A Tribute To Being A Hawk
Well, it is over. The Hawk baseball season came to an end Wednesday night when they went down to defeat to the Waxahachie Indians, 6-0. The score really is not indicative of the closeness of the game. That score could just as easily been 4-3 Hawks. But as Coach Hatcher said several weeks ago, the only team that could beat the Hawks would be themselves, and they did. They left runners in scoring position without moving them across the plate. They made fielding mistakes that cost them runs. They failed to take advantage of opportunities during the game and the end result was the score.
Ordinarily this is where I would go into a play by play discussion of the game, but not this time. The game was on radio. It was available on the internet. Austin was not that far away. If you missed it, well, I’m sorry. What I want to discuss with you are the champions that emerged out of Birdville this year.
It seems like an eternity ago when I arrived at Keller High School to watch the end of the night’s ball game where the Hawks were losing badly. As I walked into the park, I passed some players I once coached and stopped to talk with them. All they could say about the Hawks were that they were really bad. I told my former players that they were young but to not worry, they would grow up soon and learn to play at the fast pace of varsity baseball. I told them that they had the talent. They had the coaching. It would all be about their desire.
As I watched the next couple of games, I have to admit I was worried. And then we went to Waxahachie and lost a game we should have easily won and another game where the holes in the batting line up shined through. Too many mistakes. Not enough aggression. Not enough players believing in themselves.
I am not certain I can point to a space in time when the team changed. Maybe it was Duncan McAlpine’s monster hitting in Springtown and that Friday in Waxahachie that got the bats going. Maybe it was Robert Perrin and DaLee Erlinger joining in the HR hitting that got the rest of the bats going. Maybe it was Matt Cox stepping up to the plate and pitching the game of his life against Waxahachie in the championship play. Maybe, I do not know.
But what I do know is that the Hawks caught on fire that weekend. They found their talent and they found their heart and they have never looked back. They went from a 500 team, maybe, to a district contender. They shirked off adversity and never loss their focus. They took the title away from Fossil Ridge in convincing style. There was a different hero almost every single day. There is not one starter who could say that they did not help the team to a victory this season.
There was offense and defense. The pitching of McAlpine and Hendrix during the season was spectacular and gave their team the opportunity to win every single game. There were the hits, so many I can not remember but I will never forget the Grand Slam of Jarrett Casanova against Fossil Ridge to give the Hawks their lead, and the title. They hit. They ran. They played the game hard.
The defense stepped it up as well. The Hawks went from a team that made 13 errors in one game (mental and the ones that really count!) to a team that almost never made a mistake. Erlinger’s splits on first to make the close play, Hendrix and Perrin’s turning of double plays, Casanova’s ever steady throws across the diamond were the standards of the infield not the exception. And the outfield. Anyone who has watched a couple of Hawk games will agree: the Hawk outfield was second to no one! Led by senior Russ Delmas, Hayden Loyd, Matt Cox and Shane Ammon showed they could cover the ground and drill you if you went too far, over and over and over again.
It might have been the straightforward talk of the coaching staff who told the boys that if they wanted to play JV ball, they would be happy to accommodate them and find other players who wanted to play varsity. But that was the end of that. Once said, the entire coaching staff left their reservations behind them and got aboard the Hawk flight. I never heard a cruel word in the dugout. They never missed an opportunity to teach the players about the game or improve performance. They treated their players like men, with constant respect. There were no cuss words from their mouths. There were no excuses made nor players blamed. They were one team. They won together, they lost together.
I would like to think that this season had something to do with the players that came before these latest Hawks.
At the beginning of the season I was thinking that the Roughriders of Saginaw could be a tough team. They had players who had been playing two years of varsity now (they were a new school that did not have a senior class a couple of years ago) and had a pretty descent level of talent on the team. But when we played them, it was apparent they had never grown. They didn’t have those older players to teach, to encourage, to push them to get better.
When Coach Hatcher took the job at Birdville as the head baseball coach he brought with him a tradition of leadership and winning. He talked to the players of championship teams he had coached in the past and challenged them to up their game. A good season was not good enough. When his first Hawk team made the playoffs, that was no longer good enough. When they won their first district title, that was not good enough. Being in the playoffs became the standard, not the exception. When the Hawks went into the Regional semi-finals last year, it was not good enough.
It was these past Hawks who set the standard for all future Hawks to achieve. They have installed a sense of pride in not only the team, but the tradition of the team. There can never again be a player who dons the Hawk uniform who wants to be the one who breaks the tradition. It is their spirits on the field that makes each and every Hawk strive to achieve excellence, to make the impossible play, to hit the game winner at clutch time. It is no longer about nine players on the field. They are accompanied by the spirits of all those who have come before: Chris Lowrance, Craven, Giles, Adams, Cox, Ragsdale, Bourdeau, Brian Lowrance, Brown, Arwine, Martenson, T Bone McAlpine, Holmes, and Thomas, Crawford and the many more ball players who have laced up their cleats and wore the Hawk jersey with pride.
And now there is a new standard of excellence for Hawk Baseball. It was set by players like Russ Delmas, DaLee Erlinger, Graham Campbell, Andrew Weegar, Steven Gonzales, Beau Schmidt and Seth Ammon: our seniors who took off their Hawk uniform for the last time Wednesday night. It will continue to be set by players like Hayden Loyd, Matt Cox, Duncan McAlpine, Robert Perrin, Paul Hendrix, Shane Ammon, Jarrett Casanova and the many more Hawks who will make their own mark on Hawk tradition next session and in the years to follow. And, someday soon, they will bring a State title back to share with their teachers, their classmates, and their former teammates who helped them to achieve this incredible dream.
And I would like to think that this attitude of being a champion will go to other Hawks as well. As the Hawk ball players strive to achieve their own level of excellence, let their example serve as a standard of excellence for the Hawk band, the other Hawk athletes, academic achievements, the teachers and even the parents of Hawks. When young kids think of Hawks, in part because of what this team has achieved over the years, they will think of being their best and being champions. I can think of no better legacy than that for all past Hawk players.
Some years ago, I heard a coach state that high school was the best of years of your life. I sincerely hope that the lessons learned by all who have put on the Hawk uniform understand that these years are just the start and that the standard set for excellence and achievement as a Hawk ball player will follow them throughout their lives as they strive to make their own marks in this world. It is not about who played a tougher schedule or who had better players. It is about identifying challenges and opportunities and overcoming them as individuals and as a team. And, never, ever, settling for second best!
So, when you see a ball player wearing the Hawk hat with pride, take a second to thank them for their hard work and commitment. Shake their hands and smile, because you are shaking the hand of a winner and a leader. And when the season kicks off again next year, and I for one can hardly wait, lets all be there, not only to take on some of the best baseball you will ever see but to take part in history, to help build tradition and support a winning spirit. As Dr. Waddell told the players after the game, they have brought honor and pride to all of us.
There is still unfinished business. This was not the end. It is a continuation of a dream: a dream that everyone shares, but only a few have the heart and the commitment to achieve.
