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never explodes. He never humiliates a player. He never swears at an umpire.
For the first two weeks of the season, Coach Hackney held practice twice a day — once at 6:30 a.m. and again after school, plus Saturdays. He dropped back to afternoon practices when some of his players started falling asleep in their classes. By then, a few less committed players had dropped out, which was OK with him.
Coach Hackney recruited Sheriff Gary Settle to be his assistant coach after they got acquainted on the softball field.
“When I was playing shortstop for Howard, Gary was playing second base for George Mason University,” says Coach Hackney. “Both of us are very disciplined. Both of us believe in conditioning and in going back to the fundamentals when we have to. We’re both fair with the kids. We expect them to improve but we’re not unrealistic about it. Everything takes time. We’re looking to the future.”
The’biggest problem with the Panthers, says Coach Hackney, is that “some of the fundamentals of the game haven’t been ingrained in them.”
Such as? “Not knowing which base to throw the ball to, not knowing where you’re supposed to be in a cutoff situation. Not being able to catch a ground ball and then not being able to throw it over to first base. We need a feeder program to develop these fundamentals before the varsity level.”
Which is why he’s pleased that RCHS is planning for a JV baseball and girls’ softball team next year.
After Monday’s game, anyone walking into the Country Cafe could have overheard Coach Hackney and Mr. Settle analyzing the game, play by play, error by error.
“We killed ourselves in the bottom of the fourth with two errors and four pass balls/’ Coach Hackney explained to another person trying to understand the conversation. “It changed the dynamics of the game. It put pressure on the pitcher. Each pass ball put a guy in scoring position on second or third base.”
Minus the errors, said Coach Hackney, “we would have won.” At the high school level, “you just have to put the ball on the ground and avoid errors and you’ll win.”
One more thing: “There’s this thing called pride. I believe in pride. We need more of it at Rappahannock. That’s another mark of a winner.”
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