournament in all-stars. It feels good to achieve those two milestones, and I couldn't be prouder of this group of kids that have made these dreams a reality for this Mississippi boy.
What a summer...As always, thanks for reading and War Eagle.
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